Hi Nausheen.
I had visited Le Cordon Bleu in Orlando for their Baking and Pastry program. I was not very impressed for various reasons and did not get a "warm and fuzzy" feeling throughout my tour. I guess the main reason was that when I arrived and sat down with the admissions rep the very first thing he asked was whether I had any outstanding student loans from other schools and if they were in default. Guess money really IS their driving factor.
Anyway, I decided to further research other baking programs in my area and came across the Notter School of Pastry Arts. Excellent program (also in Orlando) and I enrolled in their 24 week European Baking and Pastry Arts program.. I had to go to back to the school today to complete paperwork and had the opportunity to speak with a baking and pastry student who was just about ready to graduate. He told me that he had gone to Le Cordon Bleu - for 3 months. During that time the school had showed him demo videos of Chef Notter (who owns, runs and teaches at his school). He was so blown away that he left LCB immediately and enrolled at Notter. He still carries loans from LCB but didn't care because as he put it - everything he was taught at LCB he could have learned from the internet and he learned more by watching the Cake Boss.
He was less than impressed with LCB and said even if he did not find the Notter School he still would have left LCB.
BTW - while touring Notter I had the opportunity to meet and speak with Chef Notter as well as observe a class and him in action - designing chocolate. Also, class sizes are small - no more than 16 students and usually there are less enrolled.
Don't know where you live but if you live in or near Orlando, I highly recommend visiting the school.
Hope this helps...............
