ECPI University

Please Sir or Madam, As a retired serviceman I am pleading with you not to waste your time. I first went to ECPI in 2006 for CCNA to which I completed the course after having 3 different instructors. They left because they obtained jobs in the IT field...and so here we are 9 years later and once again the class I was enrolled in lose its instructor and they had several people to sit in and class sit the students for the remainder of the term. By the way speaking of term pay attention to what you're signing should you decide to go here - I already have a bachelors degree and wanted obtain something in Network Security. They had me to take their orientation class and wanted me to enroll in English as well. They told me that the orientation class is required and until they had my official transcripts I would have to take English. I got a waiver for that but these folks will pick your classes and be serious about not letting you select what you think you can handle based on your personal schedule. As I stated earlier beware what you sign. I took the one class and decided that I had enough of ECPI's mess. Well that 3 hour class has cost 1,958.00. The finance department told me that they bill by the semester and when you breakdown the total cost for the semester... That's 1,838 for the class and 120.00 fee for the learning resource. That 120.00 dollar cost breaks down like this: Books and a used I-pad, however, there were no books for ECPIs orientation class. Again RIPOFF ALERT...DON'T BE TAKEN - GO ELSE WHERE. Robert. goodluck!

Very hands on and instructors were great.

I highly suggest that if you go to the Manassas campus that you go somewhere else for a Network Security degree. All you have to do is look up 'ECPI employer' reviews to see that the staff here hates their jobs. First, the teachers for network security are hired because the staff doesnt care. I have taken classes where the professors dont know what theyre talking about and just beat around the bush. Classes are 8-1..you RARELY ever go to labs and get no hands on experience..all you do is sit in a classroom for 5 hours and get lectured. I have spoken to almost every student here and they all agree that GOOGLE.COM is their best friend because no one gets any knowledge from the teachers. From my freshman orientation class, i am the last one standing. It seems as though 90% of students here quit and transfer to make use of their time. The academic advisor for network security is no good. She never follows up on Emails -ever! I think ive emailed her 15 times since i have attended and have only gotten 2 replies, only because I kept bothering her..just shows the staff is lazy and doesnt care and just wants their crappy paycheck. There is a high rotation of professors. For the first few months I have had the same professor (who is the advisor) she has an accent, doesnt explain much but expects you to do a lot. Ever since, i have a new professor, and never see the old ones either because of termination or they quit cause this place sucks. The terms are 10 classes but only last 5 weeks, but in reality, its only 7-8 classes in 5 weeks. The first class you dont do much, the midterm you get to leave right after sometimes and then the final you leave right after..then you start a whole new subject in networking. Unless you have no life, no job, then maybe a 5 week term of sitting at home and reading 24-7 is ok but with a FT job its hard to..plus having a new class every 5 weeks of about 7-8 classes, you will not retain any information. YOU DONT GO TO LABS, they lie about that. I am almost done with school and the only thing i will thank is google and studying on my own and youtube videos. STAY AWAY and save your money!!

I attended the Manassas campus for two semesters a few years back and both of them were a joke. The faculty was not only unable to teach classes because there was no faculty available to teach many of the core college courses, but the campus itself had no real infrastructure or equipment for the Information Technology program that wasn't ten years out of date while the Medical program had whatever they needed. All the money was being made by the Medical Instruction program that churns out nurses and such, which meant that the Information Technology program got little in the way of resources and support. The main IT teacher was a man by the name of Daryoush Shafigi, an Iranian immigrant with absolutely no technical background other than an alleged degree from some Iranian university that couldn't be verified. He not only didn't speak English well, he had NO grasp whatsoever of technical concepts and his lessons were mostly unconnected gibberish he got from someone else that he strung together to fill the lesson time. Add to that his failing health - he's now dead and buried - and a serious inability to answer any technical questions, and you have a recipe for disaster. The other IT instructor, who taught the Cisco/Network stuff, was a guy they hired who runs an IT business out of his house in Loudoun County and he not only couldn't teach the classes well, he took phone calls from his customers and routinely broke up class to take smoke breaks or to disappear for 15-20 minutes at a time with no explanations or apologies. When I brought it up with the new campus President - the old one was ousted in an internal battle - he didn't give a damn and just rolled his eyes like I was wasting his time. Total waste of money, which is why their Admissions people are paid as "Sales Person". Also, ECPI is not straight on how much their tuition and materials cost and it is certainly far more expensive than going to a local community college for better instruction. Credits from ECPI also do not transfer to other schools and vise-versa, as ECPI is not part of the collective school systems in any state. From what I read online they are now sending debt collection agents after students who leave the ECPI program, trying to collect mysterious "unpaid fees", and I have been getting calls on my cell phone from mysterious debt collection agencies in the last six months though I haven't spoken to any of them for fear of them trying to take me to court like they have others. ECPI itself has been no help in getting a straight answer about any of it but I know that I don't owe them any money because I have records that state I paid everything in person in the finance office, including my separation costs. My advice is to avoid them at all costs! They will take advantage of you, especially if you are low-income, naieve, or have GI Bill/Government assistance to spend on their trash.

let me start by saying: my husband is an army veteran, with combat injuries. he is using his voc. rehab money, along with the FAFSA grant. That grant gives you a certain amount of money for school -per semester-. HOWEVER!! ECPI doesnt want to give us the money. We revieved an email 2 weeks ago telling us that our FAFSA money is at the school for us. He went to ask about getting it and was told he could not have it at this time. ECPI sent him an email later on saying that his semester would end SOMETIME between August 30 - December 3! How stupid does an admin have to be to not be able to count semester weeks. I looked it up and found out that his 1st semester is due to end at the beginning of August! Right now they are looking like crooks...but we will see what they say when his semester actually does in before I proclaim that they actually are in deed that!

It’s a pretty good school. As long as you stay awake and study it’s a cakewalk. Or at least it was for me. Job placement afterwards, in the IT field, was awesome. Not sure about the medical side as I am a computer whiz. Dave had me an interview setup during my internship. I was finished in June, 2010 and had an IT job less than a month later. I have absolutely no complaints with this place and will recommend it to anyone. PS: the place is SACS accredited, so most or all of your credits transfer. I learned the hard way by trying ITT Tech for a few months.

Materials were paid for in my tuition, but ECPI has apparently changed that and now tuition and books are separate. Some of the books were the study guides for certifications (A+, Security+, CCNA) which helps set you up for taking those test as well as getting your degree. Most of the teachers were good and helped out the students whenever possible, even late at night; others were only available during "office hours" and not on weekends. Support I did not really have to use, except with doing some of the labs in which I was dealing with the provider of the labs support and not ECPI's direct support. ECPI stated that Satellite internet was sufficient to complete the degree online, but with the labs I had issues and had to go elsewhere (Library, Starbucks, etc) to use their internet because of connection issues with some of the labs as I was told satellite internet drops too many packets. I dinged ECPI on Value because they are expensive in my opinion. I walked in with an AAS already and they took 34 of those credits. As of September 2009 full time (12 - 18 credits) ran $6,550, Textbook and Learning Resources ran $225, Registration - $100 (one time). So every 15 weeks you are charged $6,775, so a BS degree would cost around $45,000 (121 credits) and an AS would be around $23,000. I used my GI Bill and paid $1,000 a month from that, and transfered in my credits from my AAS and with Financial Aid I actually did not pay anything out of pocket (if GI Bill is not counted as out of pocket). So I was able to keep about $500 a month from my GI Bill. Use of technology - I feel that they used technology well for being online. I had to install and/or download different applications they provided which allowed me to do the tasks on the computer, but I believe that in seat you would be able to have the equipment in front of you (during the networking class I was given software that allowed me to configure virtual switches, in seat I would assume you would have actual Cisco switches and routers to run the commands on).