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Seriously disorganized, absent and non-accountable are the 3 words that sum up my experience with faculty during the dissertation phase. My committee had time to meet with me ONE TIME in a whole calendar year. Meanwhile I paid about 18-19K in tuition. Don't get much for your money these days. The program was slated for 3 years, but is more like 5-6 years before done, although 2 years of that has been sitting in my chair waiting for faculty to do their job, so I can do mine. Based on this experience... Read More I cannot recommend that you waste your time & money on this school.

I am in heaven...complete heaven with my major of psychophysiology and the unparalleled staff that mentors me. Having an Ivy league undergrad education allows me to attest to the fact that Saybrook University is a top notch academic center. There are notable professors working here that have decades of experience mastering their unique disciplines in hypnosis, biofeedback and other holistic measures. There has been nothing but positive experiences for me thus far. The academic expectations of students... Read More are high and should be. Saybrook offers degree programs that you will not find anywhere else in the country! Scholarships are always available, and you can get awarded if you put in your best effort. Professors and faculty are extremely humble, helpful and kind. It is always a joy to attend the bi-weekly lectures online. The class sizes are small and intimate. Your professors will know you by your name, not your college ID number; they will email you and talk to you on the phone. If you want to get your money's worth and learn from the world's most innovative teaching staff, please apply today. The chair of my department accepted me into my program via phone, not through email or a letter. -This is what all learning institutions should replicate and admire. I am in love with my PhD program!

Going to Saybrook was one of the best experiences in my life. I was fortunate to have professors who graduated from highly ranked schools such as Yale and Harvard. Some professors were quite demanding, which at the time was frustrating, but in retrospect was necessary for writing a dissertation. In fact, starting with first semester, all courses were geared toward preparing me for one of the most challenging quests I've ever undertaken: adding new knowledge to a scholarly field of research. This... Read More is no easy task and the hours spent were grueling and exhausting at times. Fortunately, I had a support system of new students who started at the same time as I did. Some were from other departments, others were working on Masters degrees, but we became a tight group of friends who listened, complained, and laughed together. To use a cliche' - the Saybrook experience is what you make it. I had a passion for a very specific topic and was able to pursue my "research question" from the first class all the way through to dissertation. However, I was very careful to choose courses/professors who gave me the latitude to explore scholarly fields on the cutting-edge of academia. I also attended every meeting in SF and took the time to form relationships with the professors who I admired most. Eventually, three of them formed my dissertation committee, and by getting to know them, I established an excellent rapport with each one. Having such relationships made the painstaking work of endless writing and re-writing much more bearable. The key to success at Saybrook is having professors who are vested in your project and will share their wealth of knowledge with you to avoid time-consuming mistakes. For obtaining an "off-campus advanced degree" - Saybrook is probably the best choice for pursuing topics relating to humanistic psychology. There are few other schools that are accredited (check carefully), but strictly online. Needless to say, my decision to apply to Saybrook was a difficult one, but once I made the commitment - my mind was on auto-pilot until receiving my Ph.D. What a fantastic reward at the end of the rainbow!

My experience with Saybrook is that it is very disorganized. Things change A LOT. Requirements, teachers, other faculty, standards, the online class platform. The general culture is pretty supportive, laid back, and friendly, with looser standards, something like you might expect from a West Coast school teaching transpersonal and humanistic psychology and mind-body medicine. But then you get that one prof who is a stickler for detail. I've been told my writing is amazing, touching, moving, I wish... Read More I could write like you, etc. and I've been told it is not fit for a grad student and I need tutoring. I've been told my APA style was very good by one person, and that it wasn't APA style at all and unacceptable by another. I've been treated extremely kindly for asking for extensions for medical reasons, and been threatened with failure other times. I've had the class modules posted well after the beginning of the semester, and ordered the wrong books from outdated syllabi. I've had classes I was signed up for cancelled a bunch due to low enrollment. I've missed feedback on papers because I didn't know where to look for it because it was in a different place than in the past. I've signed up for classes I thought were 16 week courses that were only 8 week courses. I've often been confused about when things were due because they are labelled "due end of week 1" rather than with specific dates. Or missed the whole first week, because week one started before the conference one year and during the conference the previous year. Often the syllabus doesn't quite match up to what is posted in the online course shell as far as required readings and things. It has gotten a little better over the years, and they've cracked down a bit on getting us all to participate in the online discussion-based courses on time which helps the community feel, but generally there has been some level of confusion. On the plus side the courses are really interesting, and I do learn a ton from them, and most professors are very qualified, accommodating, and fun people to work with.

Saybrook claims to be humanistic and social justice oriented, and if you overlook HOW they do business, one could be easily fooled by the talk they talk. After two years of getting inaccurate information and stiff-armed, from the student recruiter to the commencement ceremony director, I know better. My cohort protested enough to get the president, to participate in some discussions about our program being understaffed, the curriculum in constant flux, no organizational cohesion - including accurate... Read More syllabi... the list goes on. Faculty were constantly in the position of trying to account for gaps between what we students were sold by the university and our experience. There was plenty of verbiage; what was disappointingly absent was the active application of social justice principles in how my cohort was treated by this institution. From what I can tell in hindsight, Saybrook saw an opportunity to 'tap a new market' here in Seattle and, as happens everyday, a corporate acquisition took priority over product quality or broader community impact.

I cannot ay enough about Saybrook. I attended a traditional school for my undergraduate education, an online online school for my M.B.A. and Saybrook for my Ph.D. It has been amazing! The residential conferences are an amazing time to get together with your professors, colleagues and classmates - I have developed life long relationships with these folks! The small class sizes are so wonderful - you get such personalized treatment during each class. My dissertation committee has taught me from day... Read More one, and I consider these great professors my friends. They have helped with outside resources, connected me with outside opportunities to develop me professionally. The academic rigor was exceptional, and I was allowed from my first day to solely focus on my area of interest: the sex trafficking of children in the United States. I was able to tailor all of my academic coursework towards my focus, which made the dissertation process (while very challenging) much easier. I love the humanistic focus and the freedom this school allowed me to pursue a Ph.D. in an area of my desire. I cannot say enough about the school, the professors and the academics. I am honored to be graduating in August!

This school has gone beyond providing me with an education but gone beyond by leading me on a journey of personal transformation. I couldn't imagine my life without this university and find great purpose in everything I've learned and will continue to learn. I hope to pursue a career in the development and discovery of Energy medicine and biological fields to bring a about a paradigm shift in our understanding of health. Our health begins with our own self-awareness. Saybrook has not only enabled... Read More that perspective but helped me to embody it through my own self-care.

Saybrook University combines the best of both the residential learning world and the online learning world. Each semester begins with a residential conference for about 5 days with intensive collaborative work and continues as we all go home and continue our coursework online. I have always been a bit skeptical of online learning, but Saybrook demonstrates how to do it very effectively. In addition, the faculty and staff are always available through our discussion boards, email, and regular or Skype... Read More calls. The graduate programs require a high level of self-motivation and self-direction, and the workload in the PhD program is considerable. The only downside I see to Saybrook right now is that the University is currently going through a major reorganization which can be anxiety producing.

I am pursuing my doctorate at Saybrook. The faculty are incredibly supportive, and the program works hard to create connections amongst student and faculty. The research series of courses is designed to incrementally develop your research skills as well as your research question for your dissertation. It is very well-thought out. Saybrook is a hybrid program where we spend the first week of every semester in a residential conference and the rest of the semester is online. I am incredibly impressed... Read More with the depth of learning we accomplish online. We all support each other in our learning and learn together through our discussion groups, conference calls, and video meetings. The one area of growth that I can see Saybrook needing to do more with (and they are planning to) is connecting with alumni more. There has been talk for some time of developing an institute for consulting where faculty can mentor students and alumni can reconnect. It will take some time, but there is significant momentum to do this. I would highly recommend Saybrook to those students interested in organizational leadership and transformation as well as the application of systems thinking and complexity theory.

The program with Saybrook University is based in San Francisco (and I live in Austin) and is a progressive school that is able to offer hybrid programs that feature online learning/collaboration with low-residency. I can continue my life in Austin -- or anywhere in the world -- and just need to be in SF twice a year for week-long residential conferences. This program is everything I could possibly ask for in a graduate program. It is truly the next step in this new chapter in my life. I feel alive... Read More again. I feel like I have a purpose, and I get to collaborate with peers and professors (who are very much my peers, as well), and we all support each other in our own creative processes. By the way, my specialization is in the Neuroscience of Creativity. :-)