I enrolled in the graduate level space studies program. My experience with the first course was such that I cancelled my registration by the third week and withdrew from APUS. The APUS business model is much mindless busy work for the students (constant posting and mandatory responses in discussion groups) with little input from instructors.
The space studies course was worse than this, however. The instructor did not read the papers. He merely assigned grades on the basis of Turnitin with no consideration of how Turnitin actually functions. Entire bibliographies were counted as “plagiarism” because somebody else on the planet cited the same source.
Turnitin deducts “plagiarism” points for three-word sequences that, again, match a three-word sequence of someone else’s paper. The instructor’s response to all this was to recommend rewriting the paper in a contorted, stilted manner so that Turnitin would not flag it. The instructor was actually demanding that students write broken English so that he would not have to do any work.
These defective papers will eventually become part of the capstone project at the end of the program, to be held against the students when they present such defective work to a prospective employer.
I also took the first course in the graduate level history program. In this case, the instructor actually read the papers, made meaningful comments and assigned appropriate grades. However, most of the course was posting and commenting on irrelevant issues. Given the nature of the students, many of these posts were virtual signaling and moral grandstanding, not cogent comments on the subject matter. My sense was that this was more of an ideology course than a history course.
I advise avoiding APUS. Their low tuition comes at a cost: busy work that does not enhance learning and barely any instructor involvement. Even worse, they use Turnitin as an excuse to assign poor grades to good work. I suppose it gives them the illusion of rigor.
It is with regret and frustration that I write the following review. I am at present, a senior level student majoring in Accounting at American Military University. My current GPA is 3.9587 with two and a half classes left until I'm finished. I have had only a couple good experiences with APU/AMU Accounting courses and a mountain of bad experiences. The publisher, the school, relies on heavily for their course materials in the accounting classes, is Pearson Publishers. I have found the publishers quiz and test materials to contain errors yet each time I presented these errors to AMU, the attitude was like, so what, no publisher is perfect. The sad part is that students pay the price for these errors by way of grade point deductions.
During one course I complained when the Professor kept ignoring my requests to credit my grade, for an error on the course materials. I had sent the Professor five messages over a week long period, asking for credit. Getting no reply to my messages, I contacted the head of the schools accounting program. The latter action led to the Professor getting miffed, after which he entered my grade book and began lowering grades that had been given weeks earlier. In the end, I complained to the school's academics office, about the improper grade changes and as expected, I received no response. So basically the grades I busted my a** to get are simply worthless trash in the minds of this for profit university's staff.
All along the way, I have found most of this schools accounting courses to be thrown together haphazardly. All that truly matters is that the school makes a buck. Some of the Professors truly care and work with you to make sense out of the poorly designed courses while many more of the Professors are also along for the money only. Once I am finished, I will likely not walk for the diploma as the school itself has turned what should have been a great experience, into years of nothing short of worthless s*** and horrible experiences.
If you happen to be a great student looking for a great school experience and perhaps Latin Honors to boot, pick another school. This school has continually cheated me out of deserved GPA points and are well aware they did. With only two and a half courses left, there is simply no way I can earn the points back they stole from me. In the latter, my GPA was a 3.9560 before my finishing ACCT400 with a blistering 99.8% yet all that grade did was move me from a 3.9560 to a 3.9587. Do the math; there is no way I could ever begin to get the points back the school robbed me of. As I write this review, I have just begun ACCT420 and already the quizzes that are supposed to follow the textbook chapters yet stray about as far from the chapters as possible. Complaints relative to the latter will result in zero changes, and the end outcome will be another APU/AMU substandard designed course that prevents students from attaining the grade they would normally attain.
In conclusion, if you're serious about your education and wish to do as well as you truly can, avoid APU/AMU. If you choose this school, you'll find yourself cheated just like me. This school is in the game of education, for a profit and nothing more. My review here has been accurate and 100% honest. It is to late for any chance at Latin Honors for myself, and I'm hoping by posting this review AMU/APU will not make it that same way for you. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs spent thousands of tax dollars on my AMU education and in return I received AMU's lusy experience, poorly designed programs and their we could give a s*** less about your efforts, attitude. To AMU I say you can shove my 3.9587 up your worthless a**es and wipe with my degree.
This is a first time problem with not receiving my refund, I have been waiting 2 months and I'm getting no where. Between dealing with the vocational rehab and the financial department, I keep getting "I'm forwarding this to blah blah blah". I'm calling everyday to see what the problem is and what I need to do and it's so frustrating! It should be taking this long to get an answer. On the other hand, I love the program I'm in and the classes.
This School is a scam and I dont undesrstand why they are still in business?
Why are they still getting funding?
Why are they able to send you around in circles in a pyramid scheme with substandered teachers who have no intention of teaching you, instead if you ask your instructor what to do what is expected they tell you they can't tell you and this is OKAY?
This is the US we live in?
This school is horrible!!!!!!!!!
The instructors who you can't see play muliple games with students and fail them so they can be stuck in the school and end up paying out of pocket.
My degree has been completely useless to me and I'm already fighting to have my loans discharged. They can play all the games they want, but with this much complaints, individuals SHOULD NOT have to pay them back at all given the uselessness of the degree, the substandard teaching, the lies, the deception, the revengeful way of dealing with students, and a whole host of other immature, disgusting practices. Luckily I kept proff of everything. If you go here, you are going to get what i'm saying but youll be to far in the pit to back away so best to just stay away and save your pockets and that headache you are definitely going to get.
American Public University System Reviews
I enrolled in the graduate level space studies program. My experience with the first course was such that I cancelled my registration by the third week and withdrew from APUS. The APUS business model is much mindless busy work for the students (constant posting and mandatory responses in discussion groups) with little input from instructors.
The space studies course was worse than this, however. The instructor did not read the papers. He merely assigned grades on the basis of Turnitin with no consideration of how Turnitin actually functions. Entire bibliographies were counted as “plagiarism” because somebody else on the planet cited the same source.
Turnitin deducts “plagiarism” points for three-word sequences that, again, match a three-word sequence of someone else’s paper. The instructor’s response to all this was to recommend rewriting the paper in a contorted, stilted manner so that Turnitin would not flag it. The instructor was actually demanding that students write broken English so that he would not have to do any work.
These defective papers will eventually become part of the capstone project at the end of the program, to be held against the students when they present such defective work to a prospective employer.
I also took the first course in the graduate level history program. In this case, the instructor actually read the papers, made meaningful comments and assigned appropriate grades. However, most of the course was posting and commenting on irrelevant issues. Given the nature of the students, many of these posts were virtual signaling and moral grandstanding, not cogent comments on the subject matter. My sense was that this was more of an ideology course than a history course.
I advise avoiding APUS. Their low tuition comes at a cost: busy work that does not enhance learning and barely any instructor involvement. Even worse, they use Turnitin as an excuse to assign poor grades to good work. I suppose it gives them the illusion of rigor.
I use to defend APU/AMU, but no more.
It is with regret and frustration that I write the following review. I am at present, a senior level student majoring in Accounting at American Military University. My current GPA is 3.9587 with two and a half classes left until I'm finished. I have had only a couple good experiences with APU/AMU Accounting courses and a mountain of bad experiences. The publisher, the school, relies on heavily for their course materials in the accounting classes, is Pearson Publishers. I have found the publishers quiz and test materials to contain errors yet each time I presented these errors to AMU, the attitude was like, so what, no publisher is perfect. The sad part is that students pay the price for these errors by way of grade point deductions.
During one course I complained when the Professor kept ignoring my requests to credit my grade, for an error on the course materials. I had sent the Professor five messages over a week long period, asking for credit. Getting no reply to my messages, I contacted the head of the schools accounting program. The latter action led to the Professor getting miffed, after which he entered my grade book and began lowering grades that had been given weeks earlier. In the end, I complained to the school's academics office, about the improper grade changes and as expected, I received no response. So basically the grades I busted my a** to get are simply worthless trash in the minds of this for profit university's staff.
All along the way, I have found most of this schools accounting courses to be thrown together haphazardly. All that truly matters is that the school makes a buck. Some of the Professors truly care and work with you to make sense out of the poorly designed courses while many more of the Professors are also along for the money only. Once I am finished, I will likely not walk for the diploma as the school itself has turned what should have been a great experience, into years of nothing short of worthless s*** and horrible experiences.
If you happen to be a great student looking for a great school experience and perhaps Latin Honors to boot, pick another school. This school has continually cheated me out of deserved GPA points and are well aware they did. With only two and a half courses left, there is simply no way I can earn the points back they stole from me. In the latter, my GPA was a 3.9560 before my finishing ACCT400 with a blistering 99.8% yet all that grade did was move me from a 3.9560 to a 3.9587. Do the math; there is no way I could ever begin to get the points back the school robbed me of. As I write this review, I have just begun ACCT420 and already the quizzes that are supposed to follow the textbook chapters yet stray about as far from the chapters as possible. Complaints relative to the latter will result in zero changes, and the end outcome will be another APU/AMU substandard designed course that prevents students from attaining the grade they would normally attain.
In conclusion, if you're serious about your education and wish to do as well as you truly can, avoid APU/AMU. If you choose this school, you'll find yourself cheated just like me. This school is in the game of education, for a profit and nothing more. My review here has been accurate and 100% honest. It is to late for any chance at Latin Honors for myself, and I'm hoping by posting this review AMU/APU will not make it that same way for you. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs spent thousands of tax dollars on my AMU education and in return I received AMU's lusy experience, poorly designed programs and their we could give a s*** less about your efforts, attitude. To AMU I say you can shove my 3.9587 up your worthless a**es and wipe with my degree.
This is a first time problem with not receiving my refund, I have been waiting 2 months and I'm getting no where. Between dealing with the vocational rehab and the financial department, I keep getting "I'm forwarding this to blah blah blah". I'm calling everyday to see what the problem is and what I need to do and it's so frustrating! It should be taking this long to get an answer. On the other hand, I love the program I'm in and the classes.
This School is a scam and I dont undesrstand why they are still in business?
Why are they still getting funding?
Why are they able to send you around in circles in a pyramid scheme with substandered teachers who have no intention of teaching you, instead if you ask your instructor what to do what is expected they tell you they can't tell you and this is OKAY?
This is the US we live in?
This school is horrible!!!!!!!!!
The instructors who you can't see play muliple games with students and fail them so they can be stuck in the school and end up paying out of pocket.
My degree has been completely useless to me and I'm already fighting to have my loans discharged. They can play all the games they want, but with this much complaints, individuals SHOULD NOT have to pay them back at all given the uselessness of the degree, the substandard teaching, the lies, the deception, the revengeful way of dealing with students, and a whole host of other immature, disgusting practices. Luckily I kept proff of everything. If you go here, you are going to get what i'm saying but youll be to far in the pit to back away so best to just stay away and save your pockets and that headache you are definitely going to get.