I learned about Washington Spa Academy from a friend. I'm so glad I chose Washington Spa Academy! What an experience! The school has top-quality staff, a robust curriculum, and hands-on massage therapy work that produces the best body workers in the business. I'm so excited to have acquired these skills through the knowledgeable mentors and instructors who carefully nurtured my development. I am completely confident that I now possess the skills to be an effective, ethical, and capable therapist. I strongly recommend this school! read more

It looks like the owner wrote a review in response to our reviews. She is saying we are trying to defame her which is not true. Us telling our stories about how we were treated at the school is not defamation if it's true. All I'm going to say is please check for yourself if there's an esthetics instructor before giving this school your money. The front desk said over the phone that Sherry Duan is going to be the instructor for the new esthetics program. If someone is a licensed Esthetics instructor you can find that out by looking up their esthetics license. If they are licensed as an instructor then it will say instructor under the "endorsement" section on their profile in the department of licensing. I'll add a photo of Sherrys license for reference. Notice how there's nothing under the endorsement section at the bottom. I am not telling anyone to not attend this school, I am not defaming Sherry or the school. Also did anyone else notice that she used chat gpt to write her letter? I put her review into an ai detector and it's 100% ai. She can't even write her own reviews read more

I feel like I learned nothing from this program. I have taken the MBLEX 2 times already and have failed both times due to my lack of education and resources from WSA and I don't really know what else to do. This school has a really disgusting mold problem in some of the classrooms which they also double as massage rooms. That means that you and the client are inhaling those mold spores. They may have fixed it since I left but I don't have high hopes. Not even to mention the student clinic..... The clients at this clinic were so verbally abusive and it really wrecked my mental health during my time here. I had to listen to older people disrespect not only my massages, but myself as a person. When I brought it up to the higher ups in the school I was told that these clients have been coming here for so many years and to just suck it up. They do NOT have your back at all. It's just so incredibly disappointing, I spent a disgusting amount of time and money on this school and it feels like everything I know are things I had to learn on my own outside of school. And the fact that they don't offer any sort of financial aid is wrong. The loans they offer have extremely high APRs. Just wrong on every angle. If you are someone looking to do massage or esthetics, there are better schools you could invest in. I've heard that Northwest Academy for the Healing Arts is a good massage school and the Euro Institute is a good esthetics school both fairly close to this one. read more

IF YOU ARE A PROSPECTIVE ESTHETICS STUDENT, THE LAST CLASS WAS WRONGLY TERMINATED FROM THE PROGRAM & GIVEN INACCURATE TRANSCRIPTS! WE DID NOT GRADUATE FROM WSA!! I have so many words I can say but I will hold myself back for the sake of professionalism, which is not the same courtesy I was shown. I attended WSA as an Esthetics student for their first time doing the program. The program was amazing and I loved my teacher so much, you could really tell that she cared about her students and the program that she built. Unfortunately mid - program the owner of the school sold the school to a couple that are extremely shady and money hungry. They tried to fire our teacher and take the program she built and completely change it. After the decision to let our amazing teacher go the owners pulled some of my classmates into their office for an extremely inappropriate conversation. They were attempting to bash & invalidate our teacher to get us to agree with their decision. They even went as far as to slander her name and claim she was unlicensed as an esthetician, which is untrue and is very easy to disprove. After we garnered in support for our teacher the owners emailed us 2 days later at midnight to tell us they were terminating our program due to "students failing to pay their balance". There was only one girl in our class who was close with the owner and was allowed to stay in our program. This girl was the one person who did not pay their balance... (this peer was problematic in her own way). We came to the school the next morning to talk to the owners and they decided not to come to the school for several days so they would not have to face us. They also illegally removed all of our documents from the school so that we could not take them to transfer. The owners still continue to ignore our emails requesting for proper transcripts to be able to transfer. It has been almost 4 months since we were terminated. Eventually they did send us transcripts after we had the DOL contact them directly, however she still gave us incorrect transcripts and illegally reported our hours into the wrong categories which messes with our education further. We have now just recently found out that the owners are starting a new esthetics program in January and is using our class as a success story to prospective students. We are the "last class" in reference and we did not graduate from WSA, we were kicked out. They are claiming that the one girl who stayed is by herself because she took a leave of absence. That is not correct, this girl has not graduated because after they fired our teacher they "allegedly" did not have an Esthetics instructor on staff. If you call this school and they tell you that they do have a teacher on staff, look up the name given on the department of licensing website. If there is nothing under the "endorsement" section then they are not a licensed Esthetics instructor. Being a master esthetician does NOT make them a licensed esthetics instructor. I am not writing this review to sway anyone from attending this school, I am simply telling my own experience at WSA. read more

I see all these terrible reviews are connected to the ownership transition time and not relating to the massage program which has been operating since 1977. Before letting a single group of disgruntled students scare you off (notice the timeline of when these all were posted), I would recommend talking to Current students. This program has a group of dedicated, experienced and caring instructors, the program is using a great foundational curriculum and a lot of hands-on practice to build skills, the location is incredibly easy to get to and has ample free parking. It accepts VA funding from the GI bill and has private funding resources to make it financially accessible. Additionally, The student clinic is a great way to get affordable, enjoyable therapeutic massage, for a discounted rate as students hone their skills. read more

New ownership as of this year has run this place into the ground. The staff is great, but the owners are obviously only incentivized by money. They are less concerned about the quality of your education but how much they can make getting you through it. Definitely avoid this place if you want a sincere and genuine learning environment; you might end up getting screwed out of every dollar they can get. read more

Unbelievable Experience. I've been going to WSA for over 6 years and always had great experiences. Last week I had a session that was an absolute waste of time. Waited for over 10 minutes on the table at the beginning with extremely loud music. Had to cover my ears until student came into room. Was asked over and over if I had any medical conditions and I responded over and over that I didn't. No pressure at all during massage. Only lasted about half an hour. Was called later by admin who complained about my feedback. No relaxation and after 4 requests for more pressure ( as there was absolutely none ) I gave up requesting. I just lay on the table and felt like I was being massaged by a feather. I did not want to leave feedback for the student as I did not want to hurt her feelings, but was encouraged to do so. Follow up came from a woman administrator who refused to listen to what I had experienced and told me not to come again, as the truth I left on the form was not acceptable. Very happy NOT to return, as I see this is their new policy of not educating students, but only having people come and waste their time and money, only to fulfill their needs. As an educator myself of many years, I find it surreal that they will be giving certificates to students. read more

just graduated the spring massage program here and throughout I felt unconditional support to reach the end and complete my goal. thank you to everyone involved! read more

I attended school here in January, and I had a really bad experience. The floors were always so dirty, there was a hole in the bathroom ceiling that smelled and leaked down to the floor. They were severely understaffed in certain departments and the phones were not always answered in a timely manner. If it weren't for the students doing EXTRA cleaning, the services we were doing would not have been sanitary considering the rooms were never cleaned. The new owner was misleading and ended up kicking out my entire class after trying to break our contracts and disclosing personal information about other staff members. She has also neglected giving me a refund for the prorated tuition (since she kicked me out). Both her and her husband have yelled at the classes and teachers, as well as talked to students way beyond the hours allotted. She also set meetings with students and then refused to show up, leaving us at the school for hours alone with no heads up. I have also heard that she has continued to teach classes even though she is not a licensed instructor for esthetics. Not only do you have to be a licensed esthetician, you also have to have gone through training and get endorsed as an instep, which she had not done. All in all, she has stolen thousands of dollars from me, lied about refunds, raised her voice at students and teachers, disclosed personal information about staff, lied about details in our contracts, and overall made my experience pursuing esthetics one of the worst times of my life thus far. I am extremely saddened at how it all went down, and I just wish this school can get it together and give future students a better experience. read more