Vista College Reviews

"This school is a hot mess!! They are charging 30k per student for this program. The instructors are a joke and cant teach. Have no teaching experience. They definately dont know how to speak to people. Dont waste ur time or money. Then they allow students that cheat to stay in the program and harass others"

"Please stay away from this school. If you have a diploma or GED, please consider other options before committing to this school. For example; community colleges or universities offer the same programs but cheaper and you can either get certified or get an Associate's. Another option is to join the military, because the military has way more career choices to choose from. They pay you to train with no cost to you. After training is complete, there's ample amount of job and travel opportunities. The military pays well. I used my VA benefits to attend this school. I graduated 2 years ago with my universal EPA certification and honors and landed a job before I graduated but it didn't pay anything compared to what I made in the military; was making $10/hr. Unfortunately the job didn't work out. So, I was jobless went to vista college career service for help and what a waste of time. I'm just glad that I never had to come out of pocket for this school. I did end up having to owe the VA money because vista college messed up on my enrollment certification. Luckily the VA saw their hick up and let me go free. I just ended up Reenlisting. Long story short, consider your options because this is a very very very last resort kind of school. Veterans keep your eyes and options open. The HVAC instructors were awesome and knowledgeable. I did have an injury that happened at school and the school paid for all of my medical bills. They also gave me a nice Pell Grant."

"Please stay away from this school. If you have a diploma or GED, please consider other options before committing to this school. For example; community colleges or universities offer the same programs but cheaper and you can either get certified or get an Associate's. Another option is to join the military, because the military has way more career choices to choose from. They pay you to train with no cost to you. After training is complete, there's ample amount of job and travel opportunities. The military pays well. I used my VA benefits to attend this school. I graduated 2 years ago with my universal EPA certification and honors and landed a job before I graduated but it didn't pay anything compared to what I made in the military; was making $10/hr. Unfortunately the job didn't work out. So, I was jobless went to vista college career service for help and what a waste of time. I'm just glad that I never had to come out of pocket for this school. I did end up having to owe the VA money because vista college messed up on my enrollment certification. Luckily the VA saw their hick up and let me go free. I just ended up Reenlisting. Long story short, consider your options because this is a very very very last resort kind of school. Veterans keep your eyes and options open. I did have an injury that happened at school and the school paid for all of my medical bills. They also gave me a nice Pell Grant."

"Stay away from Vista College. Waste of time and money. They will not do much for helping you get a job. Some of the people in hvac ended up with sales jobs selling thermostats and other add on's to air conditioning systems. Stay away from Vista College."

"Stay away from Vista College. Waste of time and money. They will not do much for helping you get a job. Some of the people in hvac ended up with sales jobs selling thermostats and other add on's to air conditioning systems. Stay away from Vista College."

"Not enough hands on experience. The instructors are sarcastic and if you don't pick up on how to do something THE FIRST TIME IT'S SHOWN, the instructors make you feel like your stupid.Favoritism between students and instructors and instructors allow foul language and disrespect towards themselves and other students. False advertising regarding the "help you find a job" clause. EXTERNSHIP? Yeah that was a NIGHTMARE . Too many students graduating and not enough externship sites OR jobs available within a 70 mile radius of Bryan/College Station. You get stuck at an externship site that has strange hours and it takes you FOREVER to complete the 180 hours, and that told me on day ONE" by the way we aren't looking to hire" and they DIDN'T. It SERIOUSLY doesn't matter if you bust your butt and make a 4.0 or barely passing, EVERYONE in the DA program passes the computerized RDA state exam, the computer doesn't allow you to fail it. My externship site did not allow me to do ANY chairside assistance, they did NOT allow me to take x-rays or do ANY impressions.I gained absolutely nothing from the externship experience. Cleaned instruments and sprayed rooms all day everyday. Oh and put stamps on letters and organized junk drawers. I can add EIS (expert instrument scrubber) and EWS (expert whatchamacallit sorter) to my $23,000 useless RDA license. Those in Career Services, YEAH, rude, unprofessional and treat you like you're a two year old. So just beware. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. I'm working in retail for minimum wage because there are NO DENTAL JOBS. The jobs in Spring, Cypress and the outskirts of Houston, one year experience, one year experience!!!! Choice your schooling wisely"

"Veterans stay away from Vista College. If you remember your recruiter when you were joining the military and promise made. Well it is the same thing at Vista College. Your schedule will not be what they tell you. Vista will add extra days calling them makeup days. They will track you every 15 minutes. If you are not there every 15 minutes they will dock you 15 minutes until you missed enough to to fail and or cost you your VA for the month. If you are like a lot of veterans and you are not able to stand for long periods of time. They will not let you sit down if yournot in the classroom. Vista has cameras every where and they are always watching and calling the instructors. 5 minutes late from break dock 15 minutes. Vista will promise you a bbq at the end of each month and not once deliver on what they said. Vista College is all about the money. Veterans I give fair warning stay away from Vista College"

"This school took my VA money that paid 100% of the program and also applied for loans in my name for the full amount of the program and kept both monies.I still keep in contact with former teachers and students and no-one has a positive story. SAVE YOUR MONEY AND TIME AND GO TO UNIVERSITY. I dont even use my degree from Vista. I got a certificate from UTEP and a job after that pays well with it. SAVE YOUR MONEY AND TIME AND GO TO UNIVERSITY."

"I am a current Vista College student in the Medical Assistant program in Fort Smith, AR. This is the worst institution of education I have ever had the displeasure of attending. This school is built upon lies, favoritism, and needs to be called out. The institution has shown me that is more important who you know, than what you know. Please DO NOT ATTEND THIS SCHOOL. You will leave feeling cheated and lower than when you started."

"Administration is very untrained if your a vet or active duty service member do not attend this school. My credits cannot be transferred to another school they are basically ripping off our va school money. I have nothing but problems and so has other vets with finance not completing and submitting forms on time. Telling students they have to do amendments to tax returns when the IRS says no you don't. If you have va doctor appointments they count it against your attendance which reflects on your character with the va which makes issues in pay. They advertise publicly that they support vets and military and they don't. It's all about money not education and I believe they charge and try to drain veterans school money bye charging higher tuition for our attendance than they do for non-vets. Now I'm stuck at this school because my credits don't count at any other college from vista and the va will not pay for me to take those classes at another credited college. It's ashame how this vista college is taking advantage of vets and service members. I will post this same thing on every social media website to inform vets and service members not to enroll in this college until something is done. I will not if I can help it let vista college trick anymore vets or service members into giving up what they earned for a crappy education. And have to deal with untrained administration that can't even get paperwork right. But I did notice every month when I go on E-benifits to see what VA paid Vista that paperwork always seem to be right to va for there tuition money. I wonder how that is."

"This place is very unprofessional. The Medical Billing and Coding department is a joke. Only one instructor there knew their job. Her name was Ms.ROBELLADO. The Director of MIBC doesn't know her job at all and has a very bad attitude. Nobody in the program likes her at all. Her name is Ms. Howard. Please tell me how you let your best instructor leave. You will now see a drastic change in students passing the NHA exam because the rest of the instructors in this program is incompetent. This need to be reported. The students basically teaching ourselves. They are taking money from Veterans as well. This place needs to be audited. This is the worst mistake I ever made by coming to this school."

"This school makes lots of promises they never keep. We were told they didn't take scholarships and after graduation learned they did after all. They promised certifications that were outdated by the time I graduated, doing me no good. I taught my math class because the teacher didn't know what was going on. There was no help creating a resume. They did not help me get a job after graduation as promised. I am still unemployed because I don't have a certification and I don't have the skills needed to work in the IT field. It was a total waste of money and time. I have to go back to a real school, take all classes over again, and try to start over again. DO NOT ATTEND THIS COLLEGE. IT IS A JOKE. I will be hiring an attorney when I can afford it."

"I would not recommend this school to anyone..... unprofessional and way to much drama. This school does not take care of there students at all and is not concerned with anyone's complaints by far the worse experience Ive had. I must say I've learned nothing since I've attended"

"I recommend to go to CTC or any other college. Some of the teachers were ok. There were students that I felt shouldn't be attending, they acted very unprofessional & juvenile. The school was always out of printing paper & equipment. Watch out you'll get charged extra plus your financial aid. It go to collection & they claim they tried to contact you & they don't. Found out many of the places in Killeen will not hire Vista's students because they are not properly trained and many of the students act unprofessionally. I wasted a year of schooling and money. Most places are looking for RN's only."

"First I would like to say that Vista College is not the place to be. I'm taking the 10 month medical assistant program and I must say that it's hard but I'm passing. This school is very money hungry, they take all of your financial aid and leave you to pay the remaining balance even if things are already hard for you. They don't take into consideration the people that have to drive from out of town and some days can't make it to class due to not having any gas. Honestly this school has stressed me out and the sad part is....I just started!!! I remember one day I had to leave for orientation on my job and they would not let me go. Then the administrator tells me, that if my current job fell through which was paying me $11 then she knew of another job that she can get me hired on which it only paid $9. I found that to be a low blow!! I said that to say this the staff at vista really don't care if you have personal issues they want u there no matter what the situation is!!! Because they're all about their money and not the students. I have 1 week left in my first 5 wk course and I think I will consider looking into another school."

"I graduated with a degree in Business. I was told that they would help look for jobs but that was a complete lie. I received 2 leads that yielded nothing and that was it. I would look for my own jobs and call career services but that was it. They need to employ better people who will help students find jobs. Apart from that I enjoyed my experience there, never had an academic issue and the class sizes were perfect and so were the instructors."

"Worst school to ever attend, they will hold transcripts. Not send your affidavit of graduation to the board of nursing to take the NCLEX. Do not attend this school they are money hungry POS. They will not help you get a job or make a resume. This school is a joke"

"I had high expectations after deciding to pursue a new career. But as time progressed, I saw that Vista was ill prepared for an IT class, especially those who had prior experience. The hardware they gave us was sub-par, existing equipment to do hands on in class for most classes was non-existent. The school offers to pay for certifications but the coursework doesn't prepare you for them, and even if you passed the course with an A, the primary instructor makes his own arbitrary decisions whether or not to offer a voucher for testing. Students coming in are thrown into a "wheel" concept of classes, which makes those unlucky enough to join mid cycle lost from the get go. Books are not always purchased for classes on time, and many of the books and much of the coursework is based on tests that have already been replaced or updated. Vista College is NOT state certified, so none of the local universities will accept any credits for transfer. If you are looking for a career in IT, go to one of the local universities, take the specific courses for the certs - this degree is worthless enough that I'll have to do just that."

"I would absolutely NOT recommend this school to ANYONE. Here is an honest review from a student ;) Ive had so many problems with this school, one of them being the medical coordinator Mrs C.. she does not care about her students. One of my friends had HER SCHEDULE CHANGED WITHOUT HER KNOWING. Keeping her in a specific teachers class room because she was so smart and got good grades, to make his class look good because of her. I had Mr, T. for Law and Ethics and we didn't do NOTHING! It was a waste of the 50$ per class when people are just sitting there on their phones, and the medical club students disappearing from class for AWHILE and still passing with an A, when us who actually tried and did our work barely can get a B or C. Although my friend went to Ms. C.with this problem, she didn't do anything because T. is funding the medical club, which C. loves dearly. I graduated in july of 2015. It Is now JANUARY 2016. and I have still not received my diploma. I've called many times only to be transferred to a voicemail . This school is pure favoritism. go to SOUTHWEST UNIVERSITY. TRUST ME AND YOU WILL THANK ME LATER. VISTA SOUNDS SO PROMISING BUT TAKE THIS FROM A STUDENT WHO ACTUALLY WENT THERE. (EL PASO CAMPUS/ MONTANA/BROOK HOLLOW)"

"I'm a returning student and I have been studying at Vista College, College Station, Texas for a few semesters. Formerly I studied at the local community college and a semester at Texas A&M. I would like to respond to the first review about the Killieen campus by stating that I'm sorry that the reviewer had such a bad experience. He might have had the same experience at many local community colleges and well regarded universities and I suppose that's why dropout rates are so high across the state, especially during the first 18 months. Regarding attendance policy, at least in Vista College Station, a student according to State Government rules may miss up to 20% of classes without issue. After that, they are put on probation and must at least attend at least 80% of the next semester's classes or will be expelled for 10 weeks. If they are stricter in Killeen it is probably because a 4 hour day of class at Vista is like missing 1.3 weeks of class at a traditional college. My teachers have been very flexible with my grading but I have seen student who were caught plagiarizing papers get extremely angry when confronted. A a traditional college students are supposed to get 2 hours of homework for every one hour of class time. It's unusual for a teacher to assign more than the minimal amounts since because of the superior schedule most students work or have family. Here are some pros and cons of our campus: Pros: Single, easy to get to building with great parking Small class size Corporate style setting with good labs Friendly staff and students Many mature students. Average age in some of my classes was 40 years old. Diverse student body. Concerned, colorblind, helpful professors. Just the most important courses, profession oriented courses plus only 2 general education courses (regular colleges have to offer 75% general education course (not counting college preparatory classes) during freshman and sophomore years) You will graduate in 18 months and not 5 years it normally takes to graduate from a four year college. Majors designed and targeted at fields where there are many jobs. Technically experienced instructors. The whole purpose of the programs is to train you to become a capable employee and not a professor or graduate student. You are trained as a cohesive class that progresses through the program together and takes care of each other. Anyone who does not have a lot of work, family, or personal problems tying them down can flourish Well designed courses, and course materials.. Cons: The high cost relative to state funded colleges (and less so private one.) High turnover of professors and staff. (To keep costs low, Vista offers few benefits and no security to most educators) Inconsistent quality of instructions (It is difficult for Vista to find and retain instructors who are experts in the workplace and outstanding educators. On the other hand professors and not graduate students do the teaching) A certain number of students who are not serious about learning. In conclusion.Many of the issues raised about Vista College apply to college in general. Far from working up to it's potential it provides relevant instruction that, were it offered at a more reasonable student cost, by better educators would be a dream come true.....for students that have often been deprived of dreams."