Northcentral University Reviews

It would have been better to simply go on the web a buy a Ph.D. diploma. This school is a joke! After getting absolutely no useful feedback in my first few assignments / classes, I began to experiment with just how closely the mentors were reading. Papers I submitted with intentional and glaring scholarly writing errors came back with "A" grades.

The only critical feedback I got was on my adherence to APA style guidelines. According to the NCU mentors, I'm an absolute genius - I never received critical / corrective feedback irregarless of the outlandish statements I made - every assignment I've done got a 95% or higher grade!

If you want a useful course which will prepare you for educational leadership, this isn't it. I'm an administrator with 10+ years of leadership experience, and 20 years in education.

This school will not prepare you to effectively lead a school... it won't prepare you for anything except high loan payments, and how to deal with disappointment.

This school is a train wreck- disorganized, at best. The school originally offered flexible assignment submission schedules- basically, work at your own pace. Under pressure to hold on to its accreditation, the school switched to mandatory due dates and did not grandfather existing students under this policy. If you signed up for this school because of its flexibility, you're done.

Quality of instruction is nonexistent. There are no presentations to review, no guidance on understanding content, nada. You order your books and tackle the work alone with no instruction- each course is self-taught, with a mentor who grades assignments and, if you're lucky and get a decent one, will answer questions if you have them. And the books are just about useless, because you'll be spending the bulk of your time writing papers, and will have to research everything.

So, about these research papers. Papers, papers, papers! Papers for everyone! Finance major? Write a million papers! Accounting major? A million papers for you too! I could have had a flipping PhD by now with all the research and writing I've done at this ridiculous school. If I wanted to write a million papers, I'd have been an English major. As a working adult with a family, I don't have time to write a dissertation on every subject. Lastly, syllabi are generic, loaded with errors, and rarely updated... and if you ask for clarification, the mentors will cite the syllabus and tell you they didn't write it but have to enforce it, and so you're pretty much S.O.L.

If the quality of education isn't enough to scare you away, beware of the financial pitfalls associated with this school. Tuition is constantly increasing, with no changes to course content or the school's technology (by the way, the university's website is outdated and nearly useless). The financial aid department is slower than molasses to process your funds, to the point where you'll wonder if you're going to be dropped before your courses are paid. They're also constantly coming up with new excuses to hold students' stipends... hope you aren't looking to buy food or pay your rent with your stipend, because you'll be starving and homeless before you actually get the money. The University also set up a nice deal for itself with Sallie Mae (another horrible business) wherein students either have to sign up for an account with Sallie Mae in order to get electronic disbursements to that account, or wait five billion years to receive a paper check.

I wish I'd listened to the negative reviews that called this university a correspondence school, because that's exactly what it is.

If you choose to enroll here, I wish you luck because you're certainly going to need it!

Northcentral University snagged me up back in 2009 when a friend of mine told me I could get my doctorate without having a residency. This was a huge draw for me because I was raising 3 daughters and didn't want to miss a moment of their exciting lives. I'm also very picky about the impact my actions have on my daughters lives. Getting to graduation before they graduated high school would mean they'd see the true value of the accomplishments.

I transfered from University of Phoenix (where I had received my BSM) and re-started my Masters. At first I thought I would transfer my credits, but when I realized how much more knowledge I was retaining by having a much more focused learning experience, I knew I needed to complete all of the coursework for the Masters. It was only 10 classes and it ended up taking me less than two years to get it.

I was so proud walking across the stage having my then 15, 14, and 12 year old girls cheer for me. It was a great honor to be a role model to them. I will continue into my doctorate program at NCU and hope to have the same success and impact on those around me.

It doesn't really matter if the mentors all have PhD's if all they do is focus on APA style. I'm not trying to obtain a degree in APA and yet if I get any feedback at all it is almost consistently on nitpicky little APA style problems.

This isn't the biggest issue though, please take note! The issue is that the instructors have no input on the syllabus and are not held accountable for what is in the syllabus. Several of my instructors seem to think that they can ignore the syllabus and hold me responsible for requirements not listed therein.

The syllabi were rewritten when the school went from a 12 week to an 8 week format for the courses and I have found issues with sloppy syllabi yet my mentor will not take my concerns seriously whatsoever. I filed a grievance with the school and have not received any response that would indicate they are dealing with these issues. I cannot wait to be done, and I will never have dealings with this institution in the future.

I am currently enrolled at NCU. I am currently in my 7th course, one year in to the degree. Up to now my experience has been positive. Enrolling was easy. Very friendly personnel helped me to start, we set up a phone call and I was shown step by step how to deal with the web site, submitting assignments, etc. My first course, which was sort of a "welcome to doctoral studies" type of thing was very good and I had a very nice mentor.

It is for self motivated people. You have to do things on your own but your mentor is there to answer your questions and provide guidance if needed. Some students may have more interaction than others. Some mentors are more involved than others and provide more extensive comments than others. But this is normal in any kind of learning experience. My bachelors and masters degree from a traditional and highly regarded university was also an "on my own" experience. Traditional universities don't guarantee hands-on and willing to teach professors.

My experience with NCU has been very good up to now both administratively and academically.