Northcentral University Reviews of Master's in Psychology

"Please do yourself a favor and avoid this "School" entirely. Let me recount my experiences with this school. Class structure: You are given and assignment and told to do it. That's it. If you're lucky you'll get some individual feedback but the otherwise its 100% on you to learn the material and produce work from it. No lecture time, no office hours, and in three courses I could not get a single email response from any of my professors. I met with one professor in my very first course at the very beginning. Otherwise I have never heard, seen, or met any of my other professors in any other course. Support: Like many others here, my advisors changed rapidly and often without any notice of their departure. This is handled by NCU so poorly that they actually messed up a Leave of Absence I had for a very serious medical injury and mistakenly withdrew me from the school entirely. Now they are asking me for $2,500 because they had to give back money from my federal loans. It took about 6 months of back and forth with no less than a dozen individuals to figure out what had happened only for them to tell me that the only way I can get rid of this balance is to re-enroll. Tldr; I can't possibly articulate my distain for this institution. They fail to educate & fail to provide adequate services its really as simple as that. For your own sake please go literally anywhere else."

"I do NOT recommend this school. The 1:1 model is an absolute joke and professors will not answer your questions other than copy and pasting the assignment into the email. Anytime I’ve asked a question via email I get a 1 sentence response. You write paper after paper with no lectures or group discussion to have your professor give you an A and tell you good work. Feedback is never more than 2-3 sentences and any constructive feedback Is only around APA formatting. The professors do not put together the course work and many times the articles are inaccessible or extremely outdated. Don’t ask for help looking for an article, they will tell you that they are there to help you develop your research skills yet do absolutely nothing for you at all. The learning platform is extremely buggy and glitchy as well as their email with Outlook. I had 3 different academic advisors over the course of my 2 years in the program. I had 1 or 2 decent professors who were friendly and offered thoughtful feedback, but overall I was highly unimpressed with the professors and frankly unsure what they are paid for. If you do the assignments you’ll get an A but get used to reading 10 journal articles a week with lengthy essays each week. Overall you get what you put in but I found it challenging to learn or retain information through this program and do not see it or any use in my professional career"

"I enrolled to complete an MS in Industrial-Organizational Psychology in 2016 and ended up completing an MA in Psychology with an emphasis in Industrial-Organizational Psychology in 2018. The program structure accommodated my full-time work schedule, which was great. I could do one class at a time and finished in 2 years. My professors were easy to contact via email and phone, even when they were busy, which was good. When I started the program, I was excited to learn more about I/O Psych and really get into the applied research and testing components that grad school provides. I was ready to participate in groups and discuss employee motivations, hiring data analysis, training and leadership techniques, and all other I/O elements. I was excited to start because the program website promised work in research methods and data analysis applicable in the framework of I/O psychology and investigation of empirically supported interventions for research, administration, or practice of I/O psychology. After starting program, I realized that most of the classes were carbon copies of my undergraduate program (Child Development, Social Psychology, History and Systems, etc.) The course on Research Design offered no actual applied research. I had 2-3 actual courses that featured I/O elements but ended up writing papers just like in undergrad. In the program duration, I took one test and wrote about 95 papers and presentations. I referenced research others had done for each assignment but never performed my own research or analyzed my own data. I was instructed to do all the assignment work on my own with no partner or group interaction, which seemed counterintuitive for the purposes of the degree field. The NCU virtual commons was available, but I didn't have time with a full-time work schedule. In the end, I've received a degree that cost about $30K in loans, put my education level above potential bosses that could hire me but don't since my education is higher than theirs, and gave me no experience to use towards a better-paying or more fulfilling job, except how to really use MS Office. I wish I would've enrolled in a certification program that gave me an actual skill for a fraction of the cost instead of being led to believe that a specified MS degree with a promise of an internship post-graduation would become an MA degree with an emphasis and no internship whatsoever. Don't go for this degree unless you already have the I/O field experience. You won't get that experience here."

"Very expensive, but very convenient because classes start weekly. They expedite your paperwork extremely quickly when you apply. Assignments are graded quickly. The problem is that the student has no communication with other students in the course. Basically, it's like a self-study degree with the only the teacher's feedback on an intermittent basis. It is a very lonely way to learn. Nonetheless, if you've got the money, the school may be an option for you."

"I enjoyed most of the instructors at this school as well as learned a lot of things. Most of the lessons gave insight to current things that I was involved in on the active field. I would recommend this school to anyone. Positive experience. The lessons are tough and rigid but fair."

"I graduated with a bachelor's degree in Psychology with the intention of completing my master's at Northcentral. I had excellent professors, but that was about all. The financial department and my academic counselors had extremely poor communication. I needed to know options to continue my graduate work, but the financial adviser ended up asking ME if I knew of any scholarship programs or student load options. I spoke with one gentleman from the department in my field, and he quoted me a much higher tuition rate than my financial adviser had. In the end, I decided to attend a different to attend a different university; for the money I'm spending on my education, I want a school that has it together."

"Excellent school! Since I got my degree I have been employed in the field of psychology. I am a career coach and teach in higher education. NCU has kept me employed for over 5 years. The faculty were easy to get a hold of and easy to communicate with, they were very helpful."

"They lie. The instructors do not answer you. There is not a scholarship. This is what they use to get you to sign up. Everything they say they will do. They do not do. There is not a tablet or free book voucher. The school costs "increases magically" as soon as you enroll. And... they lie about disenrollment. So make sure they aren't still charging you."

"To anyone who is thinking of taking a course through NCU, I would very strongly suggest that you reconsider. I have completed a degree and two post graduate masters programs in other more traditional universities. Having had such positive experiences in these programs, I was completely unprepared for the NCU experience. As far as my experience went with NCU, I felt that none of the staff were invested or cared in the slightest whether I advanced my knowledge, or if In fact the whole learning experience was positive. I had terrible experiences with some of the 'teaching' staff and administration constantly changed, making it difficult to know who to go to. I strongly advise to give this place a very clear miss - avoid, at all cost."

"I applied and was accepted to two traditional brick and mortar universities right out of undergrad and I chose to attend NCU instead because I could do the work around my full time job and the cost was much lower than either of the other schools I considered. I am a very independent learner and have no problem completing the assignments on time and find the assignments clear and the course materials very helpful for every assignment. I have 3 classes left before I finish my master's degree in health psychology. I have been very please with my academic advisers as well. I have had three of them in the last year that I have been taking classes but each of them were very helpful and responsive. A lot of the bad reviews I have read seem to focus on the cost, unfair grades, or bad mentors. The cost is very reasonable compared to most universities, both online and traditional. It is not only normal for tuition to increase each year, but expected. This happens everywhere. I have only had one bad mentor experience, but I just kept in contact with my adviser and gave the mentor exactly what she requested in the feedback and comments. I would say that NCU requires more work than a traditional university each week because you are required to produce something every week to show your understanding of the material instead of simply showing up and having a discussion or completing three assignments over the course of a semester. I will say that the mentor is not a professor. They are there for questions regarding the assignment and to assess your knowledge of a given topic. They are not there to present the material to you each week. I would not recommend NCU to anyone who has trouble learning on their own or who is not familiar with word processing and presentations. For me, this was exactly what I was looking for."

"Someone has gone through a lot of trouble to make a thoughtful and relevant psychology curriculum with really great assignments and text. Too bad it is marred by their assignment to me of an adviser who takes an adversary role towards the student to look out for the quote un quote university. I have asked for a new adviser several times. The first time was when I received an email communication from this individual littered with red ink. This email destroyed my day. It is improper protocol to use red in a business communication and this person has an MBA from that school. Well I asked the entrance personnel for a new adviser they said oh she's just there for your first course,you'll get one in your department after you finish up with the introductory class. OK, I've finished. I initially contacted the adviser and was told oh yeah I'm leaving just finish your finals. OK, finished it made an A. I contacted her again than she said when you begin your new class you'll get a new adviser, no have not got one yet. What really upset me today was I received a message today on my portal in bold red letters a benign message of "NCU Library will no longer process book requests beginning December 1, 2013", but why was it written this way after four emails last night asking for a new adviser. My only comments about this University is it's really creepy and sort of makes my skin crawl. They have a great online social networking outreach going it's really fun, and I love the curriculum but those others make my skin crawl. JUST FOR THE DOLLARS"