Joel A.

Okay. First this is a purely online school. I have attended both brick and mortar schools as well as online institutions. I have been a higher education student for over 40 years since graduating from high school in 1976. I have attended state supported, private, public, community colleges, Unaccredited schools, nationally accredited colleges, regionally accredited colleges, and was part of the leading edge of correspondence education that was transformed into online education in the 1990s. APUS at least was a pretty good institution but as an online institution was only as good as the effort you as a student put in. I may have been blessed but I had with one exception great instructors at APUS who were invested in my understanding and success. In fact I was diagnosed with Congested Heart Failure while attending and instructors made a great number of allowances on assignment deadlines for me. Without the support of my Academic faculty advisor I would never have graduated if truth be told. The assignments were relevant and timely. As a working professional in the public arena almost all the lessons had direct application at the time. What more could you want? At the time I was a 30 plus year management and IT professional with at least 20 years of government (national, state and local) experience. It is not often that one finds that level of relevant instruction. Many of the classes helped make previous experiences make more sense. I had 35 plus credits in MBA courses when I enrolled at APUS and only 6 credits transferred. After earning a completely unacceptable and unaccredited MBA degree in the early 2000s, the accreditation standings for APUS were very important to me. The only real issue I had with APUS was the lack of standards especially for foreign students pertaining to the command of the English language. Some of the posted Forum assignments would not have passed my high school English teacher's grading quite frankly failing at multiple levels and ways. I felt a little cheated that these assignments were graded at all because they were written so poorly. Like so many here I will reiterate that you get out what you put in. I have a few things that I would pick with the school administration about not the least of which is multiple degree earning at APUS and the difficulty the school puts in place for alumni but my experience was a positive one. I graduated with a 3.97 GPA but I haven't had a GPA below 3.44 since 1981 and I was a National Achievement Scholarship Commended Student coming out of high school so I have a long history of academic excellence. It would be a shame if the standards at the school have fallen since I graduated.