I feel the need to comment here as well. I am also a graduate of Riverside Military Academy. I was sent there with a D average in public school and attended RMA the last year and a half of high school. I hated my parents at the time for sending me there. The academics were mediocre back then, but they did focus on teaching students how to learn, developing leadership, confidence, athletic skills and personal responsibility. For most kids, especially those in trouble, this program worked very well. I will say, some of the complaint comments here are troublesome to me. Three meals a day is fine, and at least when I was there, you could always go back for seconds. Also, you have to stay involved with your children. When I had trouble with algebra, my parents hired me a tutor over the summer to get me through it. At the end of the day, teachers will bend over backwards to help kids, but that only works if the child is doing their part, and lets face it, most high school kids are interested in just about anything other than algebra and are not at a stage in life to understand how important high school can be to their future. Parents must impart that truth to them.
Consumer Complaints & Reviews
Our son is on his third year at Riverside Military Academy. We searched all over the country to find a school that provided the structure and academics to challenge our son without having to be in a "reform school" atmosphere, and we found it in Gainesville, GA. Our son has developed amazing leadership skills, making great grades, has become organized, and is making lifelong friendships among his brothers in blue. This has been a great experience for our son. Okay, he complains about the food, too, but liked it until he found out it wasn't cool to do so. I would recommend it to anyone who has a son that needs more direction or more one-on-one attention.
A great way to try it out is the summer school program, open to anyone. I don't work for the school (or even volunteer since we are out of state), but I felt compelled to tell of our experience with the school when I read the negative review that was posted. All I can say is visit the school and see for yourself! The campus itself is beautiful (as nice as any college campus you'll find) and the staff are all very friendly. Many of the military officers working as teachers there have returned from Iraq or Afghanistan and are great role models for these boys. Enough said. Check it out.
I too want to put in a good word for RMA. I spent two years there and graduated in 1992--the worst class ever. RMA actually completely started top redesign everything in 1994. I was sent there for behavior issues; basically, I was a street punk in Atlanta. My father went to McCallie Military School so when my behavior was too much, off I went. I hated everything about it. However, I did very well while in there. I went from a 1.9 GPA to a 3.8 GPA, and only got in trouble once, at least only caught just once.
The academics were a joke, below public school level. But you do learn what the basics, enough to get you into college. Also, keep in mind that we only remember 30% of what we learned in school. Grade school is not about retaining all that information, it's about learning how to learn. And RMA will do that for any young man out there better than any other school. I stay in touch with other RMA graduates, and we all have done something with our lives. We have confidence, strength, and discipline. We all have the "soft" skill that all employers look for.
As far as this parent that complained about her child's experience, well there were those few kids that RMA did not work for them. My advice to any parent that might be having trouble with their son, and thinking about RMA, go for it! Just not 7th or 8th grade. More than three years there is just not fair for the child because of the social isolation. I speak from experience and two years was perfect for me. I gained what I needed to gain from it but I did not lose out on too much while being there.
And yes, your son will hate you for sending them there, but when they walk in that graduation parade, standing tall, chest out, full of confidence, they will still hate you but they will have changed for the best. But when they are in their mid-twenties holding down a good career, they will thank you for sending them. Trust me. If it was not for RMA, I would be dead by now. But instead, I am 36 years old with a great career as a land surveyor and expecting my first child this spring.
I am sorry that Kellena of Lexington, SC had such a negative experience with Riverside Military Academy, but I am an ecstatic parent who has had a very positive experience with RMA. Last year, RMA took my son, a very complacent 14-year old freshman and transformed him into a proud, confident, respectable, and achieving young man. The staff at RMA were all very accommodating whenever we needed to contact them. Email messages were always returned to us within 24 hours and often much sooner. Weekly grades are posted online every Thursday (for the previous week's curriculum) and we always had access to his quarterly and semester averages.
If he slipped in a class, an email from us resulted in a prompt reply from his instructor 100% of the time. These teachers do care about the academic achievement of their students--they "walk the walk." Okay, the food isn't so great and we do send our son Care Packages with snacks and drinks from time to time, but not clothes or blankets. The school provides all clothing and civilian clothes are not allowed.
With all due respect, I can't help but wonder what kind of cadet Kellena's son was. Did he go into RMA with a good attitude or did he go in with a chip on his shoulder and do the bare minimum to get by? Did he constantly receive demerits for not completing what was expected of him, either in the classroom, at PT, during drill, or in his barracks? RMA is best suited to help those who help themselves. Tuition and uniform fee is under $30,000/year so I am not sure why Kellena would have had to borrow $70,000 to send her son to RMA.
I feel like I needed to balance a negative experience with the positive one I have had to date. So positive, in fact, that we have decided to send our younger son to RMA for the upcoming school year.
My husband is an active duty military and while we were stationed in Italy, we decided to send our oldest son to Riverside Military Academy, so that he could get his GPA score up and have a better chance of getting into college. Our son had difficulty with math specifically and motivation. RMA had told us that they have very small classes ratio 8-12 : 1 and that they test every child to see how they learn best ("Riverside's Center for Student Excellence is a specialized learning center that provides training and guidance that help our cadets adopt proven study techniques and classroom skills that improve their academic performance).
One-on-one consultation with Riverside's learning specialist introduces and improves cadets' time-management abilities through proper and consistent use of their planning agendas. Students also develop strong organization skills by learning proper material categorization and using color-coded subject binders. The learning specialist also teaches cadets efficient study habits, note-taking skills and test-taking strategies.
The Center for Student Excellence is open to all students either as a voluntary or assigned opportunity to enhance their educational experience). To make a long story short, our son still managed to fail Algebra II in his first year there. The school subsequently made him re-take Algebra II the next year (senior year) but not in a class room, "online", which our son ended up failing as well. Unfortunately, we didn't know that he didn't pass until two months went by after graduation and we didn't receive his diploma and called the school only to find out that he didn't graduate after all. The school still had our son go through the graduation without knowing whether or not he passed math.
We took out a loan for $30,000.00, not to mention paying another $40,000.00 from out of pocket for our son to attend a school for two years, where he didn't receive the individual help that he was suppose to have so that he could graduate. The college counselors didn't help him get into the college he wanted to attend. He was to write an admission request letter for his college application and counselors told him he didn't need to do it. The only college he was accepted to was "Ole Miss" which is not our state of choice as we would have had to pay for out of state tuition. Let's add, in having to send blankets, clothes, and the big topper had to send food because he was hungry all the time.
They only ate three meals a day but were extremely active, so the school should provided higher calorie meals with snacks. $70,000.00 and our son still had to attend a public high school to get his math for graduation, which he finished in Jan 2010. We are currently still waiting on his diploma from RMA. This school is a joke, there are several other things that went on as well that we just recently found out about.
A loss of $70,000.00. Our son had to attend another high school to finish his graduation requirements in math. This cost more money. He wasn't even able to fill out a check or balance a check book. He didn't gain any skills for success. We wanted our son to be successful and have opportunities. We didn't get that even though we paid for it.
