- Report: #898601
Complaint Review: Aviation Institute of Maintenance - Casselberry Florida
Reported By:
AMT123 -
Orlando, Florida, United States of America
Submitted:
Updated:
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Author Not Confirmed
Why?
Aviation Institute of Maintenance
2725 South U.S. Highway 17/92 Casselberry, 32707 Florida, United States of America
Phone:
Web:
http://www.centura.edu/AIM-Orlando/default.aspx
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Aviation Institute of Maintenance AIM, Centura College. Aviation Institute of Maintenance. Ripoff!! AVOID AT ALL COSTS! VETERANS BEWARE! Casselberry, Florida
Report Attachments
Future Aviators,
Congratulations on making the decision to join such an exciting and enjoyable career. This field has many rewards and great opportunity. As with any career field, there are many things you need to research before jumping in head first. Hopefully this report will help you in your search for the first steps to becoming and aviation maintenance technician. Take time to read this, it could save you months of headache, stress and frustration. Before attending, please watch College Inc, a special investigation by Dateline NBC. (For profit schools)
The Aviation Institute of Maintenance is a business. It is not a school. They rely on heavy marketing and false promises to get students in the door. They have pretty girls who pitch the school like it is an honor to be accepted. It is not, they let in anyone who qualifies for financial aid..ANYONE. Even felons.
Once you are a student, you are treated like garbage. You are only allowed to use one entrance in the whole building. Even to talk to the administration about billing, schedule or other issues, you must walk outside and around the to office. You are only allowed water in clear plastic bottles in class. There are no windows, clocks or trash cans in any of the classrooms. Since AIM is a FAA part 147 school they must log your hours.
You need 1800 logged hours to graduate. If you miss 1 minute you make up 15 minutes. They are called deficiencies. To make up your time, you must stay after school and copy words out of a book. 500 words an hour. So if you miss one day, prepare to write 3,000 words, which they count. If you fail to make up the time you fail, which means you must pay to take the course again.
They also treat faculty like disposable servants. You can have the best professor with 30 years of knowledge and they treat them like they would fire them for not having their shirt tucked in. The director of the school treats all employees in a way that is hard to fathom. If you came across this review while looking at working at AIM, RUN,RUN,RUN.
AIM is progressively making it harder for students to make up their missed time. They add sneaky little rules to fail a student. For example, you can only make up time with the instructor you had, they rotate them back and forth from day to nights every 5 weeks. If you are suppose to write a 3000 word "essay" and come up 5 words short, you fail. Even though you made your time up. Again, this is not an FAA rule, only AIM's. Making it hard to catch them. More students that fail = more profit. It is that simple.
Apart from having a new building, the tools are the cheapest they can find. Literally, Harbor Freight junk. All of their training aids are from auctions from real aviation schools throw-aways. Ever riveted with an air hammer? You will at AIM.
VETERANS----------Watch them closely. If you have ANY military aviation experience refer to FAR 65.71-65.77. Chances are, your experience qualifies for either your airframe, powerplant or both. AIM does not offer individual programs so you have to do the whole curriculum. Also, the way AIM certifies your enrollment for the GI bill you most times won't get your housing allowance until the 10th-15th of the month.
So prepare to make sacrifices. Embry-Riddle offers that option and has the yellow ribbon program. If you take a tour, you will go there.Period. I did not refer to the FAR manual, instead I put my good faith into the Veterans at the school. They sat me down, talked how they want to help fellow veterans out. They earned my trust and I enrolled. I found out that I qualified to take my FAA tests without AIM. They lied, simple as that. Because of their twisted ethics, I lost 6 months of my GI Bill.
To sum up, AIM does not offer any type of degree. They offer a certificate called an 8610-2. This is the certificate to take the FAA tests. Most other schools offer an AS degree in Aviation Maintenance Science. This school is minor leagues, there are cheaper ways to become an airplane mechanic. Look up a state funded school, there are many community colleges that have better curriculum.
Avoid this school, don't fall for the PowerPoint slideshow they pitch. They claim 100% job placement, this may be true. McDonald's counts right? They jobs are often times the jobs Embry Riddle graduates don't want.
The most important things to consider before committing to this school: Can you afford $35k for a non degree seeking school? Why would you spend $35k on a school that is FAR from employers first choice to look for graduates?
This review was written by a former student. Best of luck on your future endeavors. Your best bet is to continue shopping for schools. I only named about 30% of the things that make AIM a ripoff. If you go there, you deserve to find out the other 70% the hard way.
Peace
Congratulations on making the decision to join such an exciting and enjoyable career. This field has many rewards and great opportunity. As with any career field, there are many things you need to research before jumping in head first. Hopefully this report will help you in your search for the first steps to becoming and aviation maintenance technician. Take time to read this, it could save you months of headache, stress and frustration. Before attending, please watch College Inc, a special investigation by Dateline NBC. (For profit schools)
The Aviation Institute of Maintenance is a business. It is not a school. They rely on heavy marketing and false promises to get students in the door. They have pretty girls who pitch the school like it is an honor to be accepted. It is not, they let in anyone who qualifies for financial aid..ANYONE. Even felons.
Once you are a student, you are treated like garbage. You are only allowed to use one entrance in the whole building. Even to talk to the administration about billing, schedule or other issues, you must walk outside and around the to office. You are only allowed water in clear plastic bottles in class. There are no windows, clocks or trash cans in any of the classrooms. Since AIM is a FAA part 147 school they must log your hours.
You need 1800 logged hours to graduate. If you miss 1 minute you make up 15 minutes. They are called deficiencies. To make up your time, you must stay after school and copy words out of a book. 500 words an hour. So if you miss one day, prepare to write 3,000 words, which they count. If you fail to make up the time you fail, which means you must pay to take the course again.
They also treat faculty like disposable servants. You can have the best professor with 30 years of knowledge and they treat them like they would fire them for not having their shirt tucked in. The director of the school treats all employees in a way that is hard to fathom. If you came across this review while looking at working at AIM, RUN,RUN,RUN.
AIM is progressively making it harder for students to make up their missed time. They add sneaky little rules to fail a student. For example, you can only make up time with the instructor you had, they rotate them back and forth from day to nights every 5 weeks. If you are suppose to write a 3000 word "essay" and come up 5 words short, you fail. Even though you made your time up. Again, this is not an FAA rule, only AIM's. Making it hard to catch them. More students that fail = more profit. It is that simple.
Apart from having a new building, the tools are the cheapest they can find. Literally, Harbor Freight junk. All of their training aids are from auctions from real aviation schools throw-aways. Ever riveted with an air hammer? You will at AIM.
VETERANS----------Watch them closely. If you have ANY military aviation experience refer to FAR 65.71-65.77. Chances are, your experience qualifies for either your airframe, powerplant or both. AIM does not offer individual programs so you have to do the whole curriculum. Also, the way AIM certifies your enrollment for the GI bill you most times won't get your housing allowance until the 10th-15th of the month.
So prepare to make sacrifices. Embry-Riddle offers that option and has the yellow ribbon program. If you take a tour, you will go there.Period. I did not refer to the FAR manual, instead I put my good faith into the Veterans at the school. They sat me down, talked how they want to help fellow veterans out. They earned my trust and I enrolled. I found out that I qualified to take my FAA tests without AIM. They lied, simple as that. Because of their twisted ethics, I lost 6 months of my GI Bill.
To sum up, AIM does not offer any type of degree. They offer a certificate called an 8610-2. This is the certificate to take the FAA tests. Most other schools offer an AS degree in Aviation Maintenance Science. This school is minor leagues, there are cheaper ways to become an airplane mechanic. Look up a state funded school, there are many community colleges that have better curriculum.
Avoid this school, don't fall for the PowerPoint slideshow they pitch. They claim 100% job placement, this may be true. McDonald's counts right? They jobs are often times the jobs Embry Riddle graduates don't want.
The most important things to consider before committing to this school: Can you afford $35k for a non degree seeking school? Why would you spend $35k on a school that is FAR from employers first choice to look for graduates?
This review was written by a former student. Best of luck on your future endeavors. Your best bet is to continue shopping for schools. I only named about 30% of the things that make AIM a ripoff. If you go there, you deserve to find out the other 70% the hard way.
Peace
2 Updates & Rebuttals
jca55
Alt Spgs,Florida,
USA
AIM is the wrong choice for all the right reasons!
#2General Comment
Mon, February 15, 2016
I am in total agreement with both entries above, wrt AIM for profit practices and lack of preparation of its "graduates". I did not even consider them, and attended ERAU in Daytona Beach for Airframe, taking my exam and passing it immediately, the day after graduating!
They have several DME's on staff, and even though it is not inexpensive, it costs a lot LESS than AIM. The instructors are mostly top-notch, all degreed and most of them have Master's degrees in Aviation Science/Aeronautics. Teachers provide some handouts, some purchased at the book store, along with Jeppesen quality textbooks. ERAU also has an excellent Avionics Line Maitenance option for A&Ps.
Other excellent programs are in Tallahasee, Broward County and the standard from which I judge all, George T. Baker in Miami, FL. The US has many other Aviation Mechanic schools, and even if AIM is the only game in town, if you are really set on this career, make the sacrifice and move closer to a school which will prepare you for this field; AIM is not the answer, and I pity anyone who "completes" the program, as chances are they will not pass the FAA written and practicum.
Braulio
Orlando,Florida,
United States of America
Concur
#3Consumer Comment
Tue, August 28, 2012
I have to concur with the writer of this report. I also attended this ripoff school and I'm also a veteran. As the report started AIM is not a school is a business all they care is how much money they can squeeze out of prospective applicants. when I went through the so called acceptance procedure they made it seem like it was a case to weed out people that didn't come up to some standard they had set, but is all a joke and as the writer expressed this school takes in any one that they can squeeze money out of. I realized far into the program that this school was only there to fulfill the FAA requirement of 1800 hours in order to qualify to take the written tests, because I did not learn anything from their curriculum not a thing. Also the text books used to teach are not the same material the student needs to know to take the FAA test. That material is on different books that the school doesn't provide. The text books we used are full of type errors and sometimes try to explain a subject with so many words that in the end all it does is confuse the reader more than understanding the material being thaught. The practical projects that are assigned are a joke and don't even count towards the practical part of the test. Heck they don't even have a Designated Maintenance Examiner on staff like real schools have to certify the projects to count towards the Oral And Practical testing. The student would have to pay an exsorbitant amount of money to get remedial training form an outside entity in order to pass their tests which by the way the school does not pay. And as the writer stated about thier so called 100% placement it's all true when he wrote that working at McDonald's or Wendy's or at your local car wash counts as being placed. This school's career services is also a joke, In my case I have been ignored every time i tried to contact the person in charge. Phone calls are not returned neither are e-mail every time I have called I get a stupid excuse not to take my call. Aside from all the people I met and the friends I made nothing else was worth attending this mediocre excuse for so called learning institution. Again as the writer states AVOID THIS SCHOOL WITH A PASSION!!!!!!!!!!!!. Don't fall for the pretty girls that take you along the enrollment process, because once they get you they will avoid you like the plage like you never existed. Don't fall for the lies go somewhere else to get your education in aircraft maintenance. There are better options........
