American Intercontinental University

My name is Raffaella. I live in Italy and I am studying at AIU?.

I know this is kinda long, but I really wrote this just for you. Take a few minutes to read this and save yourselves a lot of money and huge anger attacks?.

There are soooo many problems, one does not even know where to begin.

I never expected AIU to be a traditional school, but that is obvious since it is an online school. I am taking a microeconomic class. There are about 100 pages a week to read per class. But the worst of it all, is that you are 98% on your own. I never expected the professors to lecture of course. However I did not expect either that professors hold a total of TWO hours a week of office hours. Doing the math… one hour of office hour is costing me at least 500 dollars Plus the other 30 students who also need it…that is 15,000…if you get in the office hour virtual door, it is stuffed with other student that means that I am actually paying even more if you start calculating it by the minute.

BTW: they proclaim to be intercontinental, however most of the office hours and chat sessions are set up for US students. For me who lives in Italy, I would have to stay up till 4AM…and that is outrageous.

One more thing I just discovered today is that you cannot make credit card payments via their website. Why? They are only set up for US and Canada? ridiculous!

The school is expensive because there is no academic support. What in the world are these professors doing? They work 3-5 hours per week?.plus some time to grade papers-BTW they never give you constructive feedback, they just give you a grade and that is it. Well great I may be getting As, but that does not mean that I am a perfect writer?. I would love to learn more and be truly prepared for grad school?.. BTW…a week is very condensed at AIU…expect to read at least 150-200pp for two classes.[I am a student who needs to get As for my future graduate studies-I want to go to Stanford for my MBA-so I actually try to actively read all of them)… I usually come up with at least 20 specific questions relating to the chapter we are studying. BTW do not expect any PowerPoint presentation from the professor containing summaries, explanations, and difficult problems solving methods-you are still out on your own. The system tells you to email your instructors with questions. First they would never answer 20 questions. Second, AIU has a 48 hour time frame policy, where it is ok if the instructors do not respond earlier than 48. This may seem trivial…however if I have 10 question by Friday, I am out of luck. Professors (90%) of them do not answer emails on weekends because they are not required. Hey isn't this school set up for people who work during the week and focus their study on weekends? NOT! I am stuck here, too late to back out.

Please listen to this words of wisdom…15,000 may seem a lot, but for the academic support you will get, it feels like it is ten times that.

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!