The Art Institute of California-Los Angeles

I graduated from here back in 2010, and since then I have not held a high position in any of the jobs in my field, despite my hard work.
And to make things even better, they are shutting this shitty place down. So my BS in culinary is an expensive piece of useless paper

Although there are some older experienced decent teachers in the school. Their arrogant, you are never right, they make you feel stupid, they have horrible teaching methods that hardly protane to anything you doing. A majority of every staff member and teacher your dealing with are inexperience, unorganized, and even harder to contact. They have a very short memory, every one expect for John Clift of course he is a genius. I have had professors show up more than an hour late and act like it was no problem, even saying to me «isn’t the rule like an hour on being late.» I’m not sure I hope he was kidding. A lot of these teachers here have failed or not made a big name for themselves in the industry they teach so your going to get a lot of sour teachers that do know a lot but they discourage you a lot. I have never been do such a discouraging school and been basically told none of us in our classes are going or make it and will be lucky to even find a job. Unfortunately I’m out of this school I need something positive, this place is brutal. No ever answers the phone I don’t know why they have them, they say their always busy but when I walk in and see the staff their just chill on their computer shooting emails to the folks or whoever. I’ll pass. For 100,000 $ for a bachelors degree. NO THANKS!!!

If I could give zero stars, I would. There is a reason this is one of the campuses being sued by the Department of Justice.
It was a waste of money, I basically taught myself (and some classmates). There were classes that I was supposed to take but weren’t offered/​available so I was «given credit» for them but in actuality still paid for them.
The portfolio class was a joke and the handful of employers that showed up on portfolio day were sub par and not thoroughly checked, one used a friend of mine and myself and didn’t pay her and paid me less than we agreed upon but career services were no help in the matter, they said just turn over the work.
Some instructors were former students of the school or students/​friends of department chairs. There are TONS of skills that are needed for the real world that aren’t taught or discussed.
The school isn’t worried about you getting quality education. They just want money, it’s for profit. I wish I would’ve known better.

I attempted to transfer elsewhere, but it turns out they weren’t accredited the whole duration of my studies at AICLA. No one would take my credits from this school. I felt it was too late to leave with debt, so I completed am now $ 145,000 in debt from The Art Institutes. I have paid $ 85,000 just in interest alone, none of which is tax exempt. 15 of their campuses just closed due to the lawsuits they have on their plate. They didn’t offer any of the courses I needed for my field of work. No mobile app design courses, no user experience or user interface, no art direction, no web design. Just print courses, which is a dying industry. They will not explain the costs or the type of loans to you, but will threaten that if you don’t take out some extortionate amount of money, you will not graduate on time. Their chance of bankruptcy is at 60% right now and they had to pull out of the stock market due to the costs. This place is owned by Goldman Sachs and is under Federal Government scrutiny right now. Avoid at all costs.

Here is my version of my time with The Art institute. Way back in 1997 AI opened its 1^st campus in Santa Monica. In 2 years we had 3 deans in charge if the school. The 1^st stole money, the second used to touch the female students and the third lasted and made promises to fix issues.
At the time their idea of job placement was The Gap and the career services Department had no idea how to place anyone. Alas I graduated with an AS. Years later when i wanted to look at getting a higher education i was told that i had to start from square 1. My credits and degree did not transfer to any other school and so i was forced to go back to AI. Now the campus looked amazing the equipment was new. The department head i spoke with at the time assured me this was a whole new school. That all the problem they had at the start had been fixed. Like a sucker i signed up but had over 70 credits to transfer in (could have been more but i chose to retake a few classes). After the 1^st quarter there the department head left the school and we had a new one. I started to panic this is the same as before again i was assured that it will all be ok.
While there the required class list changed so often that it was impossible to graduate on time. Not only that but then you would not be given a credit for the class that they felt was no longer needed but your degree but took already.
So as a result i was in the Finance department constantly filling out forms and taking out loans and what i thought were grants. Only to find out i have so much dept I can no longer pick up my phone.
In the end there was no job placement assistance I found my OWN JOB doing something i was trained to do BEFORE Ai. I began as a rotoscoper and was working on Harry Potter before I even graduated after that Kung Fu Panda again a job i found on my own though connection of MY OWN.
In the time i was there I was constantly in the face of the directors about changes, poor excuses for teachers even handed in a petition of students to have an instructor removed.
Call it negative it you want, but when i hear from an employer that i will have a better chance getting a job if i remove the school from my resume… I wonder what my 120K in student loans were for.

The Art Institute has an amazing program that will prepare you for the commercial art industry. Boy, I can’t say enough great things about this place. The Admission department was attentive and answers all my questions. The Faculty has years of industry experience and has wealth of knowledge. Before you judge this school, please check out The Art Institute and make your own decision.

I was enrolled in the culinary program at this campus and had the worst experience with administration in my certificate program that I’d had in my undergrad and graduate programs, with other schools combined. Specifically, the Financial Aid department is void of leadership and the staff is arrogant and rude as hell. They will literally watch students stand at the window for minutes upon minutes while they engage each other in personal chit chat. In addition, they continually screw up student’s records with incorrect payment amounts, then flag the student’s records for the following quarter for lack of sufficient payment. Unfortunately, the student finds out at the time of registration, when the student is precluded from registering.
Additionally, the rest of administration is clueless about the specific services that each department is responsible for. For example, I had an emergency medical situation the 9^th week of the quarter and tried to get information on what I could do in order to avoid getting a failing grade and I was given the name and number to every department within administration. My program director was certainly no help and no other department would/​could help me. At one point the situation was escalated to the interim school president, but apparently he was no help either. Ugh!
Lastly, the reason I chose this school was because during my research of culinary schools, I saw that this school was one of very few that offered evening classes to accommodate the schedules of working adults. During my initial visit, I was told that all I had to do is speak with the culinary director prior to the subsequent quarter, and if enough students enrolled, I should not have problems getting classes. Well with a previous director, this process worked through most of the program. Toward the end of my program, a new director was hired and things changed. With 3 classes left, I had to sit out a quarter and was told that for my second to last class, I’d have to sit out at least one more quarter or register for a day class. There was no way I would jeapordize my GOOD full time job for this BS.
If I had known at the beginning of this endeavor that my experiences would be as horrible as they were, I would have NEVER applied to this school. It seems that as long as students get their tuition paid, administration could give a damn about helping the students.
One positive is that I’ve had great faculty experiences… with the exception of one or two.

I did 2 quarters of credits here in the program for interior design and quickly pulled out when I realized the school was completely over-​priced and lacked in quality. This is a FOR-​PROFIT school which if you don’t know what that means, research. For profit schools are currently under the gun for recruiting ANYONE with a breath, giving them a strong sales pitch to get them to join (I experienced it), and then charging them insane prices… most students fail classes and drop out being left with staggering student loans they can’t pay off. This Harvard priced tuition you pay goes mainly into paying their 1) marketing to recruit you 2) CEOs 3) recruiters who get paid per student they sign up (I saw mine driving off in a range rover).
Reason for the 2 stars (vs 1): my amazing drafting and space planning teacher who kicked our butts but the ones who survived learned ALOT. she is great and I learned so much.
Reason for the low grade review: price is ridiculous. They accept anyone so you are in class with idiots who don’t care about doing well and show up to half the classes. Their lab hours are very limited even though the price they charge for tuition is through the roof… we literally got kicked out of the classroom by security as lab hours were over (this is Friday 6pm) and they treated us as if we had broken into a bank scolding us and escorting us out… we’re just trying to do homework!!! Noone knows about the school yet they make it seem like all the companies want them. The structure of the education is very laissez-faire…classes were 1 week and 4hrs long and, while I did have a few great teachers, i would find many teachers would let us out as much as 2 hrs early telling us to go enjoy… i am here to learn!!! At $ 150 a class sit your ass down and teach the damn class!!!
Parking is a pain and we park farther than guests and staff and have to trek our tools along. The library is ancient and small. Not enough computers. I got my undergrad at a state school and it was a better education and facilities. Save your money… check out cal states.

Long story short. If you are thinking of enrolling here, you better have $ 40,000 you can blow for the first year and hopefully you may be able to work at McDonalds if you’re lucky.
They love to cram as many classes down your throat as they can, because that’s how they run your bill up.
Go intern at a good restaurant, you’ll learn more.
Go to Mission College Culinary classes and get the basics, then take that job at a good eatery.
If you listen to me, I just saved you $ 39,000 and you’ll be happy.
Avoid AI AT ALL COSTS.
It is the worst.

In my opinion, this is just a TV school. They love money and once they have all of yours, you get to use outdated and broken equipment to do your class projects with. They have a habit of losing all of the reserved equipment you need for end of term projects, too. Among the classes they dump on the students, that won’t carry over to a real school is the class on witchcraft.

I am currently enrolled at AICLA and like any college experience, there are good things and bad.
I am in the Baking & Pastry Associates degree program right now and when it comes down to classes and teachers I have absolutely no complaints. Every chef/​professor that I have had has been phenomenal. (I have had 5 different in-​class instructors and 2 online now). Each chef has such an amazing story to share and has real life experience in the industry which is such a turn on considering we, as students, will all be in the industry at some point and want to hear the truth of how it is going to be. What is stressed the most is to be realistic, the restaurant business isn’t as pretty as it seems and in these classes, you are prepared for reality — not what you see on TV on cooking shows.
The lab classes are 5 hours long and can be taken in the mornings, afternoons, or evenings. Lecture classes are typically 3 – 4 hours long and are also sporadically throughout the day. What is nice about this school is that is it designed so that students can work the hours into a realistic schedule.
Unfortunately, despite the incredible teachers, the school is beyond impossible to deal with. The process of enrolling and dealing with the multitude of different offices and people is similar to pulling teeth. I noticed someone on here mentioned the ‘harassment/​stalkerish’ tendencies of this school and she is spot on. Prior to enrolling, while they knew I was looking at different culinary schools, I experienced roughly 2 – 3 months of the more irritating texts and phone calls from the admissions office that I had ever experienced. On a daily basis I would get anywhere between 1 and 4 phone calls to ‘check in’ and ‘proceed’. If I ignored the calls, which I typically did, BOOM, emails would start coming in to my inbox. Honestly, I think part of the reason I bit the bullet and applied was so those calls would stop and I could be left in peace.
This quarter in particular has left a bitter taste in my mouth — building my schedule was a joke, my ‘educational advisor’ decided to add another class to my schedule AFTER it had be decided that I needed a lighter load than the previous quarter, and there was a glitch in the system that caused all cash-payer’s checks for winter tuition to be sent back. It was hectic and incredibly stressful.
³⁄₅ stars simply because of the amazing teachers and classes I have had the experience with.

First of all do not live in student housing from what I heard from other people its a nightmare an way over priced. I have my own apartment a few blocks from school. I’m a fashion major an honestly the teachers are amazing for the most part I’ve learned tons. I’ve also interned an will be graduating In 2 more quarters. Be smart an transfer your gen ed from community college like I did. You’ll save a lot of money. Also study hard alot of students slack off and are lazy. You gotta work hard to do well here.

Please be aware of a few things about ANY for-​profit schools, AICLA included. Their focus is marketing. For-​profits spend upwards of 40% of their budget for marketing (most non-​profits, less than 10%), marketing that is often high pressured and unrelenting. The turnover for those in sales is very high. I worked at one for-​profit to investigate the goings-​on of these schools, and people disappeared nearly monthly.
And for-​profits are WAY over-​priced, often three to four times what you would pay at non-​profits (community colleges and state colleges). For example, at one for-​profit the nursing program costs $ 34,000 just to earn an LVN. You could get that same level of training at a local community college for $ 8000 tuition. And after you graduate, if you graduate, you may get a job, but there is no in-​hospital training, and you’ll end up working in home care. But worst of all, for-​profits are accredited by national agencies while most colleges – non-​profit – are accredited by regional agencies and credits are NON-​transferable.
My suggestion, before you go into ANY for-​profit, check their background thoroughly. Do some comparison shopping. Sure, you can get a certificate in 11 to 14 months, but why spend three to four times as much for something that has little value at all. And just because you see commercials for AICLA, ITT, Phoenix, etc. doesn’t mean they are all on the up and up.
Finally, teachers often teach outside their expertise, come and go like the students, have to teach in mods or five week increments great quantities of material where there is little learning going on, material that is often useless and watered down. I taught one math course called College Math that was a re-​hash of what was learned in fourth and fifth grade. Hell, my son who’s in 2^nd grade was doing some of the math I taught.
One last thing, the graduation rate for non-​profits are generally 55% or so. For profits? 25% And even though only 10% of all loans are taken out by students, they account for nearly 40% of all defaults because they greatly market to low-​income students. For-​profits get maximums on loans for veterans and the über-​needy. One student I taught was homeless. The vet said he didn’t come to learn anything, just to pick up his stipend. The VA paid for the loan and he got a bonus. But most drop out because low income students don’t have the proper role models, most parents not having attended college can’t lead by experience. Statistics show that the majority of college grads ALSO have parents as college grads.
Congress currently has a sub-​committee that is investigating for-​profits. Check the BBB and comparison shop before you spend so much money. It’s amazing to me how people gamble with 10s of thousands of dollars with very little thought or research. WAY too many are too trustworthy and lazy.
Buyer BEWARE!!!

I wish I could give them 0 stars!
DO NOT GO TO THIS SCHOOL DO NOT APPLY TO THIS SCHOOL COMPLETELY UNPROFESSIONAL! I have never been transferred to so many depts without getting any results. I have had the phone hung up on me twice when I said I wanted to cancel my application. The depts do not know their own terms and conditions and lie through their teeth. I am fed up with this school and I haven’t even taken a class! DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME!

I’m not sure how many people check out Unilocal when wanting more information about their school, but if they do, I am giving a warning. Do not go here.
I went here between 2005 – 2008. I was low-​income, had okay grades and was young. They took advantage of my situation. They made it seem like the Art Institute was my only option when it comes to school because I had a couple bad grades at my last semester at my previous college, but I had great grades in high school.
The Financial Aid department was a mess. I had a new advisor it seemed every other week and they peddled me to use Sallie Mae, their preferred federal aid. They made it seem like I was taking out federal loans and I was a sucker for it because now I’m stuck with private unsubsidized loans. Other then being lied to about my loans, they were hell to deal with when disbursing money. Money that was needed to complete my film projects.
The next thing that made things a nightmare was student housing. They charged more money for someone who was rooming with only one person then for someone rooming with three people. Students are housed in apartment complexes through out the Los Angeles area and the apartments we were put in were on the border of a high crime area. I was paying half my tuition for housing and it was not worth it. RA’s changed hands all the time and getting help with issues was always difficult.
The school is also situated in a business park which was inconvenient when it came to parking. Every 3 months, if you wanted to park your car in the parking garage, you were charged $ 75. And then you only could park on certain levels of the structure. If you didn’t have $ 75, you could take a parking ticket and be charged money for the amount of time you spent in the school for that day. Or you could feed the meter outside the school for 75 cents an hour. The only free option was near a park and even then you didn’t know if you would get a spot.
The one positive I had about my experience there was I met many great teachers and great friends, but I merit that to the people themselves and not the school.
The Art Institute is a for profit school. Plain and simple. They are there to satisfy shareholders and i wait for the day when their feet are held over the fire for deceiving students about graduation rates, curriculum, and overpricing.

I am a Media Arts and Animation Alumni and currently in the process of recreating my new Demo Reel. I have not been back much since I graduated back in 2010. I decided to stop by since I was in the area and work in the open lab for a bit. The school has changed a bit since the remodel, and it was good running into some of my old instructors for a small chat.
I forgot how awesome working in the Open Lab was when culinary students stopped by with some food samples.

I recommend the Web and Interactive Design major, really amazing instructors and curriculum that prepares you for a great career.

I am a was a graphic design student and switched to advertising because they constantly change the matrix every time I turn my head. When I applied to the school my admissions rep Jessica Love was very helpful and helped me any way she can to get me in. I was super happy about that, but I dreaded talking to Financial Aid they constantly switched me around to different advisors, they lie and said that they constantly tried contacting my mom when they did no such thing, it was mainly Jessica trying to handle all of this. When my mother finally got a hold of them they were very rude and told her if she doesn’t make her appointment that they would reject my application. How rude!!! Jessica told me they’re not allowed to do that. We went in for the meeting to fill out paperwork and I guess I’m set to go, I have no doubt that it’s a GREAT school! I love the environment and I have a feeling I will be super successful!
Also, if you’re gonna go to this school, make sure it’s for sure what you wanna do, It’s only been four weeks, and I witnessed so many people dropping out of this school! I recently convinced my classmate to stay because she had the potential of becoming a great person in the fashion industry. Also, I was told I had to to start all the way back to level 1 because my graphic design classes didn’t transfer over, but after talking to the Dean, Jonathan, he got me out of retaking those classes, so I can graduate sooner. I’m thrilled and cannot wait to be DONE, I’m finally taking classes with serious people.
A lot of the students in my level one classes still act like they’re in elementary school, they expect the teachers to be lenient with their homework, and don’t bother coming prepared and sadly sometimes don’t care about passing their quizzes. I mean really? How can you not do simple tasks like read a chapter and write about it or do a quiz. It really sucks. PEOPLE DO ME A FAVOR GROW UP before you consider attending.
But I have a quick question. I cannot seem to seek any help about disbursments, I have to pay for supplies and they’re super expensive but I’ve tried chatting with representatives who don’t work at the Los Angeles location but they told me that they’re my best bet. I mean I wouldn’t be asking them for questions if I knew they were good, but they’re not. HELP!!! I want to leave but I’ve survived a year and a half with them.

Currently an enrolled student and I have to say it is a love and hate relationship. I am currently majoring Media Arts and Animation.
The part I love the most about the school are the teachers. They are great and passionate about their field such as Marjan Harmozi (she teaches Anatomy/​Gesture in AI while teaches those and painting in Otis and CalArts), Mike Rogers (Invader Zim!), Douglass Kirk (he’s an encyclopedia of art/​fashion history!), and many more. Certain teachers work only on the clock than for the students (like Hayz), but majority of them are willing to help/​critique during their off-​hour, even when it comes to personal projects.
The part I hate and everybody– not some or many– everybody hates is the financial aides department. I would’ve knocked the school to 2-​stars than 3 if I didn’t greatly respect the teachers there. The amount I owe every quarter has the tendency to go up and are different from what the financial planner gives me. Every quarterly balance starts immediately when the current quarter ends, meaning you’re already paying before school starts. There are a lot of hidden charges that the business side of the school does not reveal and just bundles it up with school fee. It makes the school feel like two different entities where one is great and the other is just terrible. I’ve been to Pasadena college and UCR and neither of the billing system are as whacked as this school.
Another thing I loathe about the school is their current renovation of the campus. The school use a huge amount of money to make the place look slightly better, which would have been better spent on school equipments and resource. This would not have been an eyesore if the school didn’t promise so many things and fail to deliver them for the past two years.
Those that have wacom bamboo are screwed (like me) because the school refuses to install the driver for it, so if you don’t have your own laptop to carry around, you’re screwed going into a horrible borrowing procedure for lab equipments.
Many times teachers in school complain about being forced to use textbooks they do not like because the school assign it for them.
If money is not an issue, this is a great school, but since most of you are like me, a starving college student, you might want to consider elsewhere or get all your general ed classes taken care of in a community college before going to AI.

I love this school, I love the teachers in both the Game Art and the Animation departments, but I ABSOLUTELY HATE Financial Aid!
I always have holds on things that I fixed ages ago. And they always say that I need to fix it at the beginning of every quarter. Someone obviously doesn’t have their sh*t together. I swear, I sign the same papers almost every quarter because they say that I didn’t do it! I never look forward to going there.