Westwood College review: poor service! 19

DO NOT SIGN!

I know what you are going through I am haveing to fight this battle as well. I only went online for about 6 months and they are chargeing me 12, 000 dollers through salie mae alone. Not only that but they also turned me over to a collection agency known as williams and fudge and they are chargeing me another almost 7, 000. I went through the steps of contacting the better business beaure and the federal credit office about this situation and even sent out a fraud alert towards the collection agency over this problum. I throught that all of my loans whould be handled through salie mae only and that I whould be set to pay so much money a month untill I was all clear. I never signed anything stateing that I whould have to owe money towards a unknown collection agency at the last minute. they didnt ever send me anything dureing the whole time that I was in school about updateing me on my current status so I never knew that I was going to be turned over in the first place. all I knew was I had to pay so much money over towards salie mae each month and that was it. they are ripping everyone off and they need to be sued and I pray to god someone takes they down if I cant hope I have helped you some on this situation. Thanks for all the complants on this school i will be copying and printing this out and useing it for amunition incase this has to be taken to court.

My name is Natalie Roseberry I live in Lubbock, Texas and went to school about 2 years ago at Westwood College Online. They filled my head with all these lies. They said my loans I received and my pell grant would cover my semester there and the same thing for the second semester. A couple of weeks into the second semester they started telling me I owed them $10, 000. I was shocked I couldn't understand why my loans and grants didn't cover the amount for tuition like they told me it would. I told them well I can't afford it I don't come from a rich family and that I was going to quit that semester. Come to find out from the Sallie Mae Loans company I did get two seperate loans for Westwood however Westwood canceled them without my acknowledgment. I also called FAFSA to ask if I had received grants for Westwood. They told me I did but Westwood had the choice to give them to me or not, I'm guessing they didn't. When I called Westwood College they told me the reason they canceled my stuff was because I never signed a enrollment form, so doesn't that mean I wasn't enrolled and shouldn't owe them anything? I then started receiving letters in the mail and phone calls at my house, on my dad and mom's cell phone, and my work from Williams & Fudge telling me that I owed Westwood College and I needed to pay them or they were going to put it on my credit report. They still wont leave me alone. I tried to go back to a community college here but they will not let me attend because Westwood will not release my transcript. Westwood College will not release my transcript until I pay them $10, 000, does this mean I will never be able to go back to college?

Westwood College has ruined my life. I attended for a 2 year degree and got within one semester of graduation and was told that I owed them $12, 000 or they would not let me finish my last semester. I was told that upon signing up, the total cost of my degree was 32, 000 and that the Pale grant would cover half of that and I would have to borrow the rest. I did, I signed for an 11, 000 sallie mae loan and paid on time. When I went to find out what the heck went wrong, Pale only gave me 3200 over 2 yrs and I owed the school almost 60, 000. On top of that, Sallie mae says I owe over 26, 000 as well. I was lied to from the beginning. This is a criminal institution and they need to be shut down and prosecuted. The only attorneys I have found that deal with this are Attorney Offices of Van Wey & Johnson. I have just contacted them today and will see what can be done.

Ftp's! I have 3 kids, no real job, a cheap car, am living on welfare, and a piece of crap credit score that doesn't let me do anything all thanks to Westwood College. Thanks guys, hope you punk yuppies go to hell!

I'm in the same boat. I'm signed up with National University now and I need my transcripts from Westwood College and they refuse to give them to me unless I pay them an effing horrible amount of money. So this is dumb because now I'm going to have to take all of those classes over again, which will cost me more money...you get my drift. They messed with my credit score too. I too am I single mother with all of my money going to life bills...those mother effers have no soul.

These people are trying to get my husband to go there and they even talked to me and everything they said sounded like scam. We are in college right now but the school we go to doesn't have a very good program for video game design. When they started saying things like $50 regristration fee and our school loans wouldn't have refunds, I decided to look them up and found thousands of pages of complaints. I will not allow him to get scammed by people like that!

I agree with all of you! I attend Westwood college in Illinois right now! These lying ### know exactly what they're doing! Charging all this money for a bunch of ###! You see those stupid commercials on TV like this place is so ###ing fabulous but they don't mention ### about all this money you have to pay! WHAT THE ### IS SUCCESS STRATEGIES?! WHAT DID THEY JUST PULL THAT OUT OF THEIR ###?! THEY ARE NOTHING BUT A BUNCH OF CON ARTISTS! NON-PROFESSIONALS! SOMEONE NEEDS TO SUE THEIR ###!

Dear Mike and Director,
You guys are a scam. I think used car sales men have more integrity... seriously. First, you get students to sign up with your pressure-filled "interview" which everyone gets when they go to see your foolish institution. Then you tell them that you dont just take anyone, they have to be serious students... let's be honest, you open the door, YOUR IN! Then you try to scam them out of their money, and will squeeze as hard as you need to, without even providing courses that would transfer to community college. Your institution is what is wrong with America. Education should not be expensive. You should be able to provide classes that would teach as much as you rob.

Also, I have never ever ever heard of anyone going to work for a forensics lab without a respectable degree... something you do not offer.

and the director might have gone to Rutgers... and probably studied business... not public administration, counseling, or advising. or maybe he pulled his degree from you know where...

I am currently enrolled at Westwood College at the Ballston campus. And right now i wish i could transfer to another college system. There has been many suspect decisions done at the corporate level that has negatively impacted my college at least in my eyes. For the money that i am paying i have no say in what goes on. there is no student government and my teachers can and seemingly have been fired for reasons that no one can give me a clear answer to. I have to supply myself with any programs i need outside of class, which are quite expensive. Never did i think that a so called college would feel like it was being run by "corporate suits" but that is just the feeling my fellow classmates and i have now. Now seeing all of these reviews i know now that i made a grievous error in choosing Westwood, since i had to be in college i hastely went there. Now i am wishing for a time machine!

Westwood college IS a scam. Not to mention having to literally do the retention coordinators job for them, they force you to re-register (i.e. filling out 20 or more pages of the same paperwork) every 2 month term and then if your "financial aid" isn't fully settled you are forced to either miss classes or take out yet another loan. I have had NUMEROUS occasions where I have basically been told I do not have any choice except to take out another loan, despite initially being told my Parent Plus loans would cover everything. How does a school that does the same registration for all students every two months have no clue how much tuition will cost and take out loans accordingly? The worst part is that the Parent Plus loan covers most of it, but not everything...so again, either miss classes or take out a second loan to cover the remainder. And they really don't give you a choice... there are rules about attendance due to accreditation, so if you don't take out a loan and miss over three days of class you are dropped and have to wait two months to register again.

As if that wasn't bad enough I had to take out apex loans with an 18% interest rate (which was never disclosed to me during either financial aid visit regarding Apex) and then dropped due to a school ruling over a three week absence. I had the flu and bronchitis and the entire time I tried to keep up with the school I got endless voicemails, zero replies to my emails, and when I finally did get a reply to an email (after a class drop date deadline) it was because the financial aid representative was so busy with "crazy stuff at the office." I don't doubt how busy they are, but it's because the school is so disorganized that even the heads of departments can't tell you what the people next door are doing. Once I was finally better and able to come in and meet with them I still couldn't register for the next term, even with a doctors note. I was dropped and told I could not re-register for another year...in that time I have not found employment and I have accrued almost a years worth of interest on the Apex loan they gave me. During my schooling my family had agreed to pay the Apex loan-at the time it was the only way I could stay in school. Since I have had to wait this entire year to re-register they can no longer afford the astronomical interest rate on the payments so I have been forced to not pay the full amount. Now honestly, how is it even legal for a lender to not only disrupt your ability to pay a loan but then to force you to pay a years worth of interest on said loan? Since I also have a loan out with Sallie Mae and I am past the 6 month deferment period, I imagine my situation is only going to get worse from here.

My best advice for anyone who is looking at this college-don't. When I graduated from high school I had zero savings, but I had always believed college was the logical choice. I knew I wanted to go into Design, but I also knew that the institute I wanted to go to would probably cost too much money. So I settled for what at the time seemed to be both an affordable and safe solution, where I could graduate quickly and still learn what I needed. Despite being a good student and enjoying the classes there, the fight alone just to register for a term is not worth it. If you don't believe me go there just to try to register for school...then imagine filling out that same paperwork every 2 months for 3 years. And don't get me started on the financial aid paperwork...you might as well bring a lawyer with you before you sign anything they hand you! I would have been better off going to a different school-it may have taken longer and cost more money but at the end of the day, I can find almost nothing good to say about the organization of Westwood or the people they employ.

I currently attend Westwood College in Illinois, Chicago, O'Hare campus, 8501 W Higgins Rd., Suite 100. When I first took interest in the MA program. I turned to Westwood for a great opportunity. First and foremost, the admissions rep sold me lies. He exclaimed that all personnel/instructors had a degree no lower then a Master's Degree & that students are their obligation. Every body knows that you can't teach a student who doesn't want to learn. I am not one of those students. I'm serious, ambitious and take schooling as if it was my occupation. The admissions Rep. not only lied about instructors criteria background but sold me lies about how organized instructors are. I started school in OCT. and I graduate in OCT. It's May 10th, the end of my third term and I am very disappointed. First, they hire unexperienced teachers, Secondly, Most instructors only have a BA and teach subjects that aren't relevant to their degrees. Thirdly, instructors slack off on lectures/labs/disciplinary actions with students, Forth, students are suppose to have class from 6pm - 10pm and in some of these courses, instructors really need to utilize the whole class period to cover material because it's vital to our future and they do not. Fifth, if I were to make a complaint about an instructor and how he/she teaches or how they lack the energy and enthused attitude to teach students. They teach us as if this is a second job and not a priority. The faculty would defend them rather then come up with a solution Sixth, They are usually unorganized and don't follow their lesson plans nor do they go at a steady pace when covering course material. They slack off and then at the end of the term, we have to cover like 8 chapters in 2 class periods. I don't appreciate the fact that these instructors slack off and they're very unorganized. In 2 different terms, I had 2 8 credit hour classes and both instructors cramped everything at the end of the term when out of 18 class periods, we had 2 days left and 8 chapters to cover and one of those days are finals. LOL On top of that, I'm payi9ng $23, 000 for a 12 month Medical assistant program where the faculty takes the sides of the instructors and covers up their flaws with excuses and more excuses. If I wanted to be home schooled, I would of stayed at home and taught myself. I am not one of those typical students who want the teacher to do the work for me. I read and study but some of this material requires the assistance of experienced instructors and I do not feel that Westwood provides that concept to teaching it's students. They are unorganized, unexperienced, last minute planners, slackers, and don't exceed my expectations. They claim to be a private school and have the experience to teach students but the only aspect of Westwood College that is private are their lies. So I have to suck it up and teach myself like I've been doing until I graduate. To those who go to Westwood and share my same feelings. I wish you the best of luck and don't become discouraged from loans or the nature of their teaching because I think we should come together to bring down the school rather than fight and complain furthermore.

I attended Westwood college, and as many I agree that this is one of the many worthless colleges there are. It seems to me as if the admissions and administration pretty much thought my dreams, as well as my classmate's dreams, were a big joke because when sharing our goals to transfer and become successful at a state university for architecture they never informed us that it would never happen because the credits were nontransferable. Joke was on me. Furthermore, When informing first term students their money would be more useful at a state university the instructor kept insisting the classes were transferable. My friend and I refer to each other as the $40, 000 friends because that is pretty much the only thing we gained from Westwood, other than our fake diploma. Oh yeah, I also would of earned $10 more at one of my jobs if my associates degree would of be real, frustrating. So now I am below square one, working two jobs which are nowhere close to what I "studied" for, have bad credit, of course, and still a freshman at a community college where I should of gone to in the first place.
What I don't understand is why these
colleges are still open...Is there anything we can do about this?
I know we signed an agreement but if there is something
please feel free to share...

There is something we can all do. Like many of you, the same thing happened to me, lies, huge debt ect, for 1 and half years that I was there.

You can go to www.westwoodscammedme.com and share your story with the lawyers there and hundreds of other students that got duped by Westwood. They are pursuing westwood and possible class action lawsuit may come out of it.
You can also write your senator's about for-profit schools. Recently investigations in the last 2 months have been done, with Westwood being one of the schools investigated, about their lies and fraudulent actions. (The hearing is on the website I named for you to watch)

YOU CAN STILL FIGHT! I have been fighting what they have done to me for the last 3 years, contacting anyone that will listen. Contact the board of education of Colorado if you went online, and file a formal complaint.

And most importantly, keep with it! Pursue them! they need to pay for what they have done to all of us. Our loans should be repaid in full, debts forgiven and we should be allowed to re-start our education properly!

Chatito09 and everyone else,

I have to agree 110% with you as I use to work for Westcrap College and I know the very people you talk about! All those who are either Master / Assistant DA's / Executive / Director levels are all full of themselves and are ones who lie lie lie to students and everyone else just to move up on the Comp. salary plan. The Director you speak of in your post...is nothing but a fake and he acts as if he cares when he really only cares about himself. I am sure his degree from Rutgers was pulled out from his A**! First of all he is the worst Director ever and I have no idea why they even promoted him in the first place. He is very boring, not a good positive motivator, he craps on those who are tenure and doesn't buy into his bullcrap lies, and he must be gay acting straight because he LOVES those men he hires there!

http://westwoodscammed.me/

anyone who attitude westwood college and got scam out off there money I like to file a class action lawsuite you can hit me up on buderace@gmail.com my name is howard wedderburn I feel that westwood college us me and get money from my student ad now I have to pay back $16000.00 for a degree im not using call me [protected] I like to push on a lawsuite email me your name if you like to be on this case

Hello, Went Westwood in Houston Tx .It was and still my worst expiries in my life..I was there From [protected] I whet too get my asst in cm.The teacher cut corners not teaching or skiping chapter after I spend 150$$$on a book.
Ask a for help on math but said u should knows this all ready..After one year I desired to get out ..After milking me out 20, 000$$$or more ..in a year for 2 years asst in cm 37, 000 Westwood wants money they do not worried about the studies feelings, motional states, needs, ...I thank God I find a better college. Asst Cm Just for 7, 000$---30.000$$$ different from Westwood..

I attended the WestWood college campus in Atlanta, GA. I can not gety transcript, but I need it so that I may attend a real college. They will not give it to me. Can anyone help me? I'm so STRESSED!