counselor

admission counselor

senior counselor

director of student services

account executive

Grand Canyon Education

I have worked here for 2.5 years. I came here because it was a way out of my last position with a different employer. I took advantage of the opportunity and obtained both my masters and post masters degrees. I lost my job due to the fact that the online division implements CAP (corrective action plans) when you do not meet their monthly enrollment expectations. They fool you into believing that you are helping current/potential students as an enrollment counselor when in reality, you are using sales tactics to sell education, even if it means selling education to individuals who are unfit for school, individuals who are not financially stable, individuals who are only attending school to obtain free government financial aid, and individuals who have no intentions of earning a degree. This job is nothing but cold call dialing all day, looking for enrollments. You are not a counselor, and this is a call center.The leadership will try to convince you that you are doing good deeds when they are manipulating the educational system. Although GCU is Christian, GCE is not (it's nowhere in their policy). I was fortunate to have a manager who fought to keep each individual on their team off CAP for the first 1.5 years of my employment, which gave me a better chance of completing both of my programs prior to this point. However, this changed when that individual left the company due to the high stress/psychologically unsafe, workplace culture/environment that created serious health concerns. We've had several people leave, resign (in fear of being fired), or been fired just in the last month. They have cycled through employees like old gym socks, and the HR has done nothing to address these reasons for the turnover being at an unsafe high. The company would rather spend more money hiring new people who are inexperienced as opposed to keeping the tenured employees who are versed in their positions. All this company cares about is taking advantage of you, your skills, and abilities for their own gain. I have applied 10 times to other positions within the company since being employed and have received no growth opportunities. Advancement opportunities are only available to individuals who are okay with being puppets on strings (since they have management CAPs too) and who are okay with firing quality individuals. They are also only available to relatives of the Regional Director of Operations, Vice President, or University President (got to love the favoritism). Anyone who works here and says they enjoy this job either hasn't worked in this position or hasn't been employed long enough to fully understand how this company operates. People may rave about the salary potential, but it doesn't last, and you will find yourself mentally ill at the end of the day and without a job. This place is toxic, and I would not recommend it by any means.

I worked within the Marketing Department as their Marketing Photographer. My advice to anyone viewing the job listing for this position is to think twice. If I had it to do over again I would never have taken the position. To give you an idea of what you can expect... I would be SCHEDULED for 15+ hour days on a regular basis. You might have to come in and shoot a later night event that runs until 9:30 or 10pm, but you would also be scheduled to shoot something at 7 or 8am. All that time in between those bookended shoots you are expected to be there "in case any last minute things pop up". So a good solid 15+ hour day. I once was scheduled to shoot an event that went until 1:30am and my first shoot that day was at 8am with multiple other shoots between the two. That was a 17 hour day. This past June I was SCHEDULED for 82 hours one week. Yes, 82 hours over 7 days straight. You would think they'd then give you some time off the next week... nope. "Flex time does not apply to the photographers" < direct quote from Supervisor. When you stand up for yourself as a human being you will be told things like "you're expected to work longer hours because you don't have kids". The long days are pretty awful and are only made worse by the shape of the office they will have you in... it is an absolute pit that would probably be shut down by the building code enforcement people in the city. Nasty worn out and stained carpet that is musky, burned out electric outlets, bare wires coming out of walls, wall trim that has long since fallen off and revealed the brown glue behind, buzzing off colored fluorescent lighting, random wiffs of sewage smell, and you will have to deal with invasions of ants and the more than occasional roach. Your direct Supervisor who must approve every single thing that involves you will ignore your time sensitive emails pretty much all the time, will torpedo many projects you are given instead of trusting your years of expertise, and will throw you under the bus to her bosses without thinking twice (this part was told to me by several coworkers after they heard I left).

If you're a talented photographer and value yourself skip this place. There are better opportunities in the Phoenix Valley.

My honest take: This is a good job with good pay and benefits if you like talking on the phone every day. I worked for the online division for the College of Doctoral Studies. I liked my coworkers and manager team but higher leadership seemed to lack perspective and drove the team with unrealistic expectations.. but we all report to someone so I’m sure they had their perspectives on us as well. On another note, the students, or “learners”, are obviously much further in their education and therefore more mature right? Nope. Most incoming calls I took were angry entitled students mad because they failed to meet a deadline or disagreed with their professor on something ridiculous. Some students seem to call because they just want someone to talk to which can be nice sometimes but when you have a call goal and constantly getting other calls, you have to dehumanize and finish the call and get going. You’re also locked into a probation period for the first year capped at a 43k salary which is fair and you start with 250 students and increase the student level and pay after your probation period. My coworkers, level 4s and 5s made good money but they had several hundred students and huge workloads. Final topic: Financial Advisor and Acadmic Advisor. You wear two hats in this role. One of an academic advisor and one as a financial advisor. I got burnt out by the sheer amount of irresponsible borrowers and constantly chasing down cash paying students to pay for their classes and dealing with them when you pull their schedule because they aren’t paying. It sucked. Beyond that, all departments are separated from each other and the ONLY ones that interact with students are you and your Enrollment Counselors. So whenever you have financial aid related issues, or faculty related issues, the students must communicate with you and you must communicated back and forth with several other departments which can suck when you have a simple and easily fixable issue. That’s my honest take on the job. I would have stayed if I didn’t get burnt out in a short amount of time and it just wasn’t for me. GCE is a great place to work and have various opportunities and benefits. 

I have worked at Grand Canyon since 2018 in various roles, but mainly in the student enrollment department for online admissions. I have really enjoyed this company, and there are some pretty great benefits that I appreciated (the tuition benefits were my favorite). It is also pretty easy to request PTO, which was great. 

In my current role as an Account Executive (aka University Development Counselor…its the same thing), my two main expectations are enrolling a certain number of students per month and hosting/participating in partnership events every month. Overall, I do enjoy these things and it’s great to know that I impact the lives of my students in a positive way. However, the biggest downside of the role (and admissions jobs in general) is the student count expectation. Your tenure/raises as a counselor directly depend on your ability to enroll your students. You get your student leads from your events that you do each month. It’s not a perfect system and it’s not always in your control, which can get frustrating. Some months are great, some are really slow. If your events have low attendance or if your partnerships aren’t going well, then you don’t have the leads you need. It can be very cutthroat in this sense. 

Also, every counselor on your team is assigned a certain territory area in which you can enroll students for. Some counselors get assigned to territories that are far from their home (mine was 30-45 minutes away for example), so commuting to my events or student meetings was hard at times. However, on days where I didn’t have those happening, I got to work at home which was great. It did get a little boring at times, as since these weren’t event days, you’re basically just cold calling for the whole shift trying to find a lead.

Overall, it’s not a bad gig and the company is pretty great. The pay is decent as well. However, you definitely have to have the right type of personality to blend with this type of role. If you like a little risk, this might be a good fit for you. 

Grand Canyon Education has great people you work for, great benefits and is extremely organized. They are dedicated to coaching you and pay well. The culture is wonderful, coworkers are friendly, and always willing to help. However, you have to have the right personality for the job. If you have a background in Sales or Behavioral health counseling, this job will be a good fit.  Most of the day is spent cold-calling people and has a business model of sales. The dialing can be monotonous to speak to maybe(if you're new) 1 person the entire day. You have to meet quotas and convince people to attend Grand Canyon University. Leads are from years ago, and most are not interested in pursuing their education, you also have to create your own leads. In reality, it is your own business. You are responsible for enrolling, creating referrals, and getting people to pass their courses. You have to be tough mentally, the job is extremely unpredictable. If you are new they are lenient on not reaching your numbers at first but eventually if you do not perform and reach your numbers you will be let go. Your job security will be dependent on whether you can learn quickly to convince people to enroll at GCU. If you are not the type of person who likes to be on the phone, enjoys sales, or is pressured to hit quotas this will not be the job for you. However, if you have the right personality, are competitive, and like sales, this is definitely a good job to have. I, unfortunately, found out I don't have the personality for this job, I do not like being on phones, also job security is important to me, therefore, the unpredictability is extremely uncomfortable for me. However, I truly do love the people I work with, and the experience I have gained from it so far.

As an Admissions Counselor, I spent 97% of my time calling, texting, emailing, and repeatedly nagging students who had already been contacted and even those who had previously stated they were no longer interested. Because of COVID, GCE has integrated paid leads with our organic leads and cycled them through team after team, contacting inquiries and students years after their original inquiry. They overload you with information, constantly changing policies and practices so you have no idea what is going on, and set insane goal requirements that are standard no matter your lead pool. I wasn't an Admissions Counselor, I was working in a call center. My final and most concerning issue is that they stated people on my team would be able to work from home during the pandemic. When our team numbers went down (due to a change in their lead policies), they stated WFH was no longer an option and forced us to commute to campus. This was right after Spring Break where people were traveling and Arizona had some of the highest cases in the country. Their preventative measures were very minimal (minor social distancing, plexiglass with huge holes in it, no mask enforcement on campus.) Because of this and many, many other reasons, 90% of my team has either quit or is currently looking for new positions. I'm mostly disappointed because I was truly excited to work with students and tell them about my amazing experience in college. My time at this job ruined my memories of college and any desire to encourage students to further their education. 

They do pay decently and their benefits are great. 

I work as a student worker for GCU Technical Support.  This department is not a money-maker for the university, so it often feels like HR devalues our department.  Student workers used to have some opportunity for advancement and growth, which could eventually lead to a good full-time position.  However, HR is slowly but surely stripping the opportunity to grow, and not just for student workers.  If you work as a Technical Support Specialist I, that is basically the same job as a student worker position, but you get benefits; student workers get nothing and are paid minimum wage.  The Level 1 position is quite literally the bottom of the barrel, and there's not much room for growth unless someone in a higher position leaves.  Sadly, this department in particular has no career building opportunities.  HR needs to seriously rethink what they're doing, both for student workers and the full-time employees in all positions in the department.  It feels like the department is declining, which is really sad to see since I've worked here for two years or so.  Now on to a typical work day.  If you're a Level 1 FTE (Technical Support Specialist I), your job will consist of being in the main student queue.  You'll take calls and you have the ability to get chat trained after ninety days on the floor.  The workload can get heavy sometimes, but overall the problems are generally an easy fix.  Training is quite comprehensive and you'll have mentors to help you until you finish the eight weeks in training.  When you hit the floor, your growth is pretty much up to you.  So overall the work isn't too bad and you can learn or improve your customer service, critical thinking, and organization skills.

A typical day at work is spent on the computer sending/receiving emails, in person meetings with students, and calling students. Management depends on the manager, if you are just starting out they will expect you to do work of a higher level without the pay of that level and quote their policy at you if you try to speak up about it. The workplace culture is decent, some people are very strange and others are fantastic. The hardest part of the job is being the middleman between different departments. When you first start out it can feel like someone is telling you to ask a student for something but you don’t really know why or what exactly they need from the student because it is all through email or ticket requests. It really does not make sense why different departments do not contact the students directly since they know what they are looking for. It can sometimes feel like a waste of your time with all the back and forth that ends up happening. The hardest part of the job is first starting out because every situation is different and new and the “training” barely prepares you for the reality of the job. The most enjoyable part of the job is working with the students who actually care and seeing them succeed.

This job is hard. I had my 1 week of training in Phoenix and then 1 week virtually at home. The training isn't useful and its not what you need to be truly successful in the field and in your territory. My territory has been changed TWO times and my largest schools/cities have been taken from me, leaving me with small towns and towns that don't need or care for advancement in education. A bachelors degree is GOOD ENOUGH! I've tried asking for help and when/if I do get it, it's very passive aggressive and I am constantly threatened of a "CAP (correction action plan" every other month. The job is stressful and truly requires you to work 50-60 hr weeks and have the management has zero sense of needing to be there for young kids and being a parent that does it all. I would not recommend this job if you are a parent that wants to dinners with the family, school events or even sporting events on saturdays. 

Support wise, you feel like you don't have any, all the managers are besties and there is NO ONE you can go to with support or asking how you can change things up. 

A majority of the positions including this one are not advising and counseling positions. You are not advising anything. You work in a call center making sales (with an expected number each month). This position specifically had so little support from management and the team. I was told that I would have 40 hours of on the job training, but it turned out to be 8 hours. I was assigned 60 inquiries (calls to return) within 30 minutes of starting the job. The team blew threw the steps with the excessive amount of platforms and did a poor job of training and were very short with me and expected me to know everything from the 2 weeks of a generic orientation class. So unless you have a lot of experience with working in a call center, making sales, and very little hands-on training, then I would not recommend this job. Also this is not a Christian College for those who value that, it is a Christian "worldview" College. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Counselor 7 salaries reported	$67,429 per year
Admission counselor 5 salaries reported	$59,000 per year
Senior counselor 10 salaries reported	$52,600 per year
Director of student services 4 salaries reported	$44,000 per year
Account executive 3 salaries reported	$75,000 per year

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