TNT T.

This is a very poor Court Reporting School. All the program director, Jocelyn, cares about is signing up a lot of students and making sure they over log in on their hours because the more students attend the more commission she makes on each student in addition to her base pay, and the more hours each student logs in, the more money she makes as well.

They keep increasing prices for the classes every 2 years or so. The tables in the lab area and classrooms, which is where the students do their work when they are not in class, are dirty and they do not vacuum or clean the tables. Jocelyn just leaves cleaning wipes for the students to clean the tables themselves. The tape recorders that the students use to grade their tests are mostly broken and dusty. They have very old computers with very old Microsoft that does not convert files when used with the new Microsoft. They keep increasing prices but they put nothing back into the school or the court reporting program for the students who are paying all this money.

Jocelyn even lied and said that the students are paying a public school tuition for a private school education. Jocelyn and the school is only concerned with making money for herself and the school and not promoting education for the students. In fact, they do not want the students to succeed because the longer the students are there, the more money the teachers make. This school is so money hungry. They have the students set up on an automatic payment system so they charge the students automatically every semester. After a student signs up for a class and then decides to drop the class on the first day of class, the student will not receive a full refund. Instead, the school will keep a percentage of the tuition and only refund the student a portion of what they had paid even though they never attended the class or decide to drop within the first few days of the beginning of class.

This school charges a processing fee to sign up for financial aid whether or not you qualify. Financial aid is free to apply through the financial aid website provided by our government and yet, Downey charges the students a fee for it. Students on financial aid obviously do not have the funds to provide for their own education. That is why they are applying for financial aid and yet, Downey is taking advantage of those students who are trying to make life better for themselves.

It is evident by the CSR test scores that the students at Downey have a very low pass rate. It is the same students taking the test over and over again every time because they do not pass. One time I asked a teacher an English question on the test and she told me to look in my English book. This teacher grades tests in the higher speeds and qualifiers and she could not answer my English question, so how is she able to grade tests? No wonder this school has a low pass rate at the CSR. The teachers and students are not adequately educated in court reporting and the students are not well-prepared to take the CSR test.

All their academic classes are online only. Some subjects are doable online. Classes such as learning the software and English grammar need in-person class instruction and discussion to fully learn and comprehend the subject material. The school also does not teach real-time. A court reporter who does real-time will earn more money than a court reporter who does not do realtime. There is no opportunity to learn real-time at this school.

Also, Jocelyn sends a lot of emails with long content to read and almost every day, Downey Adult School spams your email with advertising for programs that they offer, essentially asking the students to recruit for them without compensation for the students. I wasted my time at Downey court reporting. This school has very low standards and no integrity. Don't waste your time here like I did.

Jocelyn does not practice equal opportunity but she plays favorites with the students and dislikes others, and she will let you know where you stand without reservations. Jocelyn has teacher's pets and she favors the black students because she herself is black.

Jocelyn is not qualified to lead the court reporting program as a coordinator. She was only hired because she is a minority female and the school needed a minority to fill that position so that the school appears diversified. For the same reason, they also have a Hispanic principal at the school. The person that really runs the show is Cindy, assistant vice principal, who is White. Cindy talks down to the minority students because she looks down on them and does not respect them. All she wants is their money. Cindy is close-minded, overly emotional, and not logical. I experienced a lot of prejudism and discrimination at this school campus from the staff here. This campus is run-down and looks like it belongs in some 3rd world country.

Don't waste your time at this school with any of their programs, especially with court reporting because you will regret that you wasted your time like I wasted mine. And since the tuition here is very high compared to court reporting at a community college, you will receive less financial aid because this school takes most of your financial aid money.

The tuition for the speed classes is $1,000+ per semester and there are three semesters in a year. This does not include the academic classes. The academic classes, depending on how many academics you take per semester, the average student will pay approximately $5,000 per year (it may be more now since their tuition is always increasing).

This school does not provide practice material for practice outside of class. The speed building classes are only for test-taking. The students have to find their own practice material. But conveniently, Cindy had recorded her classes when she used to teach court reporting and she produced her recorded classes into DVDs and sells them for a profit. The production is very poor quality. In addition, her classes were usually, if not all, taught from a book that is copyrighted material. I doubt that Cindy bothered to get permission from the author/publisher of the copyrighted material.

I ordered a book from them through biblio.com. The first 8 chapters were torn out of the book! This was not disclosed in their listing. Deceitful business. Do not order anything from them.

I ordered a book from them through biblio.com. Before the book arrived, I received an email from them with an invalid tracking number so I don't know when the book was delivered. Then when I went to pick up the book at the ship address, they had sent me an old, outdated version. When I contacted them about a refund the seller asked for the ISBN and claimed the book they sent is correct and included the year published as 1992. The book I received has a year of 1987 and the book cover they posted on their listing did not match with the book I received! They tried to pass off an old book to me and claimed they sent the correct, advertised version! Biblio, com promptly cancelled my order with them and I am awaiting my refund. I will never order from this seller again! This seller deserves a Negative Rating!