The Chicago School of Professional Psychology Chicago

Date: Dec 27 2011
Major: Psychology (This Major's Salary over time)
Before I get on my soapbox and start my rant, I need to lay some groundwork for those unfamiliar with the on-line/blended program. This program requires

I am currently enrolled in The Chicago School's On-line/Blended Master of Arts in Applied Forensic Psychology program. I have a wealth of experience working in forensic psychology and have considerable graduate coursework in psychology. I was unable to continue in a graduate program (clinical psychology) at a local university (APA accredited) due to family obligations and ended up leaving this program a number of years ago. I have wanted to go back to school and obtain a doctoral degree (which is necessary for licensure in the state where I live), although this wasn't practical. I decided to pursue the on-line Master's program as an intermediate step, which I felt would offer me a slight edge over recent graduates when I am ready to pursue full-time studies and commit to a doctoral program.

From the word go (when I applied), I was challenged by the head of the program (coordinator?), Dr. Tiffany Masson, who suggested that I wasn't really appropriate for this program and had to explain how I was qualified for this program. After explaining my position, I was then told I really needed to take the GRE and apply to the PsyD program, although also missed the deadline.

I was informed by an admissions counselor about a week later that I was accepted, although she was unable to answer many questions. This person seemed to be very minimally trained to answer questions about the program and appeared to be nothing more than a glorified telemarketer reading from a script or answering questions from a series index cards or prompts on a computer.

From here the course of dysfunction only seems to get worse. First, I never received any written correspondence from the school or any physical mail delivered by USPS. I am paying for school through federally subsidized student loans, which also pays for my books. The system which the school uses relies on an outside vendor to fulfill book purchases by students. You have to go on-line to the Chicago School bookstore and use your voucher. Unfortunately, your funds are not available to purchase your books until the classes actually start, so there is a waiting period to purchase and receive your books, often as long as two or more weeks after school has started. This means that you may be as much as two weeks behind on your assignments, unless you have purchased your books through Amazon or some other bookstore. Of course, turning in late assignments is unacceptable.

As other posters to this site have noted, the quality of the instruction is very poor and clearly gives the impression that admission is determined by the credit limit on your credit card or whether you can obtain a student loan to pay your tuition. I can say this because the only conversation initiated by my academic advisor was whether my financial aid papers were completed. My classmates are unable to think for themselves and don't have an original thought. Because this is an on-line program, it relies on on-line discussions, which require students to respond to scenarios, questions, or problems on a weekly basis and respond to postings by at least two classmates. Many of the individuals who post to the class websites are very inarticulate and their comments reflect either common wisdom (often very inaccurate and founded on mistaken beliefs), "cut and paste" responses from Googled Internet searchs, or are parroted from other classes or the textbook. Many of the replies amount to social masturbation or are part of a mutual admiration society (e.g., "Gee, I really enjoyed your post", "That was really nice", "good post"., etc.), rather than offering any real insight or confrontation or questioning. The instructors don't offer much help here either. Some of the postings are absolute nonsense and don't reflect any knowledge of anything presented in required or supplemental readings and seem to be encouraged by the instructors who praise them. The feedback from the instructors is usually quite sparse on written assignments that get graded for originality through Turnitin.com (this is another issue!). Some instructors will provide feedback about what you've written, although usually this is strictly related to the mechanics of your writing, rather than related to content and offer no suggestions for further study or challenge you. One instructor I have had simply assigns grades and offers no rationale for his grades on papers, which gives the impression that these are entirely subjective and don't have any rhyme or reason behind them.

Lastly, I have to comment on the administration. This is abyssmal. The program I am in has had three different program heads, having had Dr. Masson as the program chair or leader (it isn't clear what her position was because I was told different titles by different people, although she is no longer heading up this program) and two other people acting in various capacities. Currently there is someone with a MA heading the program (Interim Administrative Lead). One term this year my ARP instructor suddenly changed and disappeared; when I asked as to why this happened, no one was able to explain why she was no longer my instructor; this was very unfortuate, as she was the only person who was intimately aware of or had a good grasp of what my ARP was really about. My academic advisor is someone who also oversees students in another on-line program. He lacks any knowledge about my area of research and has been unable to answer questions about operationalizing my research in the field.

I am very dissatsified with the quality of the instruction and organization of the on-line program. If I had been in Chicago or in one of the other cities where TCSPP has an on-ground presence, I probably would have applied to one of the Clinical PsyD programs, which I would hope are better organized and offer a higher quality of instruction. Given what I have read from other contributors to this site, it seems that this is not the case.