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califorina culinary academy

post #1 of 9
4/18/07 at 5:32pm
Thread Starter 
any one gone here im going to talking to one of there admishions reps tomarow they sent me a lot of info and looks like a good school, with a lot of good programs.
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post #2 of 9
4/19/07 at 1:19am
I have no experience with that school so I am just going to mention what I have heard from people on this site.

CCA in recent years has declined with the quality of instruction they offer. They will accept pretty much anyone that is willing to fork over a small fortune. And the classes are over crowded ... hitting the 30 student mark per class. Ouch! They give off the impression of trying to get as many students into their programs as possibal, more so for profits, and not graduates.

It seems to me that this is not a school you would want to move to the Bay Area for. If you already live here and moving is not an option, then CCA might not be so bad.

Again, please take in consideration that I have not attended this school, or even visited this school. Hopefully others will chime in that have actual experience.

Just keep what I have told you on the back of your mind and don't forget it. You will be visiting the campus, so you should be able to judge fairly well.

Talk to students, sit in on a few classes. Ask the admissions reps about the class size and ask them to put it in writing, lol.

If you are in the bay area and have not already looked into the PCI, I encourage you to take a look. pcichef.com
"To be a good chef all you got to do is lots of little things well" -Marco Pierre

"As far as cuisine is concerned, one must read everything, see everything, hear everything, try everything, observe everything, in order to retain in the end, just a little bit." -Fernand Point
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post #3 of 9
4/19/07 at 2:40am
Thread Starter 
thanks for the info i was shocked when they told me there class sizes too. but ill check out both schools when i drive into SF its only about 100miles for me so its not that bad to visset. but thanks for the info.
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post #4 of 9
4/20/07 at 5:30pm
Thread Starter 
any one eles have any imput on CCA
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post #5 of 9
5/5/07 at 4:09pm
I am a student at CCA and one thing i disagree with...the classes are not oversized. In my class theres a total of 12 students so I don't know what you've heard but that may have been awhile ago
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post #6 of 9
5/14/07 at 10:18am
I have taken classes through the weekend program at CCA. Generally I found the quality of the classes to be good. They recently cancelled all the weekend program and all of their corporate events to focus on the full time students.
http://saraskitchen.blogspot.com
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post #7 of 9
5/15/07 at 7:10pm
There're 22 people in my class. :)
iBake iShoot iWindsurf
http://www.namthip.com
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post #8 of 9
5/22/07 at 1:05pm
I reviewed the CCA and found their recruiting to be a fairly frustrating push to sign me up for financial aid. The cost I discovered was between 60 and 70 grand. Uniform and supplies had a ~$5,000 price tag. I looked at other programs in the bay area, too and found that the CIA in Napa to be quite expensive, but the quality is such that it might be worth it. The program I ended up joining was City College of San Francisco's culinary program which had several advantages: The quality of instruction is high, students learn by cooking for the school's cafeteria (great hands on experience) as well as classes on the more advanced skills, and finally the cost was $20 per unit. Even the uniforms and knife kit was under $300. The rate of people who get jobs after finishing the program was really high, something like 98%. Before I made my decision, I worked in the industry through temp agency and got to talk to the chef's and managers and they all said that the CIA was the best education, but City College had quite a high reputation in the Bay Area. The managers I talked to also pointed out that the students coming from City College were easier to work with and train because of their skills in a high volume cafeteria kitchen. They didn't have such good things to say about the CCA students mainly because they were a bit harder to train in a quantity production environment.

City College of San Francisco Culinary Arts and Hospitality Studies
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post #9 of 9
6/13/07 at 4:39pm
San Francisco - News - Burnt Chefs - sfweekly.com
Baruch ben Rueven / Chanaבראד, ילד של ריימונד והאלאן
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