i´m new to this site and have been reading most of the threads here and its really interesting. i´m currently taking my master´s at antioch university,then i´m thinking of psyD program has anyone herd good things or bad things about chicago school of psycology? or alliant university?
Questions about the Chicago School and Alliant University
- Thread starter sintra
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I'd recommend doing a search of the forum for feedback on the two schools, there's been a good amount of talk about both.
Some people will say the schools are "diploma mills" (Alliant seems to have a less than stellar reputation with that charge), and others such as students and alumni have had good things to say about them. Do lots of research and try to find people who are currently in or have graduated from the two institutions. Get a feel for their experiences and where they are now.
Some people will say the schools are "diploma mills" (Alliant seems to have a less than stellar reputation with that charge), and others such as students and alumni have had good things to say about them. Do lots of research and try to find people who are currently in or have graduated from the two institutions. Get a feel for their experiences and where they are now.
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I can only speak about The Chicago School, and only a little about it. I will be starting their in August. When I was looking at schools I heard what was said about The Chicago School being a "degree mill" and flooding the market with new students who wouldn't be able to get internship placements, so I was a bit leery. When I visited the school, however, I was extremely impressed by the program and the internship match rates. They do accept a large number of students each year compared to other schools, but the class sizes are kept small. I was really interested by the fact that their core faculty are required to be practicing. Also, I just completed the writing assessment that all incoming students are required to do before or during the first semester. Depending on the score I get I might have to take an online academic writing "refresher" course. As tedious as that was, and might still be, I think it's a sign of the school's commitment to ensuring its students are adequately prepared. During the interview day the complaint that the current students put forward about the school was that the administration is too involved in their progress and that it begins to feel like hand-holding after a while, particularly when it comes to the dissertation. Everyone basically agreed that they were annoyed by that while it was going on, but once they finished the dissertation they recognized the value of the school helping them stay on track. Regardless of how you feel about that level of involvement on a personal level, I don't think that a school that was only interested in taking money and passing out degrees would spend the time and manpower necessary for that level of involvement.
There's clearly still a stigma attached to PsyD programs and an even greater one attached to professional schools, but so far everything I've learned about The Chicago School and everything I've heard from current students has persuaded me that they are a good school with a sincere interest in generating quality practitioners. Again, I can't speak about Alliant, but I know that they, like the Chicago School, are non-profit. The only experience with a for-profit school I have is with Argosy, and that only amounts to me trying to get information about them by filling out a request online and then being bombarded with daily calls from them for a period of months. They seemed a lot like telemarketers (not leaving voicemails, calling from different numbers) and I was really turned off. Part of the stigma associated with professional schools may be based primarily on the for-profit ones like Argosy.
There's clearly still a stigma attached to PsyD programs and an even greater one attached to professional schools, but so far everything I've learned about The Chicago School and everything I've heard from current students has persuaded me that they are a good school with a sincere interest in generating quality practitioners. Again, I can't speak about Alliant, but I know that they, like the Chicago School, are non-profit. The only experience with a for-profit school I have is with Argosy, and that only amounts to me trying to get information about them by filling out a request online and then being bombarded with daily calls from them for a period of months. They seemed a lot like telemarketers (not leaving voicemails, calling from different numbers) and I was really turned off. Part of the stigma associated with professional schools may be based primarily on the for-profit ones like Argosy.
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Yeah, speaking of Argosy's telemarketing style of recruiting - my girlfriend was looking to possibly take her last few courses for her LPC, and all she did was request some information from the Argosy website, then for the next two weeks she was bombarded by calls from an Argosy employee pressuring her to apply to a program she repeatedly told them she was not interested in. Pretty annoying...
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Yeah, I filled the form out online expecting them to send me a packet like a normal school would, but instead they called me the next day, and the next, and the next...I guess they have success doing it that way or else they wouldn't keep it up, but it certainly didn't make the school look appealing to me.
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