Bachelor of Science in Business/Administration

Bob Bulanda September 26, 2006 at 10:42 p.m.

I entered the University of Phoenix in Fall 2005 to finally finish my Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, which I had placed on hold about 15 years prior. In retrospect, I should have taken warning after a University of Phoenix recruiter repeatedly called and e-mailed me numerous times, in response to my filling out an information-request form. I have to admit, the sales pitch was very good, and I fell for it. I then enrolled in the University of Phoenix, which was mostly financed through student loans. The University of Phoenix is very efficient at processing financial aid for their students, as government-guaranteed loans and grants are their main source of revenue.

I took Introduction to Finance and Elementary Statistics, and easily made grades of "A" in both. I immediately noticed that I was able to write and communicate with far greater skill then my instructors, and that students who were producing mediocre results were often just as likely to get grades of "A" and "B" as those students who worked hard. In my second round of classes, I slacked off on the quality of my work quite a bit, and to no surprise I still found myself receiving grades of "A" on almost everything I submitted.

The bottom line: I breezed through 28 semester hours of University of Phoenix coursework, and decided to leave the program for one with a better reputation. I then applied and was accepted to the online Bachelor's degree completion program with the University of Illinois at Springfield. It came as quite a shock to learn the University of Illinois is only accepting 6 of the 28 semester hours I completed at the University of Phoenix, despite my having earned a 4.0 GPA in the Phoenix courses. The University of Illinois credentials evaluator said there are many students that have encountered this same problem, because most "legitimate" schools simply do not accept credits from the University of Phoenix, because the academic standards at Phoenix are very low.

So proceed with caution fellow students. The University of Phoenix is one of the most slickly marketed schools in the country. But underneath the slick marketing is an open-admissions school that admits virtually everybody, along with very low academic standards, and there are many schools that will not accept their course credits. It cost me over $10,000 in student loans to learn this lesson. Needless to say, if I had it to do over again, I wish I never heard of the University of Phoenix. The whole experience was a very expensive waste of time.

AZ November 29, 2006 at 5:59 a.m.

Bob, that seems odd on the credit transfer. Not that I am a big fan of UOP, but they are regionally accredited, and as far as my experience, regionally accredited credits were fairly interchangeable, as long as you weren't going from engineering to art history or something equally unrelated.

Did the evaluator give any more detail? Just curious

T March 31, 2007 at 4:04 a.m.

Bob, I would like to know the program you were enrolled in at UOP, and the program you transferred to at Univ of Illinois. Was it in the same field? Business, IT, Engineering? I also thought (just like AZ) that if a school is regionally accredited the credits would transfer. I received my undergraduate from UOP, however I did not take any online classes and I feel the same as you about the grading system. I am currently researching different schools to enroll for my MBA. Just curious about your experience.

John C. August 4, 2007 at 2:05 p.m.

One more thing- I am not sure how Bob knew everyone else's grades. My guess is that he asked. Guess what? If you ask someone, "Hey, what did you get?" they are likely going to inflate their grade. I know people in many of my classes struggled. I helped some of them so I know.

Jay C. November 27, 2007 at 5:58 a.m.

To the original writer Bob, seems to me you should have researched your educational options prior to enrolling at UOP. You enrolled in the school for a reason and I am sure it was the fact you were not accepted any where else. I was able to fully transfer my credits without any problem. UOP offered an exceptional BA program that was very challenging and more than prepared me for my MBA program at Cal State Long Beach(AACSB)who accepted my UOP credits and yes, I put both down on my resume. Do not let Bob or these types of people fool you!! You must do your own research prior to attending college or a university. Do not go off the experiences solely from people off the internet. The internet is the greatest tool for spreading propaganda and saying that UOP is not an excellent school is one of them. Do your own research, talk with all the schools you have in mind and the right one will come.

Lady M December 1, 2007 at 5:50 p.m.

I'm currently attending U of P and most of the people I have met that have graduated from this University have been successful finding jobs in their field of study. I am near to the end of my program and I am getting e-mails from employers regarding my upcoming graduation.

Now I don't know when any of you attended U of P but I'm currently a student and I am noticing that they are making so many changes to their programs. Their online student service has become pleasantly "user friendly" whereas in the past it was not very user friendly at all. Now you can chat with your classmates, receive grades, post assignments all in one spot! I'm loving it!

U of P is regionally accredited and I was made aware of this at Open House! But many people do not pay attention when they first get started. The reason the school cannot acquire "national" accreditation is because they are not a traditional "brick and mortar" school with a FULL service library. In this regard U of P will NEVER acquire national accreditation because their libraries are "online" libraries and "online" libraries do not qualify by national accreditation standards. But since they DO qualify by regional standards U of P has sought out and acquired accreditation in every region on the map! So they got around it anyway in a most ingenious manner!

Most of the haters of U of P are disgruntled students and competing University's who are alarmed at U of P's ever growing enrollment rates. Now I don't know every disgruntled student but the one's I have run into are usually unhappy because the school would not bend rules for them and they thought that because the school is a "non-traditional" college that they should let their standards fall by the wayside for students who are looking to get over with little or no effort.

Those students that I know who are happy with U of P are students who put forth good effort. These students follow rules and regulations of the university without trying to get over. These students tend to take the education received at U of P seriously and these people like myself end up getting great jobs in their field of study. While the complainers complain and end up dropping out!

My two cents!

UOP Grad February 2, 2008 at 5:21 a.m.

What one gets from UOP is what one puts into it. UOP requires a self motivated, disciplined, mature person who can make the time to research and learn. UOP was implemented for working adults in the workforce. UOP is not for the new high-school grad as they usually are not mature enough to benefit or appreciate the format.

I began college right after high-school at a brick-and-mortar college and could sit through the whole semester without contributing anything and still receive an A. At UOP I could NEVER get away with this. Each student must contribute to the learning environment.

The teams set up for UOP classes are much like you would work with others in the workforce. There are always those that do not contribute to the team and still get the same grade as other team members, just as some of my co-workers slack off and still get paid!

Bottom line is education is all about applying the material you learn and the school has little to do with your success! I work for a well-known defense contractor and they use UOP for all their training programs for already degreed professionals employed at the company.

I am a graduate of UOP and now make almost $20K more than before I earned my degree. I've also worked for several large companies and the hiring managers have said it does not matter where you get your degree as long as it is from an accredited college. Just like an employer is not going to ask you what grade you got in a specific class, they don't care if you earned an "A" or a "B" or if you have a perfect GPA. Most employers just want to be able to verify your degree that you claim to have earned.

Ian February 16, 2008 at 11:32 p.m.

I've been attending UoP now for over a year pursuing my undergrad in business management. I don't want to burst Bob's bubble but just because you breeze through a program does not mean it's a poor program that doesn't provide an education.

I'm not sure what you do for a living, but experience often provides a degree without the paper. I've worked in marketing/sales development in a Fortune 100 company at the middle management level for just under 10 years now. I can unequivocally attest that every class I've had so far is extremely relevant and up to date. In fact a fellow coworker is pursuing the same degree and was using the same curriculum as I was in a previous class (he was going to the University of Minnesota Business School - Carleton).

As for classmates, every single one so far that I've ran into that wasn't willing to put in significant effort has dropped out. I've also attended business classes at the University of St. Thomas through work and found their classes to be equal challenge.

You get what you put into the program.

I do agree with some of the above posters that the UoP has to do some branding around the quality of the program. Most of my colleagues are MBAs from Yale, Harvard, Chicago and the like. Those people and others, do not want to have their degrees lessened by a school such as UoP. However, those schools (in my opinion) and their graduates do not impress me at all. Again, I work with many of their graduates. The reason they don't impress me is the fact that they accept two types of people, legacy students (daddy has money and went here) and the cream of the crop from other schools.

How difficult is it to educate those that have already proven they are the top 1% of a previous class? They've proven their work-ethic and that they will stop at nothing to succeed. These schools recruit the best and turn out the "best". So they've moved the bar how much? What did the school do for these people other than allow them access to a brand stamp on their resume?

What impresses me is a school that is open enrollment that takes in students that either 1) pursued a career before a degree or 2) didn't apply themselves at a point in time to impress an Ivy school or 3) insert many other reasons here, and THEN teaches these people about business or their field of study.
So, take average adults and turn them into graduates, how much did UoP move the bar?

In the end other schools are threatened by UoP. A school that provides and equal or better education to those that previously didn't have access for whatever reason. The UoP is competition, of course these schools will seek to differentiate, even if its through discrediting the school. Those with business knowledge (see degree) could not disagree.

Merv Johnston March 20, 2008 at 5:40 p.m.

I just read in the UOP student catalog under

Maximum Credit Load:

Undergraduate students may earn a maximum of 39 credits in a twelve (12) month period.

Credits attempted and earned beyond the maximum allowable
limits will be transcripted but will not apply toward degree completion requirements. Courses taken concurrently at other institutions will not be counted towards this total and will not be limited in any way.

So my question is, if I take two courses at a time to acceletarate my degree, it wont count after 39 cr hrs in 12 months? Why is the university stopping me from graduating earlier? How can they not count the courses I have taken at UOP towards graduation? It seems unfair and crazy. Has anyone taken more than 39 cr hrs in 1 yr, and can they tell me what were their experience? Thanks. Merv

Penny October 11, 2008 at 12:55 a.m.

I left the US Navy with the equivalent of an associate's degree in lower division classes taken at various colleges and ship board taught courses. UoP accepted all my transfer credits, gave me a few additional elective credits for my military experience, and was compatible with a 50+ hr/wk work schedule so I signed up. Honestly, I wish I had waited a few years until online programs had caught on with more credible schools. The UoP upper division business courses were challenging in design and I did learn, but only because I was an employed, mature mid-level manager that had experienced colleagues to support me. The grading is a joke, but I did not realized this right away as I felt I had earned my A's. The truth became apparent when my baby daughter passed away and I was definitely not producing quality work for a few classes. Amazingly (or sadly not), I still managed to get As. Two years after I graduated I applied to Upper Iowa University for the Masters of Public Administration program and they would not accept several of my UoP courses. I ended up taking a year of pre-requisite courses including a repeat of elementary statistics and micro-economics. The MPA program at UIU was well designed, had engaged and dedicated instructors, and some classmates did receive failing grades. UoP can not even compare to UIU in quality of education. I had a rude awakening when an instructor early in the program harshly criticized one of my research papers and replied to me in bold "Where did you get your undergrad degree from?". Whoa! Maybe it was just one of those awakenings that happens going into master's level courses where more is expected, but it did dig at me to some degree. I work in public service now, and when people ask me where I went to college...I say Upper Iowa University and leave UoP out of it if at all possible.

Carlos December 5, 2008 at 3:17 a.m.

Does any one haven't had a problem transferring their undergraduate credits into a traditional university for a graduate program?

NY December 30, 2008 at 5:41 a.m.

So Neil your saying you could get an aa degree from UoP and transfer to a 4 year?
Anyways, I definetly agree that UoP gets a bad rep and I hate to see that because I have family that attend and love it. I myself would love to eventually get into school but not right now at least.
Good luck to those in school!