The Art Institute of Philadelphia

Category:	University
Address:	1622 Chestnut St, Philadelphia, PA 19103
Phone:	+1 800-275-2474
Site:	artinstitutes.edu
Rating:	2.3

Location

Photos 23

Reviews 13

Mark M Rajchel

When i started the art institute of philadelphia, to my own shame, i had not done much research. i write this post in the hopes of informing the younger generations who are thinking about going to this school. at the same time i have a firm belief that within 3 years time this school will no longer be there. When i started in october of 2008, every department had a department head, we had an amazing dean of students (Dean dan!!!). i still remember there being an emergency in the middle of the night at one of the dorm locations and seeing him run down the street at like 3am to come make sure we were all ok. I remember a few good teachers when i started there. teachers that inspired us and talked to us like they were genuinly interested in where we wanted to go and actually tried to encourage us. I remember 3 huge school locations, 3 huge dorm locations. By the end of it, when i finally graduated, they had fired all the heads of departments and replaced them with one person. one person to be motivator, father and advisor for 10 different departments when (no offense to him) was not specialized in my specific department at all and could not help me in the same way that the great Jeff Otto did. The dean of students "retired" and by retired i mean was forced out, and then teachers started getting fired. One in particular was an inspiration to all of us and we fought to keep him there but the school wouldnt let it happen. instead they opted to keep the union teachers that had been there longer even though they had long given up on art and just showed us youtube videos in class instead of actually teaching us. on top of that we saw entire departments disappear by the time we had left that school. the dorms were down to, last i head, one building. the school iself is down to one building and 3 floors in another building. i have no idea if they even still have labs anymore for doing actual work. to get to the meat of this rant, the financial aid department. These people pushed parent plus loans to us like there was no other option. like it was the only loans we should have. they didnt give us a bunch of options and help us weigh those options. they would just get the paperwork fro another parent plus loan and say sign here. When i got out of school and started looking at all this infomation, i found out that parent plus loans are suppose to be used as a last ditch effort loan. career services did not really have connections like they advertise. they would give you a list of possible internship options and ideas of how to look for them. it was the equivolant of telling us to go on craigslist and apply for volunteer positions. nothing wrong with volunteering at all but searching craigslist? what happened to the connections AI supposedly had? makes you wonder. same went for job placement. I got lucky. i will be the first to admit that. I am an animator working just outside of Philadelphia and i am very proud of the work i do and grateful every single day of my life that i have a job, but i have way too many friends far more talented then myself, who can not find work. I know people in California who work for very good studios who have told me straight up that if they see a resume from the art institutes, 9/10 they pass over it. they dont even give you a bachelor of arts. you get a bachelor of science. this is a for profit school. most of the teachers really care about the students, but their parent company, education management co. is mostly owned by goldman sachs. from the top to the bottom everything is focused around the money. mark my works, they will bleed their students and their teachers dry until that school disappears and my diploma becomes a collectors item from a once great school that failed because greed overtook it. i wish i could have gone there when it was a much better place. at the same time, anywhere you are put in life is an opportunity waiting to be had. it was a bad school but it enables me to use software and hardware i did not previously have access to.but there are other, better, accredited schools

Geoff Lichy

Do your research and make sure that you absolutely know you will want to go to this school. Some of the degree programs are okay but others are absolute disasters. Animation for example: you will only ever have a couple of teachers throughout your entire 3 years (assuming you take 20+ 4-hour classes a year and pass all of them or else it will take longer than their advertised 3 years) and not all of them are qualified to be teaching. Many of the teachers are part of a special union that makes sure they can never be fired, no matter how rude or incompetent they may be for students. Overall this is an overpriced school where you receive a sub-par education in a field where you do not need to go to college to work in said field. The school housing is also extremely poor - overpriced and low quality. Personally my experiences with the school were good (except dealing with the finance office and all other administrative offices) but others have not had the same experience. I would give this for-profit school a C- for a grade but I have close friends who would give it an F. The Art Institute of Philadelphia is not worth going to, overall, unless you have a lot of spare money. If you need to get loans... forget it, dealing with this school can be nightmarish. Read the other reviews here (and other places) to get a good idea of things. And watch out for the fake reviews, they should be pretty obvious.

A Private User

If you want to go to a school with no accreditation and no chance of furthering your degree go to the Art Institute. If you want to go to a subpar college go to the Art Institute. If you absolutely cannot get into any other college go to the Art Institute. If you want to go to a class late because you were at work and want points taken off your entire grade go to the Art Institute. If you want to live in the dorms and have the guards stand there like bouncers because you missed your curfew then go to the Art Institute. If you want to graduate with a meaningless degree, have close to a hundred thousand dollars in student loans and NOT be able to get a job because employers prefer a student from a real college go to the Art Institute.

Cris Lopez

my expirience in this school is the horrible the way the people treat horribly and it is a mediocre education thatthey offer and dont get me started with all the loans they want to charge you and receiving a bill that goes up and never manages to decrease no matter how much you pay.... the housing is disgusting likefilthy there rats an insects... the general ed is pointless like is more money to pay for classes you take in high school which has no sense credits are non tranferable it is really a waste of time... im just advising who ever reads this please do your research before going to thisschool like i did its a total waste of time..

Mike

This school is terrible in almost every category it provides. Im a Animation student here and my experience with the school for about 2 years of attending has not been a good one. The facility struggles to provide the required software that the students need to get assignments done. The financial department is constantly making mistakes on payments. Classrooms are cramped up with too much stuff which is very unconformable for all paying students.

Jacqueline Sarricchio

Although i did gain a lot of knowledge in photography, and gained some credits, I honestly wish I never attended this school. The schools tuition is a joke, and they only care about the money. If you are thinking of attending this school, change your mind. Not to mention I had a professor who was rude, and unprofessional.

Assim De Gabriel Ahamed

My experience in this school so far is great. This is my first quarter and I am doing fashion design. Their program are very accelerated and you have to be committed otherwise you will fail. The bottom line "YOU WORK HARD, YOU GET SUCCESSFUL AND MORE BIG CHANCES TO GET BIG JOBS."

A Private User

service is horrible over the phone, you have to be in person everytime to get anything done, paper work can be late, unexpected holds make class registration late.... i just may transfer..... other than that, im gonna get through to get my name out there, just not here....

Kaia Loken

I was told I had to go full time and take loans or I would make insufficient progress to a degree, so I could not take the classes that interested me.

홍찬기

The Art Institute, Philadelphia, designed by Gabriel Blum Roth and Harry Sternfeld, 1934.

Erica E

no stars ..they are scamming people out of there money

Zach Graham

Bunch of retards running this place.

Bryan Halligan

Had fun visit like always