I called capella. I was greeted by what sounded like a remarkably crude sales rep in a call center. I ran like the wind.

OH no!!!

 I really hate that admissions rep at some schools don't understand that they are the face and voice of the university.  First impression can be a lasting impression.  My admissions rep was awesome and he didn't hound me at all.  I made a sound decision, because I had done so much research on my own before.  I really hate that you had a bummer rep, because the school is great.  I'm graduating from there this fall.

 

where are you attending now?

Rude admissions people can certainly ruin what would otherwise be a good impression on a school.  To date the rudest admissions person I've dealt with was at a non-profit, county funded, community college.  2nd runner up was from University of Phoenix (who also has some of the nicest) and 3rd runner up was Ashworth College, which I attended anyways, turned out to be a great decision.

Cajun, how did you get past that negative experience and attend anyways? I know that when I was looking and I came across what I thought was a rude or unkowledgable admissions person I crossed them off my list immediately. Was it because of the knowledge that you already had about Ashworth and you knew that it was just a rude admissions person and nothing more? I know that there are soo many people out there that base part or a lot of their decisions on their first experience with a school. My experience with Axia was actually the best out of the different people I talked to from some different schools. Glad it worked out for you!!!

                -Steven-

In truth at the time I really didn't know better.  I was used to getting kicked around by the less than enthusiastic reps at the local community college so Ashworth did not seem atypical at the time.  That being said, I find that admissions people often are not indicative of the kind of people who work at the school, but sometimes they are.  I will say that when speaking with a college in the past where I did not get the kind of service I felt I should get, I requested a supervisor and then to be given over to a new admissions rep.  Actually if memory serves me correct that was at Ashford University oddly enough, I recall my initial contact with them was not all that impressive at all.  They then handed me over to Marcus Hillman and that guy knew his stuff, great guy too.

I too had a rude admissions person in another university and ended up finding out that this person got fired. Ironically, I went back to the university without ever looking back. However, I will say that I did speak with admissions from Capella when I was looking for a doctorate and I found that they were really friendly. The issue I had was that they had trouble giving me the list of instructors that taught for them and could not provide me any information on their alumni. I believe a good marker when gauging an online university is to see where their students end up. If the program has been around long enough, I would imagine this could be possible. I heard of some successes with Capella graduates, but to this date I have not seen any complation that merits its overall successes.

 

I agree that it can be a good idea to ask about alumni referrals.  My program was so new that they didn't have many alumni, and those they did have were people working for the school who had volunteered to be guinea pigs.  I decided to go with them based on other factors, though, and am glad I did.

-=Steve=-

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B.S., Info Sys, Charter Oak State College
M.A., Educational Tech Leadership, George Washington University
Doctor of Health Education, A.T. Still University, in progress

Hey Steve, what degree did you receive from them, may I ask?  How was your experience??

JaynaB:

Hey Steve, what degree did you receive from them, may I ask?  How was your experience??

Hi Jayna, I haven't received it yet, but I'm at A.T. Still University in their Doctor of Health Education program.  I hope to be done late next year.

As for my experience, I've been blogging about it.

-=Steve=-

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B.S., Info Sys, Charter Oak State College
M.A., Educational Tech Leadership, George Washington University
Doctor of Health Education, A.T. Still University, in progress