I just want to urge anyone considering applying to a Wilkes graduate program to reconsider. This is a warning.
1. Content: Everything is self-taught. There are no lectures whatsoever. Some professors will supply supplemental materials and others won't. The administration's solution to this was not to provide more support but to forbid any professors from providing additional resources. All of the modules have outdated sources (some dating from the 90s, no joke) and most of the citations are wrong. I don't really care about citations but considering that they profess to, you'd think they would fix their own citations.
2. Support: LOL. There is none. The school uses Keypath, an education management company. The advisors provided are not nurses and have no idea what the program entails. They cannot offer any useful information, advocate on your behalf, or even register you. You also can't register yourself. Who registers students? No one actually know. Also, you will NEVER be able to speak to an actual human being ever. Have a problem? Search for the right person, send an email, wait 2 business days, and hope you get an answer. Also, the people at Keypath are just rude. They don't actually want to help you. They're pushing paper and you, the student, are only getting in their way apparently.
3. Professors: Again, LOL. These programs have NO onsite professors. All the professors or should I say instructors because they don't actually teach, are adjuncts. Typically, they work for several online programs at a time. Some are decent but most are unresponsive, flippant, or just downright rude.
4. Placement: They do very little to find placements. Like the bare minimum. You have no idea whether you will be one of the lucky ones and get help finding a preceptor. You cannot speak to the placement team directly so you are not even able to follow up. In my cohort, less than 10% of students were placed by Wilkes. Everyone else had to find their own preceptors. Most paid thousands of dollars for preceptors.
5. Administration: The administration changes almost yearly. Again, you can't speak to anyone on the phone. Instead of developing appropriate and relevant content, they troll facebook and accuse people of cheating and plagiarism. They've had facebook pages shut down because people were sharing self-developed study guides. That's right, student created study guides. Um, okay.
6. Culture: Rude. Condescending. Unhelpful. Unreachable. The administration just does not care. Have a problem? Struggling? Need help? You cannot reach out to these people and get any sort of support. You are in an online environment and there is NO ONE to assist. And if you do manage to reach someone, you will be met with irritation and contempt. Just a nasty, nasty place.
7. Admissions: They've lowered their admission standards to the point where if you have a BSN and a pulse, you're accepted. This is such a disservice to those in the program or that have already graduated. They have turned themselves into a degree mill and consequently every degree delivered now looks suspect.
In short, I hate this school. I wish I never attended. The experience has truly been one of the worst experiences of my life. Learn from me. Spare yourself. Go someplace, anyplace else.
