Ranken Technical College — Local services in St. Louis

Do yourself a favor and go to SAM Tech. Do not go here. Mismanaged. A bunch of lies. Went there for HPRT and dropped the second week of my 3rd semester. First semester I never touched an actual car. Did goofy things like test thermostats in boiling water. Waste of my time and money. Stayed optimistic and went onto my second semester for Engine Machining. We learned how to take a 295hp 5.3 to a 500HP 5.7. Class was overbooked, professor was a stand-in but knew what he was doing. 0 students finished their engines. I complained to the administration about the lack of skills I learned and how No one finished engines and was offered a summer job to finish my engine and learn some more. I shouldn’t have to come back in the summer to get the education I was supposed to get during class hours. I took the job and made the best of it. Went to my 3rd semester and couldn't do it. Biggest waste of my time. They destroyed a super-flo dyno. And by destroy I mean the thing was in pieces. It exploded. Blamed it on old flywheel but plenty of 12 year old flywheels in 500whp cars don’t go blowing up and killing people. Ranken owns a TurboTrans am and a chasis dyno. The 2 never get used and it wasn’t until last year that the dyno was fixed. We have flow benches that never get used. A Rotler boring machine that’s been waiting to be hooked up for several months now. You only use a carb and Holley EFI. They ordered a blower, had it chromed, and never taught students how to tune for boost. Commanding for 100% injector duty cycle and only getting 8%. Going on 2 years that the instructor can’t fix this and robbing kids of their money and experience. You should be able to at least write a tune and you won’t be able to do that leaving Ranken. 3 classes have gone through Don Rote’s tuning class and learned nothing. It was so bad we had to hire Shane A. Hind and Ahmed Habibi from Habibi Motorsports to teach seminars on tuning to fill in the gaps. Extremely strict on dress code, beard, haircuts, and so much else that it takes away from class time and actual learning. 2018 is their audit year so you can’t miss class or homework. You could pass a class with 100% homework and test grades but fail “work ethic” by 1 point and you will have to repeat the class. What sense does that make? You, your family, and your kids should never go here.

P.s Hilterbrand...if you’re as smart as you say you are you’d...

they shared private email chains regarding my school information to all of the students on accident. (violated hipaa) I had issues getting into my dorm at night, and one time was told I was not allowed into my room at 10pm on a weeknight, when I had class the next morning at 8am all my tools and uniform locked inside, all because my id card wouldn't scan. Do not waste 35K going here. Nobody from admissions to residential to the registrar knows what is going on or any knowledge about the courses. They advertise a meal plan for the tuition cost but fail to tell you THE DINING HALL CLOSES AT 1PM. My instructor had barely 8 years experience in the field, very limited knowledge and would walk away when I would ask questions in class. (went for electrical and had 0 experience and was essentially told I could not move on to anything in class until I became more skilled) if you have no experience in whatever major you selected, don't bother pursuing here because you will be left behind once semester starts. Also cengage is awful and nobody will give you in person help with it. I asked my student counselor what to do about academic struggles after behind handed off by my 3 instructors, and she told me to ask chatgpt. Do not waste your time or money at this institution, maybe it was good in 1995 but not now. this is 1/3 of the list of grievances I had with this school. They didn't respond to my tuition payment until 48 hours before my classes were set to start, I had no idea if I was even enrolled before my class's start date. Residential did not reach out me (AFTER I SUBMITTED DEPOSIT) and let me know I had confirmed housing until 48 hours before my class was...

If you are reading this review then you happen to be wondering if you should go to this school or not, before I answer that read through the others and see the common theme of automotive and IT being the only decent reviews. The explanation for that is those two are their only programs that they invest in , automotive gets sponsored so they get brand new things all the time must be nice to have 30 motors just sitting there for fun inside a nice big shop with everything they need, if they took the time to promote their dying programs they could afford to fix the 10 machines out of the 20 in the machining department that are broken. Oh wait but they can afford it because they get people that send them money every year as a tax write off they have hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting there if not millions but they won’t spend it on the parts of the school that need it only the ones that they feel will keep their sad school alive. They don’t hire real teachers just people looking for another way to make money so as far as the “ I don’t really need this job” attitude goes that applies to just about every teacher there. If you have an issue with a teacher not showing up to class 8 days out of your semester don’t expect the required 50 dollars a day refund because remember they are too cheap to give back money they just want to take it. At the end of the day if you want my opinion, Do not waste your time , Do not waste your money, You will not get 60k a year when you leave this school like another review mentions. Just go somewhere that cares about...