Permanant Link For Entry #8

A Review of Middlesex County College

Well, after a long delay, I figured now would be a good time to start this blog. And what better way to kick it off than to finally write a review I've been meaning to write for the past few months. Hopefully this review will get people talking and maybe change some people's minds before they make the same mistake I did. Anyway, here goes nothing:

I attended Middlesex County College for four semesters (Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Fall 2015). I decided to take a break from MCC for Spring 2015 to re-evaluate what exactly what I wanted to do, and I ended up changing majors. Now, the first thing I'd like to admit is that I was not a perfect student. I made just about every mistake in the book. What the college did to me, however, was just inexcusable.

In my first semester (FA '13), I took Business Organization & Management with Professor Ken Dorflaufer. At the end of the semester, I had a C+ in the course, and that was reflected in the gradebook shown online.Fast forward to the end of summer 2015: I went back to Middlesex to get a new schedule made for the upcoming semester. I went to see the advisor, then went back to the library to pick my schedule. While I was on the computer there, I happened to take a look back at my past grades just to double check what classes from my old major could be used toward my new major. When I went back to Fall 2013, the grade I had gotten in Business Organization had changed from a C+ to an F. I printed out a copy, went back to the advising office and showed them what happened. They said to gather any evidence I had and take it to the dean, so I did just that. Luckily, I'm kind of a file and document hoarder, so I still had an original print of my grades from 2013, along with every test and quiz we got back. I only had one of the article analysis papers we had to do, however. I don't know where I stored the others and they were probably thrown away accidentally. Nevertheless, I made copies of everything I had and handed them in to the dean's secretary to have everything looked over.

After a so-called "investigation", I met with the dean (Jeffrey Herron) to discuss his findings. He told me that there was no record of someone changing my grade and that the instructor (who is apparently "either retired or no longer living", according to other sources that work at the school) said that the grade was never supposed to be anything other than an F. It doesn't make any sense, because all of my test grades and homework grades add up to a C+ (see attached pics for details). When I told him this and showed him the papers, he stated that he didn't have to change my grade, because according to college policy, all grade appeals must be filed within one year of the end of the class. Of course, in my case, there would have been no reason for me to file an appeal right after the class ended, because the grade was originally correct, and I don't know at what point the grade actually changed.

Needless to say, it was my last semester there. MCC put me through a lot even before this, with many incompetent or rude staff members who didn't seem to care one bit about the students who attend. They aren't all bad, though. Some of my professors were actually very good at what they do, and are genuinely nice people (Francis Burke, Virve Lane, Nicholas Archer and Jayne Kinder, to name a few). It's a shame they had to work at such a terrible school. If you're just starting out looking for a college, do yourself one big favor and stay far away from Middlesex County College! If I can convince even one person to stay away from this school, then this review will have been worth it.

TL;DR: Incompetent and rude staff; grade randomly changed from C+ to an F for no apparent reason and dean refuses to fix it. Pictures attached for evidence.

Scans of my past grades, tests and homework can be found here, and there is also a PDF version of this review that can be found here.