Northwest Vista vs San Antonio College (Alamo, Howe: credit, home, transfer)

[zhugeliang1]

Trying to decide between the two. Someone told me no one at San Antonio College never answers phones and emails, you have to go there in person and the place isn't very well run. And someone else told me that Northwest Vista College seems to be somewhat better than SAC. Can anyone offer insights that can help me decide?

[Bo]

I've interviewed for jobs at every campus in the district. Each campus has a different set of programs and different strengths. The course catalog website should yield some good insight into whether the courses you want are offered at each campus. IMO, it should be trivially easy to take courses from multiple campuses to get the best options from across the district, but sadly it's not.

To me, the traffic getting into NW Vista would be a deal-killer. I've read the stories in threads here about a mile-long line of cars turning left into the campus in the 8:00am hour and it sounds like a nightmare. I have not experienced this personally when I've been to NVC.

A friend who used to teach at Texas State once described SAC to me as a "community college that wants to be a liberal arts college." She claimed that former SAC students were better prepared to finish college than students from any other campus in the district.

[sinsativ]

Parking at both places is a pain. SAC even worse. that aside, they are both ran by Alamo Community college. NW Vista is newer, but if you go to one, you go to both. For my son, he went to NW and loved it, then transferred to Texas A & M. He was ready for all classes and graduated last may. Stepdaughter went to SAC, and had all kinds of bs going on, but, its where you live thats important. If you get close by either and can walk to classes, then one is as good as the other.

[britishbird]

I go to NVC right now, but I take evening/weekend classes and haven't encountered the bad traffic/parking, but I've heard about it a lot. If you go to NVC you can park at Seaworld and there is a bus service that runs every 15-30mins back and forth to the campus. I'm really liking it, the campus is nice and very easy to navigate (you can walk from one end to the other without much trouble) and everyone I've met seems real nice too.

[zhugeliang1]

The transportation is going to be by VIA bus so parking not the issue here. The issue I am having is how SAC doesn't answer the phone, doesn't answer email, for everything that has to be done (in regard to student matters) you have to go there in person to the business office or whatever. So now I am wondering if Northwest Vista is more user-friendly so to speak? I've seen Northwest campus itself but having run through the gauntlet of SAC non-responsiveness to my student needs I am just wondering if transfering to NWV would be better. If one is registered at SAC, does that mean I have to apply to Northwest Vista and go to orientation etc etc just to register there too?

[britishbird]

I've phoned NVC quite a few times since January regarding my admissions/financial aid etc and I've always spoken to someone who was either able to help, passed me on to the person who could help or asked me to come in with X, Y, Z before they could help me (in my case I needed to prove I'd lived here for a year before they'd give me the in-district tuition costs). I also had an email I sent to financial aid answered within 6hrs, which is pretty good if you ask me!

I don't think you need to go through orientation etc, but I can't be sure. I am in classes with quite a few people who take classes at SAC and NVC so it can't be too difficult to be able to attend both or transfer from one to the other.

[zhugeliang1]

Ok, that helps. The reason I asked is I called and called SAC and no one picked up the phone. I emailed and emailed and no one answered. A friend who studies nursing there told me SAC won't do anything when it comes to phone calls, emails, questions, concerns, etc you have to go there in person and stand in long lines to get questions answered. And she was right. It was horrible and I wasn't sure if Northwest Vista would be the same problem.

[jennifer239]

I've taken classes at NVC and SAC and they were about the same. I would just pick whichever one is closer to you and has a better class schedule for you.

[L210]

I have no experience with NVC besides taking an online course there, but I started out as a Palo Alto College student. They were much easier to deal with than SAC with the exception of one very rude counselor. However, I was forced to make SAC my home school because I registered for most of my classes with them. They have a larger selection of courses. It depends on your major. Each college seems to specialize in one area that's not available at the others. When you enroll in one school, it's easy to register for online/telecourse/campus courses at the others. Each school is terribly easy and most of the students can't read well no matter which campus you attend.

If you have prior credits that need evaluating, they will take forever regardless of the college. Courses are evaluated at the district level and they will take more than 6 months to put them on your transcript. Actually, they will take longer unless you bug them.

[zhugeliang1]

Ok, well right now I'm registered for student development, whatever that is, they said it's required. I'm not sure if this is an online or campus class at SAC. Their website is so confusing.