Finn Biggs

Review of West Valley Cardinals

My experience with West Valley is mixed. On one ha...

My experience with West Valley is mixed. On one hand, I am grateful for the location and utility of the school. On the other, a series of bad experiences have given me an overall negative impression of this school.

Most of my teachers were good, but several were bad to the point that I am amazed they still have a job. In my final semester here, I had a circuits teacher who refused to return any exams and only played videos from open courseware. He refused to work example problems.

Further, the administration does not do a good job educating students on the steps necessary to complete their degrees and transfer in 2 years. A counselor misinformed me of what requirements my APs met, forcing me to take an overloaded semester to remain on track. Worse, the admissions and record system LOST an official transcript from another school, which nearly cost me admission to my dream school and took 4 hours in person to correct.

The web infrastructure of this college is abysmal. Not only is it frequently down, it is more outdated than MySpace, with terrible UI, slow load times, and a login that only sometimes works.

If you are considering west valley, I would recommend you instead attend De Anza, Mission, or Foothill, regardless of your proximity to this school.

Good luck.