Do you want a huge student loan? Do you want your resume thrown in the garbage? Do you want to laughed at? Then go to a "for profit" university.

When I graduated highschool I saw the VC website and I was impressed with the way the school sounded and after talking to a rep from the school, I was impressed by the "fact" that the administration cared about the students and their education. I could not have been more wrong! What they neglect to tell you is that you once you begin VC, if you decide that you want to transfer, the majority of your classes will not transfer. That being said, if you transfer you practically have to start completely over and take the classes that you have already taken. They also tell you about their wonderful job placement.

My program director came into my criminal law class to lecture us on how the job placement for paralegal students is (as of 12/2011) only 30%!!!! That is horrible and unacceptable on the administration's part! I will graduate in March 2012. My program director had completed 10 schedules as of October 2011. When I went in to see her in October to get my schedule for the next term I told her how excited that I am to be in my last semester and I also told her that an Attorney that I knew was going to let me start my extern with him in 3 days. You are required to do an extern your last semester. She informed me that I was not in my last semester because I had more classes to take than were allowed per 1 semester.

Since I signed up with VC my graduation date has always been December 2011. She then told me that I could not do my extern this term and that I was going to have to attend class until March 2012. Her excuse was that she had just casually forgot those other 4 classes! I told her that my last day at my job was in a week and I had to go to work for the Attorney. The Attorney was waiting on my extern to start to hire me. The Program Director's reply was "You're welcome! You can still work for the Attorney, and you don't have to pay us for it since it's not an extern." I finally got my schedule straight, by adding the extra term. The fall term ended 2 weeks ago so it was time to get my last schedule.

The Program Director completed my schedule and told me what my classes were, after 1 week of me emailing and calling her. I asked her several times if she was sure that all my classes are on the schedule and none were forgotten. She assured me that they were all there. I checked the catelog and found another class was left off. Again, her response was that she had forgotten it. This would have made me go until June 2012. I was told that it was fixed twice by her. It was not fixed so I called again and was told to contact the registar to have her put in the class. She went several days without returning my calls then told me that it would be on my schedule the next morning. Of course, it was not. I called the corporate office and filed a formal complaint then called the registar again. She told me that she had other things to do and did not have time to correct my schedule. Once I told her that I would just call corporate back and add it to my complaint, she had it fixed in 5 minutes.

When you pay your tuition the Westlaw program is included in that fee. It is a very expensive neccessity to paralegal studies. There are still students that are graduating this term that have never had it. I went to the program director about the lack of Westlaw about 75% through my courses and asked her about it. I got absolutely no where with her, so I talked to some of the teachers about it. They told me to go to the dean and let her know. I went to the dean, who at first refused to speak to me. She was livid that I had even brought the issue to her! Her excuse was that she school didn't have the money for Westlaw. When I asked her where the money that we pay for Westlaw was, she said that it was used for other things. Why do we pay for Westlaw if the money is not being used for it.

The best thing about VC has to be the Teachers. They are very knowledgable about the subjects that are being taught and are very nice. The Financial Planning Dept. is also a good thing about the school. They are on top of things as they schould be and are very easy to work with. The Administration is a completely different story. They are rude, careless, and extremely unorganized. Your program director should NEVER forget classes! If you are considering VC please reconsider! It is a huge and very costly mistake. If you do attend VC constantly check your schedule against the catelog and do not take the word of your program director.

I'm into my second year with vco. I've had nothing but good experiences with my classes, teachers, and administration. I would recommend vco to anyone looking for an online program that's worth the money.

I just finished my classes at Virginia College Online this week. My degree was an Associates of Science in Criminal Justice. When I first started classes here in 2009, the school seemed to be similar to what my expectations were of it. The intro courses were relatively easy but still took a lot of time and patience as well as self-motivation to succeed. Right from the start I realized that online schooling is more difficult than on campus schooling because you are essentially learning completely on your own. Sometimes just a simple question that you might have could take days before it is answered which is very frustrating especially when you need to turn your work in. Most of the professors were very good and covered a lot of material in a short period of time.

There are a couple of professors that I did have that were extremely rude and only gave their students negative feedback every single week. It is almost as though they were comparing your knowledge to theirs which is completely unacceptable. These same professors where very hard to receive a good grade from as well. I graduated with a 3.9 GPA and in those classes with difficult teachers that were rude, I barely broke a 70 in their courses. Furthermore, they did not relate to my e-mails and simply did not care about their students. When I complained to the school about the professors, the school contacted the Dean of Criminal Justice who then in turn contacted me and pretty much told me that I was lying.

Although I was very irritated and frustrated with the way the situation was being handled, I sucked it up and finished school so that I could move on with my degree in hand. Other professors however seem to care very much for their students and take a great deal of pride in how their students feel about them and their professionalism. With my experienced with VCO, I noticed that their courses involve an immense amount of writing and research papers. I had atleast one or two 15-25 page research paper due every semester that proved to be very overwhelming at times especially when working a full time job. The amount of research papers the school pushes on to you almost makes it so that you are not learning but rather simply researching. At times this also proved to be frustrating. Also, they are expensive when compared to community college. I owe $36,000 for a 2 year degree, so you do the math.

Overall, the school is just another college. You get out of it what you put in to it. There are going to be good teachers and bad teachers as well as good days and bad days. Just prepare yourself for a lot of time spent in front of the computer and a lot of energy spent researching.

I hate to say, I have only been attending VC for six months and may have done the research a little late. VC is accredited through ACICS which means that credits will not transfer to any other college other than another VC or Phoenix. After talking with some of the instructors, they agree that the college is a joke. Their degrees aren't worth the paper they're printed on. I contacted some other reputatable colleges and they say that in most cases they turn down students just for attending VC, and the same goes for many employers who only laugh at the fact of VC on your resume.

For those of you who are attending this college, think about it. The classes are far to easy to be a real college level class, thats because classes are designed so that everyone passes.