The Art Institute of Pittsburgh - Online Division Reviews of Associates in Photography

"I am currently enrolled. I NEED OUT !!! SOMEONE... ANYONE.... HEEELLPP!! This school is a joke. I need to find one that is actually worth going into debt with! Iv been lied to, passed around, ignored, and swindled. Apparently, i owe over 500 dollars for a kit that was included in the same time frame on my initial financial plan."

"Don't do it!!! I can't emphasize enough what a over priced, total waste of time this was for my daughter. Please go to a local college or program where you will have access to instructors, counslors and other students first hand instead of trying to communicate with these people and basically trying to research and learn things on your own which is what happens here. Not to mention the cost and poor financial aid options."

"This is possibly the worst school I have ever worked with. They are only out to get your money. They act super wonderful and nice to start with, but you will be set up to fail later on. I am now in my third class at this school, but they locked me out of my course due to a mistake on their end. I have contacted so many people now, and either nobody gets back with me, or nobody has any answers for me. They say my advisor has to do something with it, but then my advisor never replies. They are completely doing it for the money, not to help you. The courses are set up nicely, if you can even get help to get into them."

"This school started out well. The first few semesters I fairly breezed along, never mind the fact I had to take a ton of math courses which costed me more. Math classes I simply did not want or need. Suddenly there were things that they needed. More equipment that wasn't on the student required lists. Expensive things that were suddenly needed right before the classes started. For example when I started a particular class there was no need for a back drop or an extra lighting kit. one week before the class is due to start, we're informed via email that the equipment is REQUIRED in order to even take the class let alone pass. I suppose if you have money falling out of your nethers, that wouldn't be an issue. However, nobody has that sort of cash (At this point it was almost $300+ for the equipment) and coming up with that amount of money would either take a leprechaun falling out of the sky or one suddenly winning the lottery. This went on for the entire time I was there. I'm a stubborn bint and I wanted to see this through. I slogged through teachers who didn't care. Grading whatever they felt like and leaving copy/pasted feedback in their critiques, then docking grades on those who did not leave "enough substantial feedback". It was very hypocritical. Certain people were graded one way, while others were graded another. Images that were clearly not good enough passed with good grades while others who had stellar work were docked for little things. It seemed arbitrary. When questioned suddenly your grade would change. I was a part time student, so it took me roughly five years to complete (With a four month break due to my mother passing away). Get to 2015. I get calls weekly from various people who are suddenly my academic adviser. I think in the five years I was there, I went through no less than nine counselors in my five year career. I get closer to my graduation and I am in my final class. My professor clears most of my images for printing. I get told they're not the best but they'll have to do. I start getting weekly calls from my adviser saying I was graduating, I was going to do fine and they looked forward to giving me my diploma. I'm excited, of course I'm excited. I've never had a diploma like this before. I go through my class and then get told I didn't graduate that all the stuff I handed in was not acceptable. Never mind that the professor and the counselors had five and a half weeks to tell me otherwise. I was basically lied to. Told I had to repeat the class or not graduate. When i questioned all of this I get told I have to appeal I send in the appeal papers and get told I didn't hand them in on time. Despite them being handed in under the 30 days I had to do it. Do not attend this school. Please. I'm asking you, pleading you to reconsider your options. No matter how promising it looks, it is genuinely too good to be true."

"I am from Kansas City, and we have a wonderful and well known Art Institute here (Kansas City Art Institute) I have friends who have attended this school and it was looked upon highly by them. I wished to attend this school as well, but due to health problems attending classes physically would have been impossible. I was very excited when I discovered the online school. I requested more information expecting a packet or something in the mail. What I got instead was a phone call the next day from a VERY pushy and overbearing 'academic advisor' although a better name for him would have been recruiter. He was unable to answer any questions I had about the program and school itself, when I informed him at this point I was only looking for information about the school, he continued to push and within an hour had me applying for financial aid, and grants over the phone. It seemed the only answers he had about my questions were about tuition, and had me give a list of people to him that could help me financially. It was going to cost $40,000 for a 2 year associates degree. I was then appalled when he had me sign up for the school online and I was instantly accepted. My friends who attended the Kansas City Art Institute spent months preparing their portfolios to get accepted. All AIO needed was money, no portfolio at all. I then found out my 'academic advisor' did not even live in Pittsburg, but in Arizona. He called me again the next day for another marathon phone call, in which he had me fax over several forms to him. I looked at one paper and saw that in fine print this school is actually in association with Brown Mackey. I called the Kansas City Art Institute, and asked about this program and the affiliation they had with AI Online, and they informed me this program was very much looked down upon by most of the Art Institutes, since they allowed anyone in, and the instructors were not in his words 'up to Ai standards'. I started my first class regardless of this. I noticed not only was the format extremely hard to understand and navigate, that my teacher actually held no degree in art, and incfact lived in southern Missouri working at another college. It sounded like he did this as a side job. He mentioned the college he worked at and when I stated that I knew what college that was and had friends attending it, he immediately deleted the post I had made responding to it. I was then I realized this school was a farce. I then dropped out--and swallowed the over $900 it took to do so. The wanted to charge me $4,000 for the whole semester, but I had a family member call and inform them that I felt I had been pushed into this by the overbearing 'academic advisor'. Since within the first phone call of wanting information, he had me enrolled and filling our financial aid. They did finally agree to only charge me for the one class I had started. I would never recommend this program to anyone. You are paying Art Institute prices for an education not even remotely close to the Art Institute quality."