When I read the other reviews on different websites, I always questioned their honesty.. but oh my everything they wrote is actually true.. They got my money, I got no education, it took me a year to get away from here , this is coming from a person who 3.8/4 by only attending the classes.
*I am writing this review as a warning, if you are considering attending this school please read this review for your sake. I will try to give as many examples as possible. *
1- Admission:
Without knowing or maybe blindly, I applied and got accepted right away. It was obviously laughable how I received admission responses from another international MBA student, who can barely speak English. It was probably only her who reviewed my application file. I got the admission decision almost 30 minutes after completion of my file. I simply received an email saying I am accepted by the very foreign student who handled my entire application process. Moreover my admission was handled so unprofessionally that the school suddenly expected a foreign student living in a different continent to start attending the classes within the next 2 days rather than placing into the following quarter.. Yet I considered my admission as a new beginning like many other hopeful foreign students, who didn't know what to expect from Alliant International University.
After my first quarter ( 8 weeks ) I found out more than I expected about the school. The very first time I talked to a classmate was really weird because I was bluntly told to expect the worst. In fact, after a few days, some of the people I met during the orientation started transferring to other schools one by one . I rarely saw local students.
If you are familiar with business school admissions, then let me put it this way :
Most of the international students can barely speak English, they mostly give a blank look followed by a nod. Standardized English tests like TOEFL and IELTS are not even a requirement..After admissions students are asked to take a super easy English test at a hut called "Language Center"…
None of the students I met in my graduate program taken a single GRE or GMAT. They were accepted without any test scores. My first question to YOU is : " So.. what would you expect to see? "
Okay here we go
Education :
I attended the classes for a year and learned NOTHING here. the education is embarrassing the students themselves because they really feel under-challenged, and they openly joke about it. Teachers mostly try to motivate students at the beginning of the classes with promises of real professional projects for companies in San Diego. But after the second week, instructors mostly decide to choose Alliant International University itself as the professional company subject.. How sad is that ? Group projects are very painful because you will most likely find yourself in a group of 5 people, where only 2 people end up trying to work on the entire project. Most of the time since majority of students can't speak English, they won't be able to help with group assignments; even when they really want to .. ( Don't get me wrong the projects/group assignments are not even all that serious, don't let the name - project- fool you. They are more or less "google the information, write 5-6 pages long paper, combine it with the other person's work .. that's how I had 3.8 GPA before I left)
Difficulty of the classes ? Are you kidding me ? All of the final and midterm tests I took were ALL open-book exams with questions taken from the course book or again Google.. Teachers mostly don't even bother coming up with a decent test for the students. The problem is, no one bothers, or cares for anything. Don't be surprised to see people Googling the questions during the exam..YES ! you will see majority of students checking Google for midterm answers DURING the test while the instructor always been right IN FRONT OF US !!! Teachers don't even care to look to see if people taking the test are copying each others' papers.. I remember it was 2 weeks before the Final exam, and there was a Chinese student who didn't even know the meaning of word: Rain. The instructor started making weird noises to desperately continue telling his boring story (which had nothing..literally nothing with the topic)..Oh by the way this instructor became a faculty dean.
Assignments are no different, the assignment questions are also taken from the books ( which is understandable to a degree but don't expect anything else other than writing meaningless essays..) My friends from different faculties always commented on how assignments were only given to keep students busy, really, they ask nothing creative for assignments. Most of the students write a few sentences rather than essays in Tarzan English , locals sadly copy paste whatever they find on Wikipedia. There are a few good students but you will either find them trying to transfer to a real university or get their degree while relying on easily given 4.0 GPA
Student Resources : They simply got the money they were supposed to refund and kept me waiting for months. It's been months, I just learned I am not getting any..for the classes I NEVER attended in the first place.
If you are a current student, check your account; you will see many -50, or -60s for no reason and when you ask about them, they… suddenly disappear. Where's the honesty in this institution ?
If you are an international student trying to make a payment, oh you are screwed, it will take decades for people working right next to each other to get together and process a single file. It's funny how many times I ended up signing the same payment plan enrollment forms at the beginning of each quarter.. after all, there is no professional coordination or what so ever there. If you don't believe me just visit the campus.. There's not even a single security waiting at the entrance.. Anyone can enter the campus, almost like a barn in middle of nowhere. Before I left, The School of Management had a new dean from Harvard, yet shortly after a year he left Alliant.
Popularity ? No one knows this school in San Diego and from what I can tell San Diego campus is supposed to be one of Alliant's biggest campuses. Oh.. if you show your student ID in San Diego to attend a student event or a party, people ask if it's an online school. Same goes for student discounts, people will give you a puzzled look when you show Alliant school ID. That's only because people really have no clue about the school's existence, some even think you are trying to undertake them with a fake school name / ID . How do you think you can land on a job after graduating from such school anyway?
Internships ? The professional connections ? Students need to find an intern position at a local company on their own. I had a friend ended up doing her internship at a local pet shop as a cashier.. Such a vast network for a Business School huh? LOL ! OH by the way.. she had 4.0 GPA from the MBA program. Did it help her at all ? no.
Post-Graduation Experience: I did not graduate from here and I will have to depend on my friends' experience
My friends who got their MBA and Psychology degrees from here ended up with nothing other than regret. In fact, you will mostly find foreign students who had no clue about this school and a very few locals show up. Foreign students who went back to their countries mostly decided to go with another Master's degree program at a different ( and accredited !! ) university.
If you are a local : Most of the locals are here for two reasons : either financial ( school is very cheap compared to real universities in USA), or getting a "PHD" in very short time. Half of the locals I met, either left the school shortly after attending a few classes. The other half say it took them 3 to 4 years to graduate from Master's degree programs because the so-called flexible course schedules at Alliant International University only offer very few core classes, so you will have to wait 1-2 years to get your electives . In other words students end up waiting for some of the classes they need to take in order to graduate. Before graduation if the class you need to take is not on the available class list, you may really end up skipping semesters just like others have been doing.
They already came up with a non-academic remedy this situation for foreign students . Academic advisors fill foreign students' schedule with unreasonable course substitutions; I myself did not need to take the Managerial Finance class because there was only another marketing class that was available at that time. Simply put I was considered having knowledge of Managerial Finance by taking Marketing Communications class.. whaa… ??
Campus : I must be honest, Alliant's San Diego campus definitely has a unique character for sure. There is no visible student body like in regular universities, the cafeteria area is where you can see at most 15 people hanging around. Master's degree classes are always offered between 6-10:30 pm, after 7 pm you can see raccoons and other type of wildlife. For me it was a very strange experience; because there are literally "huts" in the middle of the campus, which are used as classrooms and offices. Each hut was one classroom. Campus itself is really far away from San Diego downtown. Don't expect a typical university campus like those of UCSD, SDSU, and USD ( even University of Phoenix's campus right next to I-8 highway looks better..) The Business School building is actually the library building with few classrooms. In other words School of Management does NOT have a separate building. Apparently cost-saving is the only thing they learned and trying to teach..
Student Life: Try to meet as many people as you can because compared to regular universities in San Diego, you will not find a single crowd ( at least I never saw one during the entire year ). People only come to school, park their cars, attend the classes, and leave the campus immediately as if the school is plague.
SHORT VERSION : For your own sake, AVOID this school, just be patient and work on your test scores and do whatever it takes to get into a REAL school. The amount of time and money you are going to spend on Alliant International University is definitely not worth it. Ask yourself this, would you really be okay with an educational environment where people who can't write a full sentence in English are getting A's for free from master's degree classes? Do not expect to see a regular university here, because it is truly so far away from being one.
I will never forget the way I gulped when I saw that orientation, it was such a big shock and a good lesson for me..