American College of Education Reviews of Master's in Education

DO NOT ENROLL. I wish I found these reviews before enrolling. The lack of feedback is accurate. If you value your time, then do not waste it here! Faculty is awful. Zero feedback is given. If you expect any of your questions to get answered, forget it!!! If they do respond, its like they didn't actually read the email. Points majorly reduced on assignments without any explanation or justification. Want an explanation of how to do something? Want to know the length requirements? Sorry, that information... Read More is nowhere to be found, but they will easily take points off if your discussion is too short- I'm sorry, how short is too short if there isn't an explicit length requirement? The titles of classes and the content do not always match up. The Foundations of STEM Education class is 100% about pollution. I even asked the instructor about it but they basically wrote me off and said they didn't understand the question. Seriously? If you're looking for a cheap way to increase your salary by earning credit and don't mind wasting your time, then by all means, enroll. But my goodness, if you value your time at all, LEAVE NOW!!! This has been nothing but an incredible waste of time. Oh- don't even get me started on the required NISE Certificate- which is also supposed to be about a STEM classroom, but the majority of it is basic teaching principles. Another incredible waste of time that you have to do concurrently with the ACE STEM classes.

I am surprised to see less-than-stellar reviews full of complaints. This school has fast-paced program; however, the workload each week is manageable for me (I have one full-time job, as well as two part-time jobs). I'm even involved in community activities, and I can still find time every day to complete my work. The professor in my current course is attentive, helpful, and provides useful feedback. If someone doesn't have a productive routine and does not have writing skills at the college/university... Read More level, it might be a deficit that needs more attention rather than complaining about the courses being "too hard." I actually find the course(s) very easy with a few new concepts to master.

Overall, some of the courses in the program were very interesting and taught me a lot. Some were instead just review and busy work of things I had already learned previously. I liked that everything was online and fairly accelerated...classes every 6 weeks. I was able to submit all of my work easily and earned an A in all of my classes. Unlike some of the other reviews state, I never had any issues with my professors getting back to me when I had questions. They were always very responsive and fast.... Read More I enjoyed my time at ACE!

ACE offers a curriculum which is both challenging and engaging. Courses are accelerated, each is 5 weeks for the Master's program and 10 weeks for the doctoral program. Accelerated courses are NOT a red flag, most graduate programs offer 5, 8 or 10 week courses. I know this because I have worked in higher education for several years. Student support services are readily available to students--whenever I sent an email with any question, I typically received a response within hours. The best part about... Read More ACE is that I will graduating debt free! However, I must admit, it isn't all rainbows and sunshine. I experienced a few minor inconveniences while enrolled at ACE: for example, the university only offers one commencement ceremony per year (and it's in July), this is upsetting because I'll graduate 7 months before the ceremony; another downfall is that most people are not familiar with the university; the final set back I experienced was that all the rules are not clearly communicated--I had an issue submitting a payment and was forced to pay a $100 late fee, despite never making a late payment and sending multiple emails explaining the difficulty that I had experienced attempting to pay. Apparently, I failed to follow a policy I was never aware of. In any case, for those of you who think that earning a degree online is somehow less work than attending a brick and mortar institution--you are sadly mistaken. At ACE, students must submit a paper, complete a quiz and an additional assignment, each week, every week. I have friends who attended graduate schools at more well known, prestigious universities who would complete 3-5 assignments during an entire course. My thoughts are all over the place and for that I apologize; however, I hope this provides insight to anyone who's considering ACE. Overall, I would recommend it.

If you are looking for an easy and cheap masters, this it. If you have a teaching job and want to move up the pay scale, you won't regret going with ACE. They are accredited, and the program goes fast. By the end, I was knocking out 3 credit classes at about 10 hours of work each class. Not each credit, each class. If you actually want to learn, I have no idea if this program is any good. I never read the assigned readings or took the assignments seriously. All that matters is you write enough, use... Read More ed-speak buzzwords, and cite in APA. Very few profs actually cared what you wrote about. Some clearly just used copy and pasted feedback. Here is the work you need to do each week: 1 discussion post, 2 replies to discussions, 1 quiz (5 questions multiple choice) and 1 paper (3 pages, double spaced). Do that 5 times=3 grad credits. The last quiz is a final, 20 questions, multiple choice. Sometimes the papers were projects, like powerpoints, or making a video with an online tool. The multiple choice questions ranged from really obvious to anyone, all the way to annoyingly obscure. The annoying ones meant going through the course materials and looking for how something was phrased. For the most part, the quizzes and tests were fairly easy even if you just scanned the materials. You basically get 100% for your discussion posts, just do them on time. The grading of papers varied by prof, use your first as a feeler each class. I kept lowering the quality of mine as I went through the program.

I obtained my Masters degree from ACE (in Education with a specialization in TESOL) while working as a full time instructor in South Korea. I loved the 5 week structure, to echo the sentiments from the earlier review. The classwork itself was challenging but not impossible in my opinion. It's definitely not one of those schools where you can submit anything and get a 100. Granted some professors were more picky than others, but I felt the grading was pretty fair overall. Not having to purchase physical... Read More textbooks (a godsend for me being in a foreign country with no Amazon to order from) was fantastic. Although not perfect, they did put a lot of effort into the library and always sent notifications when it would be down, even if for just an hour. Each class has the usual requirement of discussion board posts/replies and an essay-like paper to be submitted every week. There are also short quizes every week that come directly from the class notes (and rarely from the readings). In lieu of a thesis, there is a cumulative capstone project that requires an original contribution at the conclusion of the degree. As you are able to submit classwork as you progress, I found this to be simple and easy (it would be a nightmare if you waited until your last few courses to complete it). My only complaint (besides the occasional bad professor) would be the long time it took to confer my degree and then get the diploma (looking at around 2 months or more after completing all requirements). All in all, I'm proud of the work I did there and felt that I learned a lot to help me in my profession. It's not the cheapest or easiest school, but it does have regional/national accredidation and makes an effort to give you a decent education. I'd recommend it to anyone. Now I am considering their Ed.D program, but we'll see...