I have read several reports and reviews about the Salter School recently online, and as a former student of the school, I would have to agree 110% with all of them. This school is nothing more than a way to scam desperate people.
I attended The Salter School in March. I completed my classes (even tested out of some because they were just far too easy) and finished all 180 hours of my externship. I completed all this by January and finished school with a 3.2 or 3.3 GPA. I was not an A student, but then again, I did better than the majority of my peers. Feeling I did well, I began looking for work.
It is not August and I still have no job in the field, well, for any for that matter. I have a picture perfect background, don't have a TERRIBLE credit score, but not a good one either, and have enough customer service experience to land my most any job. So what is the problem?
The Salter School. First and foremost, their 'recruiters' are quite crafting. They make promises and promote the school as though it were gods gift to all of your issues. What they conveniently neglect to tell you is that you 'will not' receive a certification (I went here to become a Medical Assistant). They flower the program up by calling you a PMA (Professional Medical Assistant). This means nothing to any employer. No certification, no job. Second, parking is terrible, and by terrible I mean the worst thing you could possibly imagine. If you paid $12,000 to go here ($15,000 - $16,000 after interest) expect to also pay at least $10 - $15 a day in tickets for parking on the street around the area. Or better yet, maybe receive a rather hateful note, or a broken window from an angry tenant in one of the local apartment houses because you, the Salter School student, have taken up all of their parking.
Next, the teachers. Now I am not saying the teachers are bad people, they aren't. However, I would not say all of them are quite knowledgeable. First off, your forced to take an English class and pay for it. I took 4 in high school. I think I have a remote understanding of proper and improper grammar. I literally had to argue with a teacher that she was teaching the rule of double negatives wrong. Even when I was proven right, she refused to admit it and refused to teach it correctly. Second, if you ask any questions related to the topic, you will receive a 'run around'. As stated in a review I read earlier, they only beat around the bush and never give you an answer. They state clearly, several times, that these courses are only giving you an understanding of what to expect in the field; that you will learn what you need to at the job sites. Well, if this is true, why not apply for the job, get it, and learn the stuff there?
If you think the teachers are bad, wait till you sit through the 6 hours of teaching, or well, the 6 hours of reading from a book. If they call this teaching, then any shmuck off the street could do it. Oh, on top of that, they doesn't even use these books at all. Yes, you may use the "Medical Terminology" book a little, but as for the rest, they are just dead weight. It is funny, there is actually a book you get in the joke of an English class that you will never even open, not once. The most you will ever open a book for is to hold your papers with. They give you tons of worksheets, again with very little information, and pass it off as teaching. I am sorry, but 99.9% of the things taught in this school, any idiot could google and learn in 10 minutes.
Now that I have been scammed out of money, for classes that taught me nothing that I didn't already know, listened to teachers read outloud a worksheet that taught nothing, now come the clinical classes. Again, these classes are an absolute joke. They are suppose to teach you how to properly do your expect tasks in the field of a Medical Assistant. First off, they show you how to do things, once (if they even bother showing you at all) and don't even have you do everything they are suppose to teach you. They skip numerous things that are suppose to be taught, or that an MA would do. You do get to stick a fake arm with a needle a few items, but you don't need to actually do it correctly, or hit the vein when drawing fake blood. Put it in, show that you did it, done. Signed off. Frankly I would NEVER allow one of these students to ever touch me in the real world.
When your clinicals are done, after smearing random people's fecal matter on cards, looking at one another's urine and not being told really what your looking for and what the colors on the strips indicate (yes, I know which each color represents, but what does this mean if it is dark blue? They would never answer me. Did I go online and learn that the student had a UTI? Yes. Did my teachers tell me? Nope). Now you get to your externship! With me, I got sent to two different sites. One was 45 minutes away from where I lived, and the other was in Fall River. The first site they sent me to had no idea they were receiving a student. They argued with the school and bit and when push came to shove, they tried to take me on. The people were very nice and I would loved to have learned everything I could from there, but after two weeks of doing nothing, they finally said to me that they just didn't have the time to teach me. They gave me a full recommendation and told the school I could keep the hours I already acquired. The second place I was sent to looked like a run down crack house. I didn't learn a single thing here. There was nothing to learn for that matter. It was a Psychiatrists office. All I did was put the files on the shelves in alphabetical order. I did manage to get them to allow me to type up a few papers. Things like medical or government documents for patients and such, but not more than twice did I do this.
After completing my externship I heard nothing from the school. No message, no paper saying what I was to do next. I even called the school and every single time I called, the people I was looking for were not in, and not a single message was ever replied. I even went to the school a couple times and still nothing.in about May I finally managed to reach someone at the school in the Career Services department. After filling out some paperwork they said they would help me to get a job in the field. It is now August and still nothing. I have had 2 interviews by them for jobs. One for a job that was just way too far away (seeing as I have no car now because of the lack of work) and one that would require a vehicle. I told them, flat out I do not have a car. I live in Warren, and how do you expect me to get to Taunton everyday? Other than that, that, the school career services has done absolutely nothing to help me get a job.
Ultimately, this school is a waste of time and really, needs to be shut down. Obviously something is wrong when not even a single teacher that was at the school when I was there, is working there anymore. This goes for classes before me. It seems like they get new teachers every few mods. Even the recruiter that recruited me was fired the next day (which I found out later).
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