Complaint Review: San Joaquin Valley College

Hello. I studied Clinical and Administrative Medical Assisting online at SJVC’s virtual campus (Visalia, CA). I am very upset because I maintained a 4.0 gpa during most of my enrollment (1 year). I was serving on active duty in the US military while I maintained that gpa, and I made the deans list several times. Since the start of the program I wanted to have a clinical site (externship) underneath my belt so that it made things easier on me upon graduation, because I knew I would excel academically. The staff kept telling me to contact career services but career services is trash. They dont help the students! Not one bit. I do not live in the state of California so being an online student makes it much harder to really get that student, staff, and faculty connection. I would never file such a report if this stuff isn’t true. I am almost thirty and all I wanted to do was finally receive a degree and actually accomplish something, but I’m being held back.

I’ve been in touch with several sites on my own, and I’ve received NO luck at all with ALL of the sites. They either don’t reach back out or they say they don’t need medical assistants, they’re only seeking nurses. The last lady I spoke to over the phone said to me "let me see if they are willing to accept any students”. I wasn’t sure how I should have reacted to that, because at that point I was starting to think that no one wanted to work with me. Now as a veteran, it’s such a shame to think that I laid my life down for this country (all veterans have whether you were deployed or not), and someone can’t even allow me to practice 160 hours in their facility or company. It’s mind boggling, because I truly not to place racial barriers on things such as- these people don’t want to work with me because im a person of color (a person of color is anyone who isn’t caucasian).

This school said I also owe them $2K and I told them they’re not getting a dime from me- simply because there was never a statement in the beginning that showed I’d owe 2K. I used my financial aid to pay for my books which were $1K and that’s all that was brought to my attention! I asked my financial aid advisor (Edith P) about this and she couldn’t provide me any documentation to show that I would owe 2K in the end for both parts of the program. I’m now going to be in debt and getting my credit f**ked up because of a irresponsible and unprofessional little school that’s been open since the 70s. Totally pissed off. I wouldn’t recommend this school to any of my battles (Army lingo), or people I know. I’ll continue to put out the red light instead! And I will be getting it removed off of my credit report. YOU TRIED IT, SJVC! You owe all students externship/site placement!!!! AND STOP TRYING TO RIP PEOPLE OFF!