Gary Manuel Aveda Institute

As a recently graduated student, I would like to comment on the educational side. I have attended two other cosmetology before finally switching to GMAI. This school is by far the best!!! The instructors do everything possible to teach the students and make sure the guest are happy at the same time. The students are not thrown to the «wolves» as I have found to be true other places. Every procedure I preformed I had a firm grasp of what and why I was doing it. The Staff was approachable to answer questions whenever I has them. So if you are looking at going to a cosmetology school look no further. If you want to be part of someones education while getting a great cut, color or facial GMAI is the place to go.

I keep reading reviews here regarding the school as a business but havent came across any as attending the school. I currently attend GMAI and because there seems no other way to reach the staff at the school I figure maybe Gary himself might see this and change things.
Im not sure where to start. I unfortunately did not do much research before starting school, I decided to go because a friend of mine went about 4 years ago and when I decided I wanted to go to beauty school this is the one that popped in my head and the rest is history. I see people getting tours that are thinking about going to the school and hear what theyre told and let me just say it is very easy to be persuaded by words. You are thrown out on the clinic floor in the second phase after only 10 weeks of being in the classroom and learning the basics and it’s scary. Yes you will only get experience by practicing, but the actual hands on learning isnt much. There is a ton of homework that for the most part is not beneficial in my (and about 80% of the other students) opinion. There is only one instructor to one class that is sometimes as large as 25 people. When you do have a client you sometimes have to wait 20 plus minutes for an instructor to come over to your client and you have to do that multiple times throughout the service. They claim that that «waiting» time is alotted in the time you’re expected to complete the service and then mark you down for going over your time limit. Some of the instructors are very helpful and knowledgable and others tend to tell you something and leave it at that not really making sure you understood what they just said because they have to move on to the next student. And you literally get a different answer from each Learning Leader. One will tell you to do one thing and then another will come up to you and stop you and ask what youre doing and tell you to do something completely different. It gets so confusing and overwhelming.
As far as having supplies whether you’re working on a client or a mannequin is another story. There has been days when we’ve ran out of almost every hair color (the ones left being the not so desirable ones). We’ve ran out of shampoo and conditioner in certain lines. Just the other day we ran out of cholesteral, gel, corn starch and end papers (for perming). We literally had nothing to do if we didnt have a client and yet you get in trouble when you are not constantly doing something. Running out of those types of things to practice foils and doing color is like a Jiffy Lube running out of Oil. And you can’t practice cutting hair because you only recieve 4 «long» hair mannequins when you start. By the end of my first ten weeks two of those were already cut to the scalp. And then you, the starving student is expected to purchase a new one (and they are not cheap). And each student is only allowed to get a cut OR shampoo/​blow dry once a month, so its hard to work on eachother once a student has had their hair straightened for the month. It definitely makes you wonder where exactly your $ 20K tuition is being used.
There are a lot of expectations as far as being a student go as well. People get sent home for wearing colored tights (meaning theyre wearing too much color) and yet your attendence to the school has to be at at least 90% to stay in school. It’s only some people that they call out on what theyre wearing though. There is no doubt that once you are on the staff’s radar you will tend to get in more trouble than the other ones that are always breaking the rules. Like I said, it’s hard to express any of this to any of the staff. Unless you catch the director of education walking to her car, its hard to ever have a talk with her unless youre in trouble.
Theyve recently started making a bunch of rules and some are just ridiculous. The staff is constantly changing. Since being there Ive seen 4 different teachers leave and 2 administrative staff leave.
I think that GMAI is a decent school. Had I known what I know now (as well as the rest of my class) we would not have signed up to go. It really makes me sad because I was so excited to go and learn, but at this point I feel the money I spent was not nearly worth it. I wish I would’ve gone to a much cheaper school where I would expect things to be the way they are at GMAI. Regardless of wherever I went I would always expect to be treated with respect and not treated like I am in elementary school and not talked to like a child.
The worst part is reading so many of these reviews and complaining about how long it takes or someone not knowing what they’re doing and so much of it isnt always the students fault. Theyre under staffed and they throw you out on the floor like a fish in a sea of sharks. Bottom line is this school is not worth the money you pay and the exhaustion and the emotional rollercoaster you go on attending it.