J.r.
Westminster,#2UPDATE EX-employee responds
Mon, December 08, 2008
Jim, First and foremost, Westwood is NOT Regionally accredited yet, meaning that Westwood needs to be evaluated to see if they can qualify for that accreditation or not. I am very skeptical as to whether or not they will be accepted for this as I have heard numerous complaints about how bad the education is. Therefore, they are only NATIONALLY accredited for now so I wouldn't get your hopes up if I was you. I can tell from your post that you are frustrated with previous poster's remarks. I don't blame you really as Westwood is holding you by the neck to get more enrollments or you will be canned and replaced in a heartbeat. More and more, people are complaining on this site about this college and I'm sure it's hurting Westwood's numbers quite a bit. The reason I know this is because I used to work there, so I have an inside scoop about how that place is run. I remember coming in each day worried that I may lose my job if I didn't get my numbers high enough. I was criticized by my Director (who listened to my calls) if I didn't get an enrollments because somehow it was my fault they didn't enroll. If only prospective students knew what goes on behind the "closed doors" at Westwood. How would you, as a prospective student, feel if your admissions representative and his or her team celebrated and rang tons of bells or other noise makers because they convinced you too enroll so that they can keep their job? Or how about knowing that your admissions representative gets more job security and better pay if you stay in school there. This is what happens every day at Westwood. Finally, admissions representatives "interview" you over the phone so that they can gather your reasons for wanting to go to school so that they can use that use those same reasons against you to help convince you to enroll in the college. They are just praying to God that you sign up! By all means Jim, the previous poster who complained about this place has every right to and is valid in his or her opinion. Westwood is greedy and does not live up to what it claims to be. Do not put down someone else on here because they did not have a great time or learn anything at Westwood.
J.r.
Westminster,#3UPDATE EX-employee responds
Mon, December 08, 2008
Jim, First and foremost, Westwood is NOT Regionally accredited yet, meaning that Westwood needs to be evaluated to see if they can qualify for that accreditation or not. I am very skeptical as to whether or not they will be accepted for this as I have heard numerous complaints about how bad the education is. Therefore, they are only NATIONALLY accredited for now so I wouldn't get your hopes up if I was you. I can tell from your post that you are frustrated with previous poster's remarks. I don't blame you really as Westwood is holding you by the neck to get more enrollments or you will be canned and replaced in a heartbeat. More and more, people are complaining on this site about this college and I'm sure it's hurting Westwood's numbers quite a bit. The reason I know this is because I used to work there, so I have an inside scoop about how that place is run. I remember coming in each day worried that I may lose my job if I didn't get my numbers high enough. I was criticized by my Director (who listened to my calls) if I didn't get an enrollments because somehow it was my fault they didn't enroll. If only prospective students knew what goes on behind the "closed doors" at Westwood. How would you, as a prospective student, feel if your admissions representative and his or her team celebrated and rang tons of bells or other noise makers because they convinced you too enroll so that they can keep their job? Or how about knowing that your admissions representative gets more job security and better pay if you stay in school there. This is what happens every day at Westwood. Finally, admissions representatives "interview" you over the phone so that they can gather your reasons for wanting to go to school so that they can use that use those same reasons against you to help convince you to enroll in the college. They are just praying to God that you sign up! By all means Jim, the previous poster who complained about this place has every right to and is valid in his or her opinion. Westwood is greedy and does not live up to what it claims to be. Do not put down someone else on here because they did not have a great time or learn anything at Westwood.
J.r.
Westminster,#4UPDATE EX-employee responds
Mon, December 08, 2008
Jim, First and foremost, Westwood is NOT Regionally accredited yet, meaning that Westwood needs to be evaluated to see if they can qualify for that accreditation or not. I am very skeptical as to whether or not they will be accepted for this as I have heard numerous complaints about how bad the education is. Therefore, they are only NATIONALLY accredited for now so I wouldn't get your hopes up if I was you. I can tell from your post that you are frustrated with previous poster's remarks. I don't blame you really as Westwood is holding you by the neck to get more enrollments or you will be canned and replaced in a heartbeat. More and more, people are complaining on this site about this college and I'm sure it's hurting Westwood's numbers quite a bit. The reason I know this is because I used to work there, so I have an inside scoop about how that place is run. I remember coming in each day worried that I may lose my job if I didn't get my numbers high enough. I was criticized by my Director (who listened to my calls) if I didn't get an enrollments because somehow it was my fault they didn't enroll. If only prospective students knew what goes on behind the "closed doors" at Westwood. How would you, as a prospective student, feel if your admissions representative and his or her team celebrated and rang tons of bells or other noise makers because they convinced you too enroll so that they can keep their job? Or how about knowing that your admissions representative gets more job security and better pay if you stay in school there. This is what happens every day at Westwood. Finally, admissions representatives "interview" you over the phone so that they can gather your reasons for wanting to go to school so that they can use that use those same reasons against you to help convince you to enroll in the college. They are just praying to God that you sign up! By all means Jim, the previous poster who complained about this place has every right to and is valid in his or her opinion. Westwood is greedy and does not live up to what it claims to be. Do not put down someone else on here because they did not have a great time or learn anything at Westwood.
Jim
Aurora, CO,#5UPDATE Employee
Thu, December 04, 2008
Westwood IS accreditted. We are nationally accreditted by ACCSCT at the current time, and are well on are way to receiving regional accreditation through HLC. Outright lying can be considered slander you know that right? You are complaining because you were put on hold to get the correct answer for you? I would rather sit on hold to make sure I receive a correct answer than just be told something that may or may not be correct. There is a lot of variables that go into how much you end up owing a school, and your lack of knowledge on that matter is not our fault. Being that it is college you do have to spend a lot of time studying, just because it is online does not mean it is easier. It IS more flexible, but not always easier. If you want a degree mill there are plenty out there, but Westwood does actually grant degrees that can get you jobs if you actually finish. I am sorry for the problems you ran into with Sallie Mae, but they are not part of Westwood, they are the largest loan provider for student loans in the nation though, so any issues you ran into with them you should direct to Sallie Mae. If you returned to school within 6 months you would avoid much of the hastle of re-admissions, but after six months we are required to send you through the entire admissions process again. But this is the case with most schools, I am attending for my masters at the same school I graduated from and I had to pay an application fee ($200 actually) to reapply there. You are asked to apply for a loan because most people do not receive enough grant money to pay for everything, if you wait to see then it could be too late and you could be blocked from your classes so it is better to go ahead and get them both done. When you fill out your FAFSA you receive grant money and Stafford loans depending on your financial situation as well, so that is probably why you think you have a loan you did not apply for. The Federal Government gives money out in both forms, and some people do not recognize the difference between the loan and the grant. But it is not Westwood'sfault you took a trip while attending college. We can only give out a Leave of Absence in certain situations, normally Military and Medical. This is due to the fact that the Department of Education keeps very close tabs on for profit schools, and if we have a lot of student on LOA's, it looks bad because we are keeping your financial aid and putting everything on hold, but the students are not actually doing anything at that point in time. Anytime we give a student an LOA we have to be able to justify it to the Department of Education, and a vacation, family trip, or something similar to that is a choice, not a requirement. Military members do not have a choice, and obviously emergency medical treatment does not either. I have seen plenty of students maintain there education while over seas, even Military members in war zones have managed. Not to say that you would or would not have access, just that there are ways to access classes in some pretty remote areas often times. I am sure that was a option your advisor threw out there just to see if you thought that was a possibility. I have never seen any of our toolkits that cost $900, the most expensive I belive is around $500. Not cheap I know, but if you see the program out through the end you will use most, if not all, of the materials. As far as the tuition hike, that email was sent out to the entire student population a while back. From what I see it sounds like we tried to accomodate you as much as possible, but you went on a trip, which is fine, but that does not mean we can bend rules to accomodate one person. And again, Westwood is accreditted, Nationally, and soon Regionally. You can go look at the HLC webiste and we are listed on there.