The Academy of Art University

I would advise against this school.
They are for profit to the extreme. I wasted alot of my time and money to try to attend but I got screwed over once I got there.

I sent in all my tax information before flying out there and once I got there all the housing was taken so I got stuck in a hotel. Basically, they told me I would be stuck in the hotel for a weekend - a few days later I got a letter saying I would be stuck in the hotel for a few months.

What I think they do is just take every application and let all these students arrive. There were over 30 other students stuck at this hotel. Once a student with housing drops then they can start moving in the extras.

It gets worse. After talking to financial aid over the phone and through email they told me everything was fine loan/money-wise. Once I got there they told me I had to come with 17,000 through one of their private lenders. I looked for other places that offer loans there and most of them build interest while you are in school. The icing on the cake is on the first day of class you cannot get a refund on anything - housing/tuition ect. - you are locked in these horrible loans.

There was an orientation event where they were trying to sell their sports team alot. It was like a pep rally - they had a speaker that was so arrogant and full of himself, apparently he was a former student who become a artist. All he did was boast about how much better he was then every one else.

My advice, if you are extremely rich and like to pay for a school that wraps itself up in a cute ass little fashion to look like an art school - then maybe this is for you.

1st Year Male -- Class 2014

I am at my second semester online at AAU and I am planning on dropping out of this school once the semester is over. I feel this school doesn't really care about the students they want your money and they want to put you deep in debt. My first semester they lost my transcripts twice and now in my current semester they said my financial aid and my loans wouldn't cover all of my classes and that I would have to drop one even though I was just taking 4 classes since they were required for me to take since I am on academic probation. Both my advisor and financial aid office at this school have not been at all helpful. I have been crying all weekend long trying to figure how i am going to pay for my supplies and how I am going to pay for my loans at the end. This is a stressful disorganized school that has left me feeling unhappy and bitter and I cannot wait to finish the semester so I can move on to a better local school in my neighborhood.

1st Year Female -- Class 2014

Surrounding City: A+, Education Quality: F

I'm on the fence between negative and neutral, but ultimately when I look at where all the students I worked with and graduated with wound up outside the Academy and in the real world -- I have to go negative.

I graduated in 2006 with a degree focusing on computer arts. I have yet to land a job doing anything related to my original goals. When I run into fellow 06 alumni from the same department, it's the same scenario.

"We graduated at the wrong time man. The Academy wasn't ready to teach us the new stuff, which is really now the current stuff."

"Crap. Everyone keeps telling me my stuff is good, but last generation good. My education was worthless before I even graduated."

"It's been four years. I had to teach myself all the techniques people wanted. The Academy was mostly worthless."

The computer arts department was way behind the times when I was there (2001-2006...yes 5 years...they also don't tell you that it is impossible to do it in 4 unless you kill yourself). Outside of 2-3 good instructors (who were also pretty open about how screwed up things were in the dept/school), every CA related class was horrible. I would go to class, just to wind up riding BART home and looking up tutorials. We had to fight for a Z-Brush class, which only became a regular part of the curriculum after we graduated. UnrealEd was another class we had to fight to get, yet was only taught in our last semester.

The traditional/fine arts side seemed great, at least from my perspective. Most of my best experiences came from this side of the Academy. I wound up wishing I had gone for an illustration degree instead. It is true that the Academy will let anyone in, which I know makes those with already acquired skill or raw talent furious. For all I care, those students can get bent. The FA related teachers would work with the worst of the worst students as long as they showed signs of improvement (which only came from hard work). Given the work load, explained later, those students deserve their chance to have someone help them improve. Not coddle egos.

The administration side is the entity to be most wary of. They're the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Give bad advice. Always changing up requirements. They won't hesitate to send goons to your classroom to bounce you out if something funky has happened with your payment.

Reported workload in another comment is correct. 60+ hours a week if you go full time. Initially it is so they can weed the weak out. Eventually it becomes a, "preparation for the real world". All it did was burn everyone out and gave one student diabetes (drank so much soda to try and stay awake). It isn't 60 hours of work concentrating on one thing. It's 60 hours of work juggling 4-5 assignments that require a lot of man hours to do well in a very short amount of time each (with different skill sets/concentration required).

Part of that number is also based off of student competition, which is very high. This is a good thing. Students pushing students. Just realize in order to stand out, you're going to put in those hours.

The icing on the negative side of the cake: ass kissers got the job leads, opportunities and get pushed towards internships. I know of maybe 2 out of 10-ish people that got a job lead/internship in school for my major that was not constantly trying to dry hump an instructor or his/her industry friends that stopped by. That was because their work was so good, it would be embarrassing not to give them the opportunity (one student's work was 90% of an ad they put on TV...not multiple students work). If you fell below great into good/mediocre/shit it was time to kiss butt.

With all that, you get out what you put in most of the time. You work hard and genuinely try to do your best, you will get results from the good instructors. Just be very cautious of anything CA related. You'll put in work and get out good results...good results for last generation techniques that is.Currently in debt. Unemployed. Burned out. Bitter.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000