Concordia University - Portland Reviews

I was so excited when I was accepted into the Educational Doctoral Program at Concordia University Portland Oregon. I completed over 10 courses within the Ed.D program. I spent late nights and early mornings completing the course work, and maintained an 3.8 average. I experienced issues during my second transition phase within the doctoral program. Please, don't waste your time with this program Many of my colleagues were subject to bias maneuvers on what candidate will move forward within the doctoral program. I dedicated two years of my life to Concordia, Ed.D program, only to be disappointed.

The EdD program is promoted to convince you that you will be fully supported through the whole degree process. As a transfer student I had an expectation of an orientation of the school, website and their Learning Management System. I had to nearly force an employee to provide me a quick campus orientation. They did provide a list of courses. There currently is no website/Learning Management System orientation for this specific Doctoral program. The Doctoral program is promoted as flexible and great for people with full time jobs but once you are in the program you are on your own. Just after starting course study, a series of administrative errors lead to probation and sudden suspension. It took 5 visits to school finance and student services offices to attempt have them correct the errors. They required me write to their board. Although difficult to locate I eventually had to speak with the Dean. In the mean time I've been forced into on-line courses that provide no connectivity with the instructor or other students other than an email and through directories in the Learning Management System. Their overall graduation rate is only about 45% where as University of Portland is at 74% at the time of this printing. Oddly the costs are similar between these schools but U of P is currently rated as 2nd in the area whereas CU is 15th, near the bottom.

If you are looking for a doctoral program that is relevant, grueling, and organized this is not the place. First let me say that the students are not supported. The moment you have a concern or an issue and ask for assistance you are given several reasons why your request cannot be completed. I had a dissertation chair that continuously missed meetings, didn't provide feedback, and was never accessible. I asked repeatedly for a change in chair and wasted 2 maybe even 3 sessions before I was able to get switched. I never caught up. I've repeated the course rotation to write my proposal/defend it 5-6 times and have made no progress. Cohort mates of mine were moved on only to be pulled back and have their proposal denied. We were scheduled to graduated 10/2017 and my entire cohort is at least a year behind. I found a program to transfer too ABD and that's exactly what I did. CU-Portland is over prices, poor quality, and a waste of your money and time. Look elsewhere.

I left this school just in time. Do not go here, you're wasting your time and money. The degree they give you is useless in the real world, ask some of their graduates most of them work for horrible companies with high turn over rates. Do yourself a favor go to a better school who hasn't been investigated by the Department of Education twice now.

I attended Concordia to get a BBA - though the degree program was less useful than half a year of real world work. The degree related classes were mostly useless, teaching me things like "how to write a questionnaire" rather than more useful things like social media marketing. The teachers are mostly older and seem to have stopped caring or paying attention to shifts in the market. At best, the classes were useless. Except for the accounting courses, those were all top notch and the only classes where I felt I left with increased knowledge. The tuition is really high for the quality of education, but worse, their Student Accounts Department is simply the worst. I encountered an error with my billing and they simply refused to help me. It took months to resolve it on my own, but would have been fairly easy if they would have been willing to do their job. There are several good colleges located in the Portland area. Do not waste your time and money on this one.

After completion of this degree, I was under the impression I could just continue to try and get my certification in teaching. However, upon trying to do this, I was told by the university they would refuse to sign a paper helping me to try to continue my completion. Upon further research, I found I completed a program I should have never been able to be accepted into because I am not a teacher and the program requires you to have a Bachelors in Teaching. This goes to show that this school does not check and help their students to succeed. I can not use this degree for anything related to teaching because I still have to do more school to get my certificate. All this degree did was cost me more money and debt. Do not fall prey to this institution. They will definitely deceive you.

The Ed. D program at Concordia is excellent. The professors are knowledgeable, caring and accessible. For busy professionals, this program - albeit challenging - is very doable! I am able to work, complete coursework, and raise my family without significant sacrifice. I recommend this program to anyone seeking a terminal degree in education.

Last year of the program is unorganized. You are given minimal communication in regards to courses. At times you are given the wrong communication. It seems that they will keep you in the program as long as possible to charge you as much as possible.

I was excited to find an Ed.D program that fit in with the career I was pursuing, only to be disappointed in the lack of support and professionalism of the professors. It is disheartening when you reach out to a professor for advice or help only to never get a response. The coursework is a joke. I repeat the same words week after week in the assignments with no true learning. If I did this in the classroom, I would be laughed out of education. It is also frustrating when the professors demand work be submitted by a deadline, but you wait 3 days, a week, two weeks before you see any grades or feedback on that assignment. Did I mention I am doing the same assignment over and over again? They just change the name of the assignment each week, and reword the instructions just a little. And this is why I am looking into transferring.

The EdD program is horrible. I feel embarrassed to say that I went to this school-- yes, it is that bad! I too was subjected to numerous degree plan changes, changes in degree specialization, vacillation in what is required during different stages of the dissertation, change of dissertation chairs for inadequacy, retaking courses because proper guidance was not specified by instructors or within the syllabi, erroneous accusations by faculty, cancelation of significant defense dates, key leaders demonstrate that they do not clearly understand doctoral program guidelines that THEY established. Horrible program, please do not do it! The entire group that I started with has quit the program and went elsewhere. Don't waste your time or money. This program will cause nothing more than an emotional rollercoaster.