Case Western Reserve University

I attended Case Western's online Master of Science in Social Administration (MSW). I lived in New York and they WAY oversold me on their internship "network" outside of Cleveland. I was told they had a team of experts working on finding me a placement and when they couldn't, I was then told it was my responsibility. The penalty for not having an internship is repeating the semester and they were literally no help. I didn't have an issue with the professors, most of them are great and really want to help students, but I don't think there's any communication between staff members. I had professors in my second year teaching us topics as if we were in an intro class because they didn't know what their students had already been taught. On top of this, there were professors who just played videos and didn't offer that much engagement outside of class. The online program is on a specific track with predetermined assignments, I don't know how much influence professors have in the content and projects of their own classes. However, you can get a professor who just plays videos all class and are still expected to do advanced graduate level assignments. I understand (and understood at the time when I was a student) that an online program will have its obstacles. I knew I probably wouldn't get the opportunity to assist with research or do any extracurriculars, but Case Western promised so much to me and delivered very little. If you're thinking of enrolling in this program I'd only recommend it if you already have a social work job that can serve as your internship location and are okay with little administrative support. Technically, we do have a student success advisor and an academic advisor but they don't seem to have much influence if you're struggling with anything related to field or financial aid. Also, something I didn't know as an online student is that you're ineligible for university health insurance and you don't get a commencement ceremony unless you apply to walk for graduation in May. It does not matter when your actual graduation day is, you have to walk in May. Applicant beware!

I have attended several other school of nursing and I was quite disappointed with the faculty at FPB. They were no better and in some cases worst than other schools. I can?t understand why the nursing school is rank so high. Some professors couldn?t even get through a lecture without making a factual mistake. Cost of living is high, tuition is really high and the faculty seems to be embittered about life in general. So does a degree from CWRU mean much- no! My experience has been that after your first job, recruiters are much more concerned about how you did on your last job than where you went to school. Save yourself a ton of student debt and pick another nursing school- I wished I had! :(

I make this rating with a foreword: it has been over ten years since I've graduated at Case, so things may have changed since then--hopefully for the better. My biggest problem with the school was the awful and unfriendly administration and the arrogance of some of the faculty. Being an international student I needed a social security card which apparently got lost(?) in the post and the administration refused to give me any temporary student card--so four months passed by without me having email-access, access to the facilities like the library etc., so one-fourth of my time there was wasted because they refused to help (even if I tried to 'work around' that...why force me to have to do that). Besides this, at the admissions office they also looked and behaved unbelievably unprofessional.

A third of the faculty was absolutely fantastic and helpful and I have learnt a lot from them and grew to respect them also as role-models, but there were quite a few not very intelligent professors who tried to compensate for it by being arrogant and/or unreasonable.The facilities were quite ok and so was security in general (just don't go over the sports-field) but the community both in the business school (which is not surprising because it is awful in any business school) and in campus in general was not what I have experienced at other universities where I studied.It was great though that the campus was in town with every important thing in Cleveland relatively close and Cleveland itself can be a very interesting city. So I would rate Case as above average, but, or at least so was my experience a long time ago,at that time it definitely was not in the top-tier.