Northern Virginia Community College

As the old saying goes, you get what you pay for. The incompetent nature of the staff yields that I could not recommend NOVA to any student. Save yourself the trouble and go to a 4 year if possible. The entire admittance and enrollment process is entirely disorganized and dysfunctional. I submitted an application to the school and waited for a letter of acceptance or other form of acknowledgement. In the meanwhile I requested my transcripts from my previous schools to be sent to NOVA. When I hadn’t gotten a response I called and left a message with the registrar to get an update as to my admittance status. I allowed a few days to go by before moving forward. I then emailed a department head to which I was told the registrar was busy and that I had been admitted. Two days later I received a phone call from the registrar of whom could not tell me if my transcripts had been received or if I had been assigned a student ID number. I explained that the classes that I was trying to register for had a prerequisite to which I had already completed. The registrar than transferred me to the Department Head of the Natural Sciences department stating that I needed a professor to override me into the class. The department head didn’t have a clue why the registrar would have sent me over in this case. I then received a call from Cindy stating that I did have an ID but my name had been misspelled and that I needed to come in with an ID for them to update it. I asked if my transcripts had been received and was told she didn’t know. She did not attempt to assist me further but simply stated that I needed to complete a request for transcript evaluation. I then contacted the advising office. I explained my situation and discovered I had been assigned two id numbers from a past application done 10 years prior. I asked Gwen if she was able to tell if my transcripts had been received and if I had been assigned a counselor. I was told I needed to call the IT department to have them merge the two accounts. She refused to tell me anything and said the student services department would not tell me anything until I called the IT department. I then submitted a ticket with IT. I waited another few days and called the student services department to find out the status of my transcripts. The staff member could not give me an answer. At this point I have started looking into other schools for the program. It seems that the staff members are unwilling to assist students with basic information. I am concerned that I have had difficulties in finding out such general information such as enrollment status, receipt of transcript, where my acceptance letter was sent, who my counselor is..etc. The inconsistencies in the information that is given is concerning as well. I have found that some of the forms on the website are outdated and/or incorrect. The price per credit is lower than traditional universities but at the end of the day the hassles that you will encounter makes the higher price for other schools inviting.

Excellent experience overall. The school is very supportive and well structured. I live close by so I was able to take advantage of campus resources. As a reluctant non-tech savvy adult learner, I had a great experience and will take many more ELI courses.