I know it sounds tempting. Your school in CA is closing and you are pitched the wonders of Ai Hollywood...
This is far from the truth.
Here are the things you should know.
Ai Hollywood is horribly run.
Their president has overseen the shutdown and destruction of two schools prior. He sees students as dollars and actively notes his thoughts on thier intelligence in meetings.
Their dean is useless. He has been trying to leave Ai for years, and can't get out as he has no skill sets. He has literally interviewed at schools all over southern california for years, no one wants or needs him. His horrible leadership has caused most of the good faculty to move on.
The school is in an incredibly high crime and dangerous neighborhood.
Just this past May they saw a break in that caused $300,000 in damage and theft.
It is not in Hollywood, but rather a North Hollywood (the bad part of NoHo), a place you do not want to be.
There are dozens of student on student and student on teacher violence cases.
Numerous faculty and staff have restraining orders against students.
Some graduations have needed armed guards.
The school is a haven for troubled students from other Ais who have histories of violence or s-xual harassment/assault. They are transfered from other Ais regularly, most of them by the former GVP, now president of the art institutes.
The school actively recruits at prisons and other reform instituitions.
The equipment is terribly old and leadership is very weak. The director of media art for example has an emotional disorder and therefore rarely comes to work. Often times missing weeks while adjucts scramble to run the department.
The left over full time faulty either is good but unsupported or are the left over rejects that couldn't leave.
There are protests in front of the school regularly during events.
The school will often not offer full 4 hour a week courses, but rather to save money will offer 1 hour or 2 hour versions and still charge the same tuition.
Other times they flat out won't offer many courses and insist they must be taken online.
Most importantly they will not be around long as soon after you transfer, they will be converted to a learning center campus and all students will be forced online.
So what can you do?
Despite what many say, your creduts ARE transferable! Not to every school, but to many. Look for small Non Profits in your area. Many of these schools are honest instituitions that understand Ai student predicaments and will give them a chance. We have several of them here in LA that many Ai students find refuge at and excel at.
So please save yourself, do not transfer to Ai Hollywood!