American InterContinental University Reviews

"I completed my BA in graphic design at AIU. They sent me lots of good books and software included in the tuition, but given how high that was, this was the least I'd expect.Overall, as others have said, and actually as I see in my work at a for-profit film school, the worst thing is the very low capability of some of the students.Ditto with a few of the instructors. Some were really excellent, a couple were awful. I ended up having to essentially teach a couple of the classes as I knew much more than the instructor.But, I learned a ton in a few of the classes, and would say half of my instructors were excellent. I chose this sort of school because it gave me a regionally-accredited degree in the short time I had to complete it (I needed it to advance at my job).It also offered a subject I was interested in, that would also enhance my skills in my field (I teach production design). I made the choice knowing full well what I was getting into, and feel that to critisize the cost or superficiality would be disingenuous.I will say the technology and support were pretty strong, but that I agree that the recruiting is too aggressive and indiscriminate.Read Less"

"This school is a JOKE!The advisors there are basically sales associates. They could care less about an education, and the speedy process is dead give away I mean come on one day you're accepted the next day you're approved for financial aid and before even knowing what classes you're taking you have your e books already in your mail box, WHAT!! After the speedy process you speak with financial aid and to my suprise I was told that I will be paying about 40,000 for tuition.For an AS you got to be kidding me! and that was after a discount that I rec'd because of my employer so actually it's more that 40 grand.I spoke with my advisor to let her know that I will not be attending and can you believe she still calls everyday trying to persuade me to change my mind.Dude! i'm over it students please look at the long run it's definately not worth spending that much on an AS degree this school is a COMPLETE RIP OFF! Don't let the sales associate get you, remember you have to pay that money back! IT's so obvious the advisors get paid on commission i'm just glad I din't stuck attending a school like that.Read Less"

"I am in medical coding and started last fall. I will graduate this fall with my associates. I have been very impressed with the classwork, it is indepth and makes research necessary. I have had no trouble receiving answers back from my teachers on homework questions or concern.There have been one or two that I have not cared for but that is the same in any education. Dealing with that just shows how you will handle the real world, you will always find a boss you don't like somewhere.I have had a wide range of interesting classes that were required of my field of study and being what most would call a freshman. My continuing education with my Bachelors will give me more freedom to pick and choose, again - like most "brick and mortar" schools.As far as making friends and study groups the experience is wonderful if you take advantage of it. I have a long list of clubs I have joined. I have many friends and study groups that I work with on a regular basis; most of us have the same types of classes so it makes working together fun.I have to defend AIU from some comments I have read. Every school will have some bad moments and there will be some students that have bad experiences. I can honestly say that I have enjoyed every moment with AIU and will continue on with my education because of them. My teachers have all demanded excellence so far and you have to give it to them, I am better for it and a 4.0 average.Read Less"

"I finished a AA degree and a BIT degree from AIU online. It was not the best school, but I was able to accomplish my goals to get in to grad school somewhere else. It was convenient, the virtual campus was pretty easy to navigate, I had more good professors than bad ones with real world experience, and the assignments are pretty flexible.They recently changed their curriculum to include more liberal arts courses for new incoming students, so now you will be able to transfer more credits to a different school if you choose to. Also it is accelerated, I mean you cant beat that, and the financial aid was easy. I paid about the same that it would have cost at a brick and motar school, which was about 40,000. I figured at least I got 2 degree's out of that.So do your homework, and way out the options. I figure if you are going to do classes online, it may as well be simple rather than complicated. AIU is probably the least expensive school online compared to Kaplan, and University of Phoenix. Just make sure your AA major is what you would like your BA/BS in as well.Read Less"

"I attended a brick and mortar school...AIU is not at all like a brick and mortar school, and they charge you double, sometimes triple the amount. You have to first speak with an "enrollment" counselor, which I think is ridiculous, because a real school will never have you talk to such a person. These enrollment counselors are really just a bunch of people who sit there and sell degrees. They convince you to write an application, and in AIU's case, send in an application fee. This enrollment counselor then "recommends" you for the school.To me, it's incredibly outrageous how simple the process is. You get admitted pretty much within the same day. It seems more like these people are trying to meet a deadline as far as how many people they can enroll than about meeting your educational needs. My enrollment counselor asked me many things while I considering the school, and I told him I wanted to go to law school.I am a business major, but he said he strongly recommended Criminal Justice. I didn't ever give him the impression of being interested in that. Ever. Yet, when I logged on to the student portal, I appeared as a criminal justice major, and there were classes for criminal justice ONLY. I was so outraged by this, because first off, I didn't want to be a criminal justice major, and they had chosen my schedule for me. DEFINITELY not something you see in a reputable school.To top everything off, I received an email 2 days after applying saying my books had been shipped. Uh, what books? I didn't ORDER any books! TOTALLY not something a reputable school does. After I was enrolled, I was immediately notified to send in unofficial transcripts (something a real school would never take) and sign a master promisory note.Again, I will repeat this...online for-profit schools, like this one, are COSTLY beyond belief. And the first thing they have you do is take up loans. Tsk tsk. I really believe everyone who is considering AIU or any other school of this sort to watch College Inc. Rent it from Netflix or look it up online, and watch it. Inform yourself. These for-profit schools WILL NOT deliver what you are looking for.Go to a school that will allow you to have control and keep you informed of everything. In the meantime, I highly recommend everyone to stay away from this school. They will find ways to get money from you, as they attempted to get money from me.Read Less"

"I attended AIU Online for a few months. I had a terrible experience. The group projects are the WORST! Many of the students can't seem to write, spell or use proper grammar so if you care about getting good grades, be prepared to do the entire group project yourself. Which is not an easy task. It made me sick that my grade was affected by other student's sub-par work. I don't think it's right that I paid thousands of dollars for a class and the lack of cooperation from others can bring my grade down. You all receive the same grade on the paper. Whether you wrote one sentence or the entire paper and they are worth enough points that if your group doesn't do well, it can bring your grade down 1 or 2 letter grades.The classes aren't structured well. You get your assignments when the class begins... 2 of them per week - a discussion board post and an individual project. You're required to comment on your classmates posts. The only problem is, both assignments are due on Sunday night and most people in the class don't do their assignments until Sunday night. This makes it difficult to comment on other's work in time to get a good grade. All books are e-books. They are very hard to read and very expensive to print. I didn't even use any of the books. The assignments do not correspond with the materials in the e-books.And the "instructors" (AIU calls them facilitators)are a JOKE!! They don't participate AT ALL on the discussion board. They provide the same exact feedback on your assignments EVERY WEEK. Most don't answer emails or phone calls. In my last class, my instructor graded 10 group projects (10 pages long) in an hour. He left the same comment on everyone's paper.And trying to withdraw is tough, too. I left messages for my student adviser, enrollment adviser, financial aid department and never heard back from anyone. The only way I got a response was when I left a message telling them that I canceled my financial aid with them. Then they were willing to call me back and withdraw me in time to not have to pay for the next class.They admit anyone and everyone regardless of education levels and some are so difficult to understand you'll wind up shaking your head and wondering what you got yourself into.I could go on and on but I'll stop here. Just beware of this school. Don't let their sales people talk you into going here. Do your own research and make a smart decision.Read Less"

"I graduated from AIU in 2006. Before I enrolled at AIU I tried two other programs which I did not like, I felt I was wasting my money not getting the quality of instruction and support that I should for the money.The first class at AIU was refreshing, the course was interesting, there was an opportunity for positive interaction with other students. I highly recommend the school."

"I am currently wrapping up my Bachelors in Business/Healthcare Administration with AIU Online and it has not been easy. Going forward with schooling is not a easy task, especially in today's world.The staff has been very helpful and have made this experience a positive one for me. I will be completed with the schooling next week and have found the Bachelors program to be much harder than the Associates.You have more classes to take with the Associates and that can make it a bit more difficult simply because you are juggling 2 classes at a time as with the Bachelors you only take one class at a time. I cannot say it has given me anymore benefit career wise as of yet simply because I am not workin a job that puts my degree to use, hopefully that will change once I have the degree.I would say to anyone who is looking for an online school to attend just do the research, not every school is right for everyone. AIU is challenging in some ways, it can be difficult to actually get motivated as you are doing it online and you do it at your own pace week by week. I have had a great experience and hopefully it pays off for me in the end.Read Less"

"I am currently attending AIU online. I have found many different opinions about the program. Most of the bad reviews seem to be from years ago and at a time that AIU seemed to be under aperiod of probation. My guess is that years ago online programs were still in a process of seeing what works and how to organize everything .Any recent bad reviews that I have found seem to be from people attending a campus. Leanne Olita' s review caught my eye. I find it hard to believe that someone has a Bachelors in education would write in such a way. It really makes me question the reliability of her post.I do question some of the people that are in the classes. I don't know how some of them graduated high school. One thing that bothers me is that I don't see some of the people come any closer to doing assignments correctly as the class progresses. Are the teachers not assisting them or are they just ignoring any input. There are many areas to find help with anything that is not understood; a person just needs to take the time to find them.I definitely would not recommend the online program to anyone that is not able to work at a fast pace. Group projects suck. One of the benefits of college online is being able to make your own study time. With group projects you have to try to schedule with 4 other people and put a project together and you have one week to do it. This is nearly impossible.Read Less"

"Great school....The master's I recieved from this school has propelled me to my company's "spotlight". The course was by no means easy...I had to apply myself consistently and diligently...IT WAS A VERY REWARDING EXPERIENCE WHICH I GARNERED IMMENSE KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL FROM...THANK YOU"

"I attended American InterContinental University in Weston, FL in 2007. The school is terrible! Does anyone else get the impression that the "good" reviews are from those who work for the company?AIU is like Middle School, the course work is simple and many of the classes do not require text books. Unlike most colleges, you are not allowed to choose your courses but assigned them each semester.I came from MMCC; a community college after completing a year in English (a course which requires a lengthy thesis paper which must be read by the school's english board in order to pass the course) AIU placed me in an english course where little students understood the recipe of writing a paper.I still remember my instructor who asked students if they knew the three basic parts of a paper.... The building in Florida is rented - the school was undergoing an accreditation (if they passed, God help us)...My art history teacher started the class explaining how she works in a Miami High School and that she is not afraid of "ghetto black kids"... The instructors are a joke - everything about this school is terrible. If you honestly believe you must put effort forth in AIU then I recommend you visiting a psychologist for an evaluation of your brain...You can sneeze on your paper and receive an A... I have honors in the school I attend now - ALWAYS check accreditation... after all, AIU is an expensive degree which will qualify you to flip burgers at $8 an hour.Read Less"

"I've read several of the reviews and it kind of seems like normal life. I've gone to 4 different "brick and mortar" schools and I can tell you that some of the teachers really sucked and some were excellent teachers. I found the same at AIU. My entire Bachelor's degree was online as I'm not near a campus. My AA credits transferred in and kept me from having to redo 60 or so hours. I didn't find any of the classes to be "too easy".It's completely up to the student. If you want to skip by and just do enough to pass the class you end up retaining almost nothing. If you dig into it and learn what you are supposed to learn the class is very worthwhile. Hey, that is exactly the same as going to class on campus.I have a feeling some of the negative reviews are from people that were in some of my group lessons that never contibuted their part and if they did they were always late, "last minute", and did subpar work. If you do some research before enrolling in an oline school the research tells you straight up that if you are the kind of student that always has to ask a teacher a million questions and can't function independantly, are not a self-starter then you might as well not even try online classes because everything is pretty much up to you.Some of my teachers at AIU I found were actually authors of the textbooks we used and other colleges around the US used as well. To me that is a pretty high calibur of teachers.When I "CHOSE" AIU, no one forced me, I looked at them all. At the time University of Phoenix was years behind AIU as an online school. U of P online students were having to use FTP to get lessons and send back homework. I looked at some of the lessons and plans of U of Phoenix that friends were taking and I can tell you that it just isn't that much different than AIU except when I was taking classes we had online classes with whiteboards, discussions, etc. and the online experience was just much more professional than U of Phoenix. Maybe U of P has advanced since then but I don't really know and that has been 4 years or so.When I was going to classes on campus I had fellow students complain about how a certain teacher sucked and "didn't care", etc. If your poor little feelings are hurt because a teacher "didn't care" then I suggest you run back to mommy and just wait for the government to do everything for you.School is what you want to make out of it. If you have good text books and don't count on a teacher holding your hand and helping you every step of the way then you should be able to get a good education online. If you are counting on the teacher for everything then I suggest you grow up and get a life, you're going to have to sometime....maybe! Sothe bottom line is, be aggressive, and get all you can out of it.Read Less"

"Professors are terrible. I attended the Weston campus in Florida. All or most of their professors come from Nova SoutheasterN University which it is not accredited either by AACSB.The amount of work its like being in high school. The school is useless and all financial aid wants it is your loans. They will continue calling you until you have everything ready.Please use your knowlege and know that the school is useless and your degree will not be worth it. Use you head if you were a manager at a reputable company would you hire someone that went to AIU or for example, University of North Carolina? Think please.Also, you do not see any good schools advertising on the internet or tv. If you already have the job you desire then by all means attend this school otherwise, go to a state school and succeed in your career. Please reconsider all they want is your money and business majors please attend a AACSB school you will thank me later.Read Less"

"Attended AIU in 2007. I recieved my masters in Leading Educational Organizations. This degree has helped me in my career greatly! The program was no cake walk by any means. You had to work and I mean work!Midway in the program I wanted to quit, because of the demand required to do the assignments, but my advisor worked with me and pursaded me stick with it , and I'm glad I did!Overlook the negative you read about this school because it's not true. Your coursework will transfer without any problems. What I gained from attending this university was staying focused on the prize and time management. These two qualities has helped me greatly in my everyday life. Go for it!Read Less"

"After getting my AA at AIU (which to me was a joke and way to easy to get.) I decided to attend another school for my bachelors since AIU did not offer what I needed. Come to find out that because AIU is not fully accredited (don't believe them when they say they are becuase they are liars). I find that almost none of my credits transfer. I find out that I have to do alot of the courses I did at AIU all over again. What a waste of time and money, I tell everyone I know who is either going to AIU or was thinking about it, to STOP don't do it, unless you like wasting your money!!! Read Less"

"I am currently going through the assocaites degree in business with concentration in medical coding and billing. Just recently found out, that in order to get a job as a medical coder or biller you need more education to further youself in that field and Aiu does not offer that. Also you need to get certified in this field and have to go to testing and again Aiu does not offer courses to prepare you for that exam. The education you recieve is very good, depends on how much you apply yourself to it. I met a lot of good people here online and consider them my good friends. Its just that Aiu does not specifically tell you that you need more than they can offer you for any concentration that you are taking. They are an international school so they can't give any certifications that is what another school says. but again don't miscontrue that aiu is bad, they are good, I did learn a lot more than I did when I first began and I am one of those that have been out of school for many years, and I have enjoyed my time at Aiu, and will continue to get bachelors degree. So if you want a certificate in medical coding and billing check the other schools that can give you all the knoweledge in that field and get you ready for the exam. Aiu is a good school to get you in the step in the right direction just not to get you certified in any field.Read Less"

"I did a few online courses with AIU and they were great.You need to make time for the courses and and coursework. Read the chapters and ask question if neccessary. Most people would actual make AIU seem like its the worse Uni out there because they lost there accreditation. But you know what things have changed. Very much! I am a gradute and was there when they lost it. They have regained there status back, and are working very hard to keep it.Now that I go to a Real British Uni, I regret it. It doesnt have that friendliness. Trust me. If you want to make AIU your personal hate, so be it, but you know what, in the last 2 years, they have had a high graduate rate, with people gradutating with Honours, and they also have a great academic structure that beats a lot of other universities out there today. Love it, Live it, and would do it all again, even when they were fighting there accreditation!Read Less"

"The reviews am reading don't make sense!!!First of all colleges are businesses and like any other business you have to pay to receive a service. All colleges make tons of money and AIU is no different. Second if you can't navigate on the school website then maybe college is not for you. Third I attended AIU got my degree and worked my butt off for it and thats what you losers are complaning about then you'll never get a degree!!!"

"I have also read the reviews here and have to say that self motivation is the key. Whether you go to a traditional school or an online university you have to motivate yourself. You get out of it what you give into it. AIU was a great experience. I had no problems with the professors or any of the support staff. I would recommend this school to anyone that wants an education."

"Well, I have read so many reviews on this school, and to be honest, most of them are bad. But, I have attended this school since 2007 and am getting ready to finish my associate’s degree.I had a leave of absence and withdrew from the school in 2008 due to personal issues. The school understood my situation and did not give me any false information and made sure that I understood the repercussions. After several months I reapplied and was able to come back. Everyone has always been kind, and most of my professors were very helpful. Several were hard and others not so much. With that said, I am sure it is like that in many other universities, some are just more lenient than others.Not to mention, that I have had to withdraw from two classes due to my professors being very difficult. I had fallen behind and knew that I was not going to be able to catch up. I had requested extensions plus exceptions but to no prevail, concluding, that they were difficult because they were following AIU guidelines and were not lenient toward those guidelines. But, to my understanding, it is to the discretion of the professor. So, no complaints; I should have been ready!Overall, my experience has been good. No false information was given to me, and my advisors have all helped me to the best of their ability. No complaints here!Read Less"