I went to this school looking for info on website building. I was told that I could receive that by becoming certified in Microsoft products. I enrolled in the "recommended" package plan for the school.
I did not meet the pre-requisites for the courses or curriculum taught by this school. I had owned a computer for only 3 months and they put me into courses to become a "Microsoft Certified Solutions Engineer" and a "Cisco Certified Network Associate".
I did not see the courseware or curriculum until after I had paid my tuition in full. The curriculum information on intended audience stated that the courseware was "intended for a broad range of computer professionals".
The pre-requisites for the course were stated as "student should have proficiency using the Windows interface; general knowledge of computer hardware components, including memory, hard disks, and CPU's; and general knowledge of networking concepts, including network operating systems, server-client relationship, and Local Area Network (LAN)."
I did not meet any of the pre-requisites. At that time, I even thought that CPU was an abbreviation for the word "computer".
I was placed in a classroom with students far above my level, including some that were being paid by their companies to attend classes, and therefore could not ask too many "stupid" questions.
I was never given a statement of refund to show how many or what classes I could take or drop and what refunds I could receive. The contract only stated that if I failed to attend one class in 12 months I would not receive a refund.
My computer was running Microsoft Windows Millenium Edition (ME), but all of the classes were for Windows 2000.
When I complained to them, they said that I should've been in the class for more creative people and convinced me to enroll in classes to become a "Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer" (MCSD).
I asked if I would run into the software issues (like ME vs 2000) that I did in the previous course and was assured I was not. After enrolling in the class I found that courseware still referred to applications available in Windows 2000 plus expected students to be able to use "Access" and "SQL Server".
Again, I received no withdrawal or refund information and the school then told me that I would not receive "one red cent" from them.
They have responded to me by saying that over 60% of their students have little to no computer training. (This tells me that I'm not the only one they ripped off.)
Now, they are also saying that I can come back and complete my courses, even though I still do not meet most of the pre-requisites, and even though the courses I've paid for are no longer available since I paid for Visual Basic 6, and they now teach Visual Basic.net.
I paid them almost $20,000 in total and only attended a total of 6 classes. I asked them what the price for each class individually, with materials, and without package discounts would be, and was told $1875.00.
I offered to multiply the $1875 times the 6 classes I took and consider it a loss due to bad decision-making on my part and requested a refund of the amount between that and what I had paid. They refused any refund at all.
These people have not responded to letters from an attorney, and I really do not have money to pay for actually filing a lawsuit against them, but I would love to get in touch with other students who had similar issues.
Because their issue is not with shoddy teachers and materials, like so many other ripoff schools, they are able to get away with recruiting unprepared students. According to U.S. And Kentucky Higher Education Laws, it is the job of the school to make sure that students meet pre-requisites before enrolling them, but I can't seem to make anyone enforce that.
I recommend that any student looking for a good school makes sure that he or she is ready before enrolling. I do not feel stupid for falling for their scam since they admit to recruiting over half of their students from the same educational backgrounds.
Also, this school has a sister school of the same name in St Louis, Missouri. Anyone who has attended either of these schools and would like to consider a class-action lawsuit, please respond.
Also, if anyone knows who in the Microsoft company I could make this information available to (because I'm sure they don't put in notes about audience & pre-requisites just for the heck of it), please advise.
Crystal
Louisville, Kentucky
U.S.A.
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