University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences - Austin, TX — Attraction in Austin

When reading this, keep in mind that this is a private institution with four other campuses w/ the company spreading themselves thinner w/ each campus they establish.

It feels like a overall community with the students and professors here. I enjoy being in class with a good amount of my professors. Wonderful school, equipment, and professors, it’s a little getting better each trimester as they listen to feedback. Covid-19 is just one of those things that has made the experience that more challenging both for me and for them. It’s unfortunate to not return to fully on-campus learning to protect assets. I recommend not choosing here if accepted elsewhere if you want what you’re paying over $100,000 for to be worth it. It was a challenge feeling like most key things were worth the investment.

Overall, there just needs to be something done to continue to promote clear and concise communication. Maybe a flaw lies where most faculty and admins are spreading themselves thin by doing more than they are reasonably capable of doing in and outside their jobs. Examples include having multiple roles/classes, pursuing a doctorate or PhD education for a raise or to learn more, etc. This means that they’ll be either unavailable or under distress and therefore unable to spend enough comfortably-fair time to have in-class discussion. We feel responsible to remember to remind them to respond, often. And when they do, their responses are short and unclear and leave us wondering if they assumed to understand us. With short time and energy, assumptions and frustrations abound.

Everyone’s time and energy is so spread thin; this is concerning to represent as a graduate school. All agree that we feel like there’s always someone dropping the ball with communication and it’s quite difficult to find clear and concise info on their website.

Not every course or professor is clear or s organized; we have to spend an extra amount of time outside studies working with others to understand what to do, how to find everything, what conflicts with our schedule, what they expect from us, etc. and I get it is our responsibility to bring these up, but it’s frustrating that this has been happening for years! BUT if you have a professor that is clear about expectations from day 1, you’ll have an amazing experience and be more effective in your learning pursuits for that course!

Regardless of professor, there are courses that took everyone such a long time to get our heads wrapped around because of a lack of fundamental structure or clear expectations in key areas that they still don’t get—especially for a graduate school. It was unfortunate to see how misunderstood we felt with our frustrations for these courses: Just ask ANYONE about EIP 1, PIP 1, GA 1+2–expect to be mostly on your own with these. It’s not about liking the material or teacher as much as feeling like you’re able to understand what’s clearly expected of you to study/submit in assignments. These courses are overdue for successful outcomes.

Now, don’t get me wrong; although this particular branch has some fundamental improvements to make, they’re improving in all areas—even if it’s one trimester at a time. Now, I’d rather the people changing those elements were more apt to improve their listening/communication/time management skills. But in all, we’re all handling some big challenges right now with 2020/21. They do the best they can and have— for the most part—recognized that we are, too!

They have some kinks to work out, but I enjoyed it here either way. You’ll see plenty of positives as they were my first choice for a reason! I appreciate their SWAG, beautiful campus, updated equipment/rooms! Very grateful to work with many wonderful professors who are actively working in their fields, who care about you, and who do so much to help their students succeed. You’ll like it here but now you’re at least a little more prepared to expect to find some—we’d say—unreasonable kinks. Just don’t let it get to you if you can help it. Find what works for you, stick to, and improve...

Recently finished my MOT program here. I was in the FLEX program. Positives: The Flex program allows you to work, attend to your family, and school at the same time. Most of my professors were invested, knowledgeable, compassionate, and truly loved the OT profession. +The Austin campus is in a good location with lots of restaurants near by. +Definitely one of the most ethnically diverse OT programs. +I was prepared to sit for the board exam upon graduation. I passed on the first attempt. I truly believe the program set me up for success on that exam. Most of the classes were hybrid and they did a great job of attempting to appeal to all learning styles.

Cons: The fieldwork/clinical rotation process is a mess! It's just plain awful! I would have never chosen this school had I known what horrible experience I'd go through just to get a placement! First, they initially told us during the interview and orientation that we will get to make a "wish-list" of our preferred sites and locations. That's a total lie! The only option we received was to choose between 1 of 3 regions of the country, yep the entire country! THEY DO NOT TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION WHERE YOU LIVE, GO TO SCHOOL, OR WHERE YOU WANT TO LIVE, at all! I chose the central region which means I can get placed in any state as north as Montana and South as Texas. To make matters worse, most of my cohort learned where they were placed within 1-2 months of the start date. So basically, you can get placed anywhere in the United States with no input from you at all, and be expected to move there with as little as a few weeks (some a few days) notice. If you attempt to email them to ask for an update, you'll get a generic response. They show no compassion for students individual needs during this process and consistently told us to "relax" while providing no real updates, which felt very dismissive. I was forced to take a leave of absence when they failed to find a suitable placement for me my first term, delaying my graduation by 4 months. Honestly, I have so many more awful stories about the placement process, but ultimately I don't regret going to this school. I just wish they would have been more upfront about the clinical rotation...

IGNORE ALL 5 star reviews raving about the admission process. They’re nice to you (obviously) before you sign up for 100k+ in debt. read reviews from people who ATTENDED.

MOT who graduated with honors here. Do not apply to this university and do not even use it as a "backup." Do your due diligence with researching schools, yes it's exciting to get accepted somewhere, but not so much when you realize everyone gets accepted because it's a crappy diploma mill. The “glowing reviews” you see below are for the applicant process, where they are nice to you before you take out $130-160k in debt :)

Look up online reviews for this place from students who have ATTENDED the program. It is NOT a place where you want to waste $130K of tuition because you leave feeling SO unprepared for fieldwork and the NBCOT. In fact, there are hospitals who straight up do not take FW students from USA due to them being so unprepared. Let me repeat that: HOSPITALS WILL NOT TAKE STUDENTS FROM THIS SCHOOL BECAUSE THIS SCHOOL IS ABSOLUTE GARBAGE AND DOES NOT TEACH YOU ENOUGH TO SAFELY TREAT PATIENTS WHILE YOURE IN FIELDWORK.

If you like professors who act like they are in high school then by all means go here. Favoritism runs rampant here, practicals are graded inconsistently and they try to silence anyone who speaks out. I never truly understood the definition of "diploma mill" until I got here. The CEO of this university (which is weird in itself) has no interest in improving the students experiences because he's busy raking in millions of poor students lifelong debt. If this was a good school maybe I'd understand the cost, but it's absolutely unfair that they give you such a limited education for how much you pay. If you're a parent and you're reading this, do your child a favor and think twice about sending your child here. They will be miserable every single trimester and you'll never hear the...