I am thinking of getting into the interior decorating industry. Because it is a certificate degree, I haven't found many schools that offer the program, besides the online, learn at home, degree schools. Any suggestions or recommendations would be helpful! Thanks so much!

Here's a list of some schools that have interior design programs. This list is by no means complete. Princeton Review gets schools to pay for more prominent placement on their lists sometimes, so use this with a grain of salt.

http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/majors/Schools.asp?majorID=143

Where are you located? One resource might be the Art Institute of America. Their website is www.artinstitutes.com. They have campuses all over the country.
My degree came from a Seattle area university, back when the accreditation requirements were different. You might also want to check and see if your state requires licensing to call yourself an Interior Designer.

Good luck! It's a wonderful profession.

To follow up, in what state do you live? Are you interested in just taking some classes or do you want a degree?

Thanks for the info...I'm located in the Philadelphia area. I'm not looking to get into design just yet, just the decorating certificate degree - I believe the degree allows you to add CID at the end of your name, provided you join the CID. So far I've seen Ashford University (online) and Penn Foster (online). Any info regarding these schools or others with the certificate program is what I'm interested in for now. Thanks for any help!

Penn Foster was previously Harcourt. I did Harcourt, and it was fair. Some information was new to me, much was common sense or easily available in any good decorating book. I would hardly call it an exhaustive treatment of decorating.

I was insulted at the level of the language. It was geared to a 4th grader. Super simple. The quizzes were ridiculously simple.

I did love the huge supply of inspiration photos they provided. They are postcard size, and there must be a couple hundred of them. The idea was that you were to take the color postcard and glue them into the text pages, because the text pages were all black & white. I never did that...I kept them in a file box.

I think I spent $600 for the course. I got some nice tools to use...an EZ Decorator set (very cool), some estimating tools (wallpaper, paint, fabric yardage, etc), a color wheel. I never did the final project. I didn't see the value in it. There was no payoff for doing it other than simply doing it. I got my certificate without doing it.

I've heard that the Sheffield course is probably much better. I don't know if it's still around.

thanks for the reply...how did you get your certificate with out finishing the final project?

The final project was optional. The certificate just proved that I did all the quizzes. It hardly established me as a knowlegeable professional!

Willow, if you are serious about becoming an interior designer go to www.asid.org and look around that site.

ASID, or the American Society of Interior Designers is the oldest and largest professional organization for Interior Designers, and their site has lots of information about getting a design education and choosing a school. If you intend to practice as a professional it is important to choose your school carefully, as in some states you will only be allowed to sit for the NCIDQ exam if you hold a degree from a FIDER accredited program. (very few online programs will give you the credentials to sit for the exam in order to get your license)