Ventura College

Date: Jan 08 2009
Major: Psychology (This Major's Salary over time)
I was planning to take some online courses with Ventura College, unfortunately, spring semester starts in 3 days and I will not be able to attend VC.

Since I never got a chance to actually be a student, I graded most with an average C/3.

IN SHORT - They're rude, disorganized, and have difficulty returning student's phone calls.

THE STORY:

I applied to the school and completed a FAFSA for financial aid in October of 08. I received paperwork from the school that needed to be filled out for financial aid. I filled them out, and sent them back to school and called to schedule an appointment with a counselor as I was told to do. The lady from the office that scheduled my appointment was nice and helpful, she realized I was doing the online study and lived a of couple hours away and scheduled me for a phone appointment. I waited 2 weeks and finally it was time to call my counselor… The counselor answered the phone, I told her who I was and she abruptly interrupted me saying "I'm with a student, I can't talk to you. Call someone else for help.… UM? Really?! She must have checked her appointments and realized I had an appointment with her because about 10-15 minutes later, she called me back. But she had NO IDEA why I scheduled an appointment… Being new to the whole college thing, I wasn't 100% sure what a counselor appointment entailed, but I was told I needed to make an appointment, and so I did. Shouldn't the counselor be a little more knowledgeable as to what her job description is and what we need to do in order to get me registered for classes? Guess not. I finally just gave up on her and called the Dean of the school, maybe the Dean would know what the next step in this process was? Guess not. Because the Dean never returned my phone call, but I was fine with that because the nice lady from the office that scheduled my appointment two weeks prior had called me and apologized for everything and told me she'd personally hand my information to another, more experienced counselor and that I should hear from him within the next couple of weeks. I was excited to hear from him later that day! I thought it was all going to work out great for me. Wrong! I called the school a couple of weeks later to touch bases and make sure they had everything they needed for my financial aid. No answer, left a message, never got a call back. Days later, I received my financial aid papers back in the mail, the packet was not complete. That's fine, I completed everything that needed to be complete and I not only mailed the papers back, but I faxed them as well. Days go by, then weeks. No word from them… At this time, spring semester is right around the corner so I called again to two different departments in the school, as usual, no answer, so I left messages for both departments asking them to call me back… Well, that was about a week ago and school starts in THREE days and still no word from them.

So, now I'm hurrying trying to get into another school's February spring semester, I hope it works out.

Thanks for the useless, horrible experience, Ventura Community College!