Walden University Reviews of Doctoral in Educational Leadership

I loved Walden for my MSED and for most of my EdD program. I would have given Walden five stars, except my EdD experience was a money pit with a doctoral chair that didn't catch some important pieces of my prospectus that I needed to fix until after I had invested quite a bit of time and money. Walden can be a great school, but be careful when something starts seeming off because it is easy to get taken to the ringer financially by Walden whether it's through their staff or their withdrawal process.... Read More

The doctoral process at this university is one that will drain your bank account or exponentially grow your student loan debt as the university has it's doctoral students spinning their wheels making minimal progress and holding students back. I've compared my work at Walden to students in similar programs at other universities, the work I've done would have been accepted at these other universities. I have several cohort members that are finding the same experience, as well as my spouse who is also... Read More frustrated at the universities policies and approach with doctoral candidates. The feedback received is; change this and you'll be good to move on.When you resubmit they will advise you to change something you changed 3 edits ago and they said was good, but now the chair wants it revised again differently, and the student seems to not make progress forward. Very frustrating to say the least.

I was told the tuition was around $40K; my bill stands at over $100K. The reason for the delay was through the dissertation process. The school has a URR steps process in which you must complete (sequentially) to finish your paper. Each step must be approved in order to move on. My first chair got me nearly to the end of the steps where I needed to schedule my final oral review. That's when he resigned due to a disagreement with the dept. head. A month went by before my second chair even contacted... Read More me, and then another month before my oral was scheduled. Their policy is that a committee member has 14 days to respond, but mine wasn't the case. Finally after my oral was accepted, my URR also approved my final work for the fourth time during this process. Each step causes more and more time to elapse, which equals higher tuition costs. My last step was the CAO's signature. He wanted me to make a few changes to the abstract, no biggie, so I got the director in Walden's editing dept. to help. Then my paper was completed. However, instead of sending it back to the CAO, I was notified that my URR was fired and I got a new one. I didn't care because I was finished. But--the paper went back to him, and he DISAPPROVED what had already been approved on 32 steps with 0% matches on the TTI report! So instead of graduating that next week, he had me change 55 pages AND take a writing course!!! Still, very little communication from my chair, so they fired her, too. Here we go again! I had a phone conference with the entire committee and dept. head, and we finally resolved to change just "three things." I did...again, again, and again. More changes. Then four months later, I resubmitted my final AGAIN and my URR wanted me to change pages that he himself had already approved! Ridiculous! Two months later, by the grace of God, I graduated. My advice: Do NOT get your doctorate from Walden! The stress it caused was not worth it. And now I have a $100 bill to deal with for the rest of my life. Total deception.

I began attending Walden after a great deal of research. I discovered that Walden is only out to make money. They say that student learning is their top priority but money is their to priority. I had to send numerous complaint e-mails to have interaction with my chair. After writing an entire doctoral study, I was told that I had the wrong format and that I would have to rewrite the entire paper. Throughout this process other members of my group dropped out because they could not get the support... Read More they needed to complete the process. When you make complaints, you get a form letter response or a scripted response. They will not admit to their mistakes and it cost you money. I am glad that some of the posters had great experiences but I have been living in a never ending nightmare. My advice would be to pick another school because Walden will not help you be successful.