Reviews of Universal Technical Institute

There are currently 15 reviews of Universal Technical Institute

• Oscar C.
  Student
  October 27th, 2009

  i am currently going to uti in sacramento ca. im taking the auto diesel program there. i believe thats this school is the only one that is worth the money. our competition across the river doesnt even come close. some students bad mouth the school and i have found that those are the kids in the back of the class on their cell phones and always messing around. i believe this school is a great start for anyone that wants to become a tech. i believe you get what you put in. if you want to learn you will but i see kids skim on by all the time and end up not learning anything.

• Lynn C.
  Alumni
  October 23rd, 2009

  Anyone who wants to go to any of their schools better think again. The information that is taught is vague and general. The course work does not prepare you for any real world work situations. The school will not give you a leading edge in anything, in fact it will set you back. UTI has earned and bad name for itself and its students in the automotive industry. Often it is the practice of employers to not hire UTI graduates or students. Anyone who wants a education in the Automotive industry, go to a community college, you will recieve better education, real credits, an accredited degree, and will only cost a fraction of the ridiculously over inflated price that the scam school uti will want to charge you. I am a UTI graduate who can tell you first hand, in no way has UTI contributed any postive influence on my career.

• parent Z.
  Other
  September 25th, 2009

  My son wanted to go to uti for all the reasons listed on other posts. We were willing to pay the full amount. With your comments and more research we all decided against it. He is attending a local college for an automotive degree and gaining experience and money from an auto body shop affiliated with the school as well. Students of uti, thank you for enlightening our decision. To future parents/students. When reps come over to your home you will be asked to pay 150.00 for the admission application. They say refundable, but after you decline the school, guess what? Ours told us that you can not get your money back. Just fyi.

• Jason H.
  Alumni
  September 4th, 2009

  I am a graduate of NTI like many others I was lied to. The school tells you they are up to date but the classes are from 2002. The cot is the new car that has been ran in NASCAR for more than 2 years and they still don't teach you anything about it. Do your self a favor and research it be for attending. They have also set the classes up so that now you will be in a NASCAR class asap to lock you in so that you can't drop them when you see they are b.s.
  This school is a big waste of money. Check out Wyotech, Lincoln Tech, OTC, or UNC Charlotte and you will soon see NTI is a waste of time. The instructors are said to have min. of 5 years in the field, well I had many in class who had no time in the industry and some who only had time with Jiffy Lube. What a joke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• calvin C.
  Teacher
  September 3rd, 2009

  I just graduated last phase from Exton. I have to say..Ive wasted my parents money.. I carried a 4.0 the whole way thru and honestly I havent the foggiest idea how to repair a vehicle. The company model seems to be a problem not the facility or instructors..
  It doesnt take a genious to figure out that the instructors have to "break the rules" to provide any kind of education whatsoever. The best instructors with the most effective teaching skills are "let go" in very short order..The Education managers seem to have to hold back what they feel is the best thing to do for the students as well...You almost feel sorry for them... it must be hard for them to sleep at night..Chapman, Grosso, Carazzino, and Norville are good people in heart. Never dealt with Beam in person.. But seen him with other students... soulless surrounded by a ora of pure dread.. Like hes neither dead nor alive.. the devil maybe.

• Adam L.
  Student
  September 3rd, 2009

  I currently am attending the automotive and diesel industrial courses at U.T.I. in Exton PA. This school is a waste of money and time. I thought I was actually learning a lot of stuff but in reality I wasn't. I have a relative who started working for a mechanic about the same time I started school and he knows more than I do and has more experience and my GPA is a 4.0. Therefore U.T.I to me is a waste. I could have been getting paid and learning at the same time. Another thing there MSATs are also a waste. If you get in to one you still have to pay it up front. And if you get laid off you are obligated to pay that money back. Another thing the instructors think they can act any which way they want towards students. Just cause were there to learn and don't know as much as them doesn't mean that they are better than students. My review of U.T.I. is there cheaper schools that are just as good. Biggest mistake of my life......

• Stephon D.
  Alumni
  September 1st, 2009

  I have attended UTI and graduated the basic automotive program got out of school and landed a job with CAT with no diesel exp. the main reason for getting hired was the UTI crudentials I had. UTI is a good school yes it is definitly pricey and yeah there are some people there that really shouldnt touch a car or even be driving a car for that matter. And yes the rules are quite extreme but it prepares you for a realistic job in the automotive industry i know many people that i graduated with me and most of which are very sucessful mechanics and still have a job in this wonderful economic crisis that we have been in. Dont believe the BS about it bein cruddy cause these are the people there purely for the college party life mentality and if that is what your lookin for this is not the school for that. So in the end if your lookin for a down to earth education that you truely earn if you put a 110 percent into the whole time there you will be truely satisfied. I attended classed at the UTI in Sacramento, California. great campus not so great city

• NORBERT K.
  Other
  August 8th, 2009

  UTI is a joke. I graduated from the Glendale campus two years ago and Im still waiting for all the stuff that was promised to me. Going there was the biggest mistake of my life. That place is not a school but more like a boot camp that will cost you 30 thousand dollars for 16 months worth of classes. The MSAT programs are impossible to get into because the manufacturers only "accept" a couple of students from every campus each year. Of course they dont tell you that when your forking over your money to them. More then half the instructors I had didnt even care about theaching or couldnt even anserw a simple question. They just cared about enforcing UTI's unrealistic rules. Their job placement assistance is an even bigger joke. Upon graduation everyone recieves a resume and a certificate and they are useless in the real world. Employers want experience and not a piece of paper saying you completed a course. Luckily I found a job at a new car dealership on my own not too long before graduating because UTI tried to get me to go and work for Just Tires. Save your money and just get a job at your local shop, at least there you will learn how to work on cars.

• Josh B.
  Student
  August 6th, 2009

  I am a student as well, attending the arizona campus, I have been attending for 6 months.
  the school is over priced, the classes and instructers are a waist of time. I am attending for the deisel program and the prgram is a joke, the only reason any one should take it is so you want to get into the manufacture programs like cummins, internatinal and so on. but if you want to do that, go to wyoming tech then transfer. there youll get a degree, and much more hands on training then at UTI. besides, I doubt the instructors there spend as much time on the computer looking for car parts or playing solitare. if you havent read thatguy's review, you should. its the same as AZ. but Seriously, dont waist your time or money by going to this school!

• thatguy L.
  Student
  July 6th, 2009

  I attend the UTI campus in Glendale Heights in Illinois. I must say I feel very cheated and lied to. They tried to force me to take diesel and industrial even though I have no interest in working on diesels. It's not even all diesels, just semi's. You learn absolutely nothing about light duty diesels such as F350's and Duramax's.

  Most of the kids that attend are fresh out of high school with mommy and daddy paying their way. This school simply teaches you how to follow orders... such as wake up and be somewhere on time with their hair trimmed and their T-shirt... YES T-SHIRT tucked in.

  Who tucks in a T-Shirt? I can understand if we were wearing our button down collard shirts, but honestly how can you tuck in a shirt that comes to your waist line and expect it to stay that way while you're working on a car?

  Speaking of working on cars... they will tell you that you can work on your car whenever you want. That is a bold lie! you get 1 saturday every 3 weeks between 8am and 2pm to work on your car. you can do small basic stuff like alignments, brakes, coolant flushes etc.

  Try cramping 1400 students into 9 bays for 6 hours. It sucks! The EMs say if you have a problem to come to them. And when you do all they say is "well in the real world we have to deal with things we don't like, so deal with it!" So you mean to tell me that I'm spending 1500 every 3 weeks and if i'm not happy with the way an instructor is teaching his class, i'm suppose to "deal with it!"???? WTF!!!!

  You are better off taking that 25k and buying a junk vehicle and getting the helms manual, jumping on google and doing some research. you'll learn more that way then in this school.

  This school is more about their own funding and appearances then actually teaching students. I feel very unfulfilled in most my classes.

  However there are a few good teachers like Wiltgen, Gravitt, Vicich, Potter, Flemming and Orsini that actually care about their students and go the extra mile to give us the education that we deserve.

• Mark W.
  Student
  May 26th, 2009

  I absolutely excel at this school, I have gotten the student of the course award several times, my attendance is 99.8% and my professionalism rating is near 100%. Which means I am an exceptional student, I have previous experience in the field and even though I do I have learned a few things in the various basic classes....however....the aim of this school is to tantalize you with the nascar name and then get you in and out as fast as possible, many people are left behind and almost nothing is retained. It is almost like an assembly line for techs and what you get is a sub par product. It is overpriced, and you don't even leave with a degree, the aim of this school is to get you a job in a dealership...not in nascar. I have been here for 5 months and have found that the people in Mooresville don't like the school or the students that come from it. There is a stigma of cocky kids that ruins it for the rest of us. The best thing you could do on your resume' is to hide the fact that you trained there....cause if they find out that is where you came from you will have trouble finding a Job at Walmart (and an impossible time in nascar) race teams will throw your paperwork in the garbage almost before you leave the building.

  I would say that anyone writing a positive review is probably a staff member or a student who hasn't started yet and got caught up in the hype. And Jerry C. is definately an advertiser for the school, cause that is the same B.S. that the staff feeds everybody. They have to lean pretty hard on the Nascar thing to get you hooked but I haven't heard a anyone mention it in months since I started, you can also bet on having to sit through a sales pitch every other week about the other courses they offer like Nissan and Ford F.A.C.T which will just cost you more money. I have also talked to several students who said the school made one or two calls on their behalf and that was it. They just call every so often to see if they had found jobs and when they finally get a job working at the local jiffy lube for 7.50 an hour they count that as "placement" and pad their numbers.

  Oh and by the way "Jerry C." We are talking about NASCAR TECHNICAL INSTITUTE....not one of UTI's other cattle farms on the other side of the country. And the courses are not "demanding and Challenging" they are easy and will put you to sleep, if they had any standards at all there would at least be some sort of IQ test to get in. I had one kid in my class who couldn't even pass basic engines, (the easiest of all the courses) he couldn't tell the difference between 100 dollars and 100,000 dollars. He once told me (when I was giving him a ride home because the state won't let him drive) that it cost him 85,000 dollars to go to school at NTI, but it was ok because "he gets 600 dollars a month from disability" More than once I gave him money for food and you people absolutely had him convinced that he would have no problem graduating and it broke his heart when he had to drop out....the admissions people make me sick (it is like they have no Conscience at all)

  Also the facility is nothing special and all you get to work on for the first 10 months is a bunch of junked cars from Hurricane Katrina that are cut in half and reworked so that they aren't even like a car you would see in the field.

  If you read this I know what you are thinking. "he must be bitter about something it won't be like that for me" I thought the same thing 5 months ago when I moved here. I would seriously reconsider your options and find a local tech school, if not then checkout Crew school, it is shorter, cheaper and has a better reputation.

• Quinn L.
  Alumni
  May 23rd, 2009

  This is a great school, with great instructors. You get out of it what you put in. A lot of students are right out of high school and it shows in the level of maturity amongst them. Many of the students are there not because they have a passion for automobiles, but because their parents gave them an ultimatum after high school. I myself have completed the basic program, as well as BMW technician training. I had a blast and learned a ton. If you are thinking about UTI go for it

• Jeremy M.
  Alumni
  May 8th, 2009

  Worst school I've attended. I obtained more education in my high school auto tech courses. None of the claims were true. I actually had an instructor share this story with me. A young man had graduated from UTI about 6 months prior to my attending. This man got a job working for Chrysler and got fired after numerous screw ups. The final straw was when he couldn't find the oil drain plug on a PT Cruiser! That should help you when you think of the "education" you'll get from UTI. I'd agree with Richard R. in that this school is insanely overpriced. If you want a better education go to a local college that offers an auto tech course. You'll get better training, at less than half the cost.

• Richard R.
  Teacher
  April 15th, 2009

  Although a highly publicized school, it is terribly overprice (upwards of $30,000 per year). Many public school and community colleges offer programs as good or better at a fraction of the cost.

• jerry C.
  Other
  March 2nd, 2009

  there are many mechanic schools out there, but how many are the official training center of NASCAR? if you have pit crew ambition, UTI is the place to be. not only are the courses demanding and challenging, but the school works hard to help you find work after graduation. even if your dreams aren't in NASCAR, there are a lot of other great training options at UTI, like motorcycle or marine mechanics. check it out!

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