After completing two uneventful and non-dysfunctional years at Western International University, I arrived at Saint Leo University's (online school) doorstep in the fall of 2006. Coming from a start up school and moving towards a school with history was exciting to me. I was expecting the same quality of service and attention that I had received at WIU, but with more efficiency since SLU had been doing this much longer. I was wrong.
I was lied to about the school format. I had decided on attending Saint Leo University over University of Phoenix because I was told that there were lectures online or in DVD format that you could watch and that there were no participation or discussion questions that were part of the grade. I was told that Saint Leo University understands how important my time is and would allow me to complete assignments any time during the week that they are assigned.
First things first the lectures were summaries of the syllabus; what the chapters would cover and what we were supposed to learn nothing added or lectures on the unit. No new information or examples that may help you understand the text or assignments a little more. So much for the first perk I had thought it was going to be an actual classroom experience.
Discussion questions and participation I am all for requiring participation in on-site classroom locations, the problem with online participation is that many students are working school into days that work best for them. Having a discussion post due on a certain day requires attendance by a specific day of the week which is not always a possibility. On top of the due day of the discussion/participation, Saint Leo University requires that you research the question, write a minimum word requirement response and post it with full citations. I have been in many community college classroom settings and they do not require a verbal citation, nor do they expect that you provide anything other than your thoughts, questions or ideas regarding the material. Essentially discussion questions at Saint Leo have turned into mini writing assignments in which case they should be labeled such.
During the end of my first year I discovered, by almost being removed from my next term, that my financial aid only covered 4 terms a year. This was completely new to me since I had just completed 2 years at WIU full time, without any breaks, the terms were 8 weeks long just as they are at SLU and I never ran into a financial aid problem while I was at WIU. Imagine how frustrated I became to find out that the only one who alerted me to the problem was a University Alliance representative, a subcontractor of SLU (no longer working with SLU I wonder why). I had to work out a last minute signature loan to continue on with my degree. I attempted to get my financial aid straightened out several times with whoever would listen, but most of my pleas went unanswered.
Challenging a grade is impossible as well. When your class is over, the class goes away. You are not able to access it the second that midnight hits on the last day of class. Since your final grade isn't posted until a week later you had to have copied your entire class transactions prior to the end of class in order to challenge a grade. Saint Leo requires that you submit all assignments for the class in question to someone and then they evaluate the final grade for legitimacy. Finding the person to submit it too is like finding a needle in a hay stack everyone points to someone else and like I pointed out earlier, if you had no reason to think that the grade would be unfair, you wouldn't have copied your class transactions so in the end you would have nothing to prove what you deserved. Tricky but smart on their part!
The most frustrating things about SLU are that they misrepresent their programs, they charge way too much for the services they provide and you are never able to get anywhere with the 17 individually titled representatives that are assigned to each student. My academic advisor rarely answers questions for me unless I threaten to mention poor customer service on the internet that seems to wake him up.
So, here I am talking badly about Saint Leo University on the Web. When I am done, I will have no pride in what this school has helped me accomplish. When I left Western International University I sent three letters of thanks to the staff that supported me, ensured that I was on track both academically and financially, and returned my calls and emails. Even when someone was covering for another advisor, they were all very helpful and followed through on their commitment to me.
You probably found that this gripe was much too long you can thank Saint Leo and its discussion/short writing assignments for that! SLU the great educational rip off!
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