Ashford University Reviews - Bachelor's in Organizational Leadership

This school is a complete rip off. They cut your transfer credits down so you have to take more classes with them, hence more money. Also the Instructors, especially the ones that are so called Doctors try to fail you at every opportunity, so of course you have to take even more classes. Some of the Instructors are also insulting to students. Making snide remarks on papers. And some treat the papers like they are doctoral thesis, instead of undergrad weekly course work. Avoid Ashford, there are much better and more professional schools. I wish I could give it minus stars.

Ashford U. is a pushy school that cares about your money and not the student. They will pursue you if a faint interest is drawn from the potential student. The "recruiter" even said he was a former Marine but didn't care to talk about his service in the Corps. About 70 percent of the professors are open for questioning via email. The other 30 percent of my experience could not be reached by email at all, and it seemed though it was a disruption of their day to assist where I had questions. There are different expectations from different teachers, on totally different sides of the coin. This is a quick paced five week course school in which you will write a paper every week and have to do 2 or more discussions, in which everyone seems to say the same thing. Most classes I started, as I took 34 hours with them, dropped about 25 percent of the class. The worst dropout rate from a class I seen was around half of the students. Remember these are five weeks classes. They use turnitin.com to check your papers, and if you want a precheck you will not get your paper back on time, atleast in my experience. The Ashford writing center has been the only true supporting part of this process, but do not do enough for your paper to make a difference. It's almost just a peer review. I did withdrew once from there and they called me 11 times in two weeks wanting me back, this continued with "higher" level admin personnel calling me. My main issue with them personnel, that I miss cited a paper and was given a grade of 0 with no breakdown of the issue. The paper review just said Plagiarism. I've never had anyone call into question my virtues, ones like integrity in my last 16 years of the Army, why would I be judged so quickly, no question asked, by someone that is suppose to instruct and guide me? Recently I've learned that this school went to a several Warrior Transition Units, these units house Wound Warriors from Iraq and Afghanistan, and prayed upon them. Some of these men and women were severely injured with many memory issues and they still signed them on. A minority of these student/soldiers could not remember the name of the school they were attending but knew they were in school. After these facts were presented along with a few others I've decided to withdraw from this university, as I see them as an issue for the scholarly process in which they pride themselves on. This school is a clear example of why a degree will not help you achieve more in life, as they have diluted the point of education by the greed of money. Bottom line please save your money for a place that deserves your attention and will treat you as what you are, a future asset to your family, business, and community. As Ashford U is not a home for the student but a overpriced cheap hotel in a neighborhood that you don't care to be affiliated with. Thanks and hope this helps you select your school.

Ashford's Organizational Management program provided me an opportunity to improve my position with my current employer. Ashford's online program provided technology that assisted my studies "on the go" where ever I might be. Communicating with teachers, discussions with classmates, researching subjects, and submitting assignments, were all made possible with the up to date technology that Ashford provides. With the addition of the authoritative Forbes organization, I believe the program is even better! Put in the hard work and you'll get what you need!

This is my third year at Ashford and am two weeks away from finishing the last class for my B.A. in Organizational Management. I have never had one problem with this school. I have had teachers that I did not like, and one actually killed my 4.0 GPA, but that was in my first year. There was one other class I did not attain an A in and that would have killed it for me anyway. That was all on me. This experience was smooth going, outside of some of the classes I stayed up until 3 in the morning to finish homework, but that's part of it. They contacted me one time and one time only about continuing on with my Masters Degree. When I told them no, that was it, I have heard nothing since. No harassment, no constant calls. There has not been one issue with financial aspects either, in fact, they have always bent over backwards to assist in resolving any issues. This school is fully accredited, and within the past year received accreditation from the Western Region, so those who say they are not recognized are grossly mis-informed or are just slanderous. They also formed a partnership with Forbes School of Business. Forbes has a solid reputation to uphold, and if anybody thinks that Forbes would put their name on or associate with any unethical school, that person is out of their head. As for the "for profit" issue. Yes, they are for profit, but you know what, they don't get the hundreds of thousands of dollars from selling out 100,000 seat football stadiums, the universities the same ones that use college athletes to make millions of dollars from televised sports and the NCAA money. All of this is also free advertising. I took several online college classes from a public university and compared to Ashford, they were garbage. The teachers there may respond a week later - well after an assignment was due. Ooops, too late, guess who took the hit? I did. At Ashford, very rarely did I not receive timely responses from any of my teachers. There was a couple of times where it took a few days, but nothing like at the other university. These people are disgruntled for some reason, or they may be posers, just trying to trash talk. Some may have had valid complaints, but this school is dealing with 90,000 students, and I am certain there are hiccups in the system. As for me, in two weeks I will have my degree, and in May, I will walk across the stage an honor grad. It wasn't easy, it's not a diploma mill, and I certainly worked my butt off. Thank you.

Ashford University provided me the opportunity to finish my degree while working full-time and raising a two year old child with my Wife. My experience with Ashford was a positive one. I greatly improved my communication skills, which in part also improved my leadership skills. I would definitely recommend this technology savvy university to anyone that is looking to improve their career prospects/outlook.

First of all, I notice the only reviews "Yelp" recommends are the positive reviews. This public should see all of the reviews without navigating the maze of pages here to find them. I often stay away from reviews because all to often we see a timed emotion, which doesn't describe the entire experience from a student while at this institution. I have attended two online universities and lack just a few classes from obtaining my BA. You may find grammatical errors in this post, but it does not take away from the truth it covers about Ashford. Let’s start with the University of Phoenix, since that is where I cam from with my Associate’s. The instructors and staff were a lot more in-tune with the student. My only complaint was “group projects” in the Bachelor’s level courses. This review isn’t about UOP, so I won’t go into detail, but the staff there seemed to care about the student, probably because classes were almost $2,000 a piece. On to Ashford University: Jeffrey Woods was my admissions counselor, and as always, he was fantastic. This is a common theme among admissions counselors because they are the bread and butter of the company. He stuck with me for the first three classes. I couldn’t ask for anything better, so I was hooked. I was moved to Chad Small after this… and this is where it began. I required a receipt (Univ of Phoenix offered this on their site as self-service) for each paid class for tuition reimbursement purposes through my employer. The system is set up to auto-email these, so they tell me, but it never worked correctly. When I requested any items from Chad, he would take in excess of 2 weeks to respond, or many times he would simply not respond at all. I started attaching delivery notifications to each email, so then I received the response that my emails were deleted without being read; therefore I never received a response. I asked Chad over and over to improve his response time, left voicemails with this information, and asked to speak to his supervisor. I never received any of the requested items. I requested a new counselor, so I was moved to Elana Perry… which would turn out to be worse than Chad. I only had to contact Elana a handful of times during my 7-8 months with her, but ant hills turned into mountains when I requested anything. She was beyond rude, even telling me at one point that this is my education and my responsibility, not hers to deal with. She made me aware I was on her timeline, when I simply asked for her to follow-up with me before 4 days had passed with no response. She was beyond facetious and made no attempt to apologize or help me, the student. I asked for yet another counselor, and this was made it clear in the beginning that she would respond to me when she could, which is usually 48-72 hours. Her name is Aimee Downes; in which business environment is it acceptable to write to the company in which you are a paying customer, with an issue, only to be put on hold for more than 3 days? Overall, the university does not care about the students, do not work for you but against you, and is the biggest joke for a business that I have ever encountered. We get better service at Taco Bell! The counselors, after your admissions timeframe ends, are rude, non-responsive, and their managers are no different. Sadly I am so close to finishing that I, like others, have trapped myself in their circle of chaos. Why switch now, only to do more paperwork, attend more entry classes, and risk my classes not transferring. I wish I would have done this different, but I will continue to swap counselors until they treat me like the customer I am, which is a high paying customer.

Enrolled at Ashford in 2010 for a BA in Organizational Management, graduated in Dec 2011 and started my MA in the same field in Feb 2012, finished June 2013. I found the online courses interesting, and enjoyed the discussions. Access to the online library makes research and preparing papers easy if you apply yourself. The majority of the instructors were very good and remained engaged with the class.

The only change I might make, not guaranteed, is to switch my MA concentration from Organizational Leadership to Project Management. Plenty of options available, just a matter of selecting what seems to be the best fit going forward.

Do your research first and find a school that will fit your needs. Once that is accomplished, do whatever it takes to get the most out of your education.

I have attended Ashford for over three years and have never experienced any issues. I am very pleased with the support and interaction that I have received from the staff and instructors. If you are not a self starter or have the discipline to read instructions and complete the required work without someone telling you to do so.....this school or any other on-line school may not be for you. You must have realistic expectations and realize that you have decided to pursue your degree through an institution that lacks the respect and reputation as compared to a top tier University. If you are looking for a quality education that can be beneficial and allows for flexibility, then you can find it through this school.

I am finishing up my BA in December. I will be transferring to the University of Phoenix for my MBA however. Having to constantly look at my degree progress to make sure they don't add or change any classes around is annoying. Several times they have randomly taken out previously transferred classes or added more classes onto the degree progress page.

Obviously I have the original degree progress printed out. Luckily when I mention these issues to the adviser they are "surprised" and they change it back the way it should be. Using my GI Bill has been a breeze however. That is the one good point of the school. The classes are beyond easy. I barely give any effort and get A's and this is while I am on full active duty.

I will be getting out of this school asap after graduation and getting into an MBA program before they lose there accreditation in June 2014 since they are under review at the moment. Good luck to everyone else. And yes they are Military Friendly, only because of our GI Bill.

I would recommend this University to anyone. You get what you put into it. The teachers are fair and knowledgeable. In all honesty, it may not be the best school, but it met my educational needs at the time.

The school is very technology driven. It utilized i-phone apps and online tools that really assisted me in my studies. I could virtually study, research, and submit all my work electronically and/or online.