Complaint Review: Avalon School of Cosmetology

I started at this school last June with high hopes and really excited. I went in and did a tour of the school. The girl who showed me around told me everything I wanted to hear. Not only are you getting an education about hair and everything, but they have a platform make up artist from TIGI come in once a month to teach make up. When you graduate you can go and work for TIGI. I was stoked. SOLD! After attending for 1 week I knew everything they told me was a lie to get students in there. For the first 2 months I attended this school it was under construction. There were over 30 students squished into 1 room.

We were told that the curriculum was rolling and you would start at one point and go through the basics until you reach your 300hr point and then take a test and go out onto the "floor" to start taking clients. We started our first couple nights out learning how to shampoo and everything basic like that. It was good, and everything seemed legite. Enter night 3. All of the other girls from the classes before us were moved into the same room as us. It was cramped, and uncomfortable. AFter talking to some of the other girls and hearing what they were saying they had been in the class for a couple months and had to keep going back and learning the same stuff over and over after every group of "new starts" came in.

I was still optimistic hoping that everything I was hearing from the instructors about "because of the construction and the changes everything is a little chaotic and it will change". It only got worse. As the new class came in we went back and relearned shampooing and basic straight across cutting. There was absolutely no schedule implamented. You never knew from one day to the next what you were gonna be doing.

Then, our instructor leaves. Leaving us with a non licensed student instructor. We then had another non licensed student instructor come in to help him. So, at this point, we are relearning the stuff we had already learned and have 2 non licensed instructors teaching us. I went to the girl who signed me up, sent emails, told her my complaints. She promised me it would be taken care of. She would have the head of the school contact me and sit down and get it worked out. The head of the school came into our class and basically told us all that we have to deal with it. I was annoyed beyond belief.

Also, every Monday we had to have a model to show what we learned the previous week. They received free services when they volunteered to be a model. After this meeting with the head of our school it turns out that they had to start paying $5 for the color we used on them. Which didn't seem like much but, it's hard enough to find someone who is willing to let a student mess with their hair now they have to pay. And, considering we never knew what we were going to be doing you usually had to find your model on short notice.

Once Monday night rolled around (model night), due to the lack of instructors you were usually sitting with your model waiting for 45 minutes to get signed off on what you were going to do that night. It was frustrating and your clients get annoyed. When in the middle of performing your service if you need help you had to wait. And, almost 99.9% of the time you got conflicting opinions on what you should do from each instructor. I had one instructor tell me to double process (meaning put color on wash it off and then go back over it with bleach to do her highlights) and then another one come up and yell at me for doing it that way (it is EXTREMELY damaging to your hair.). My clients hair ended up having severe breakage. Not to mention I didn't have enough time to do her hair cut because it was time to close up.

At this point new class #2 comes in. Guess what, we get to learn shampooing and basic cutting all over again. I don't know about you but I really don't need to learn to shampoo hair 3x. We still have not learned men's cuts or facials, manicure, or pedicures. And no one from TIGI has ever stepped foot in this school.

It's almost time to do my test out and I have still not learned everything I need to to take my test. So, I tookd a test on practical skills never once actually learning how to cut men's hair. They sent us out onto the floor without all the knowledge needed to actually take clients. My first actual hair cut on a real paying client? A men's cut. I had to have someone assist me and tell me how to do it the whole time. I was nervous and not nearly educated enough to do so.

I had to do a chemical relaxer on a client. I wasn't quite sure how to do this. I went to an instructor, she informed me that she did not know how to do them either and that I needed to find someone else to help me. MY INSTRUCTOR!

I again went and complained to the school. Nothing was ever resolved.

By this point I had been attending this school for nearly 5 months, and the whole experience was unorganized and no one seemed to care. For the 16K I was paying to go to this school, I was not getting my money's worth.

I decided it was time to transfer to a different school. I went to the appropriate financial person told her my situation and that I wanted to leave.

Apparently I owe them $3000 for breaking a contract with them that they were miserably failing to uphold their end of.

I now have a collections agency calling me.

DO NOT ATTEND THIS SCHOOL OR GO THERE TO HAVE YOUR HAIR DONE!!

Apparently, things still aren't any better.