State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota (Venice)

"I called financial aid to ask why I had a remaining balance. They could not answer this simple question and I was told I had to pay or be dropped from my new classes. I have plenty of financial aid to cover my classes but I could not be helped. Financial aid has covered all my classes for 2 years now but all the sudden I have to give them a bunch of money for an unknown reason they couldn’t answer."

"Called admissions with some questions because I haven’t heard back from them after submitting my application & transcripts and waited for probably 40 minutes to speak with an admissions rep. I wish I caught her name because she was very rude and not really helpful.. I kept asking my questions after she wouldn’t really answer them because I had waited so long to get some help I wasn’t going to just back down. After five minutes she finally (after a sigh like I was an inconvenience), asked me for my student info to pull up an account on me. Should have been the first step to help me out but whatever. I have been in contact with several schools and they are generally pretty friendly and helpful, this school should reconsider who they have greeting potential students because it is a huge red flag to have to deal with staff like this before even attending classes. What’s the rest of the experience going to be like?"

"I have attended SCF Venice campus for several years. I completed my associate degree in early childhood education there. About a year after that, I was awarded an academic scholarship for the early childhood education bachelor program. PROS:Beautiful campus. CONS:When working towards my Associates degree, they some how kept coming up with more and more classes that I “needed to take” in order to earn my diploma. Every time that I asked why I was not told about the added classes prior, I would just get an apology. The staff is never the same. Every time I would go to the campus for help, I was always placed with a different advisor who always had something totally different to say from the last so nothing ever made sense. When I would email the person I was told to email questions to, they would always forward my email to someone different saying they didn’t handle that question. So it really seems as if no one knows what anyone else does there. A professor accused me of cheating and gave me 0 on an assignment without any explanation. After weeks of begging her to look over my assignment again, she finally emailed back with a short apology, saying some other students in the class had cheated so she just assumed I had also so she automatically had given me 0 but after looking at my work again, she realized I had not cheated. As we all know, cheating is a huge deal, especially in college, and she could have easily ruined my college career with her careless assumption. When I received my scholarship, a woman came to the preschool I work at to give it to me. So she knew where I worked. I completed all of my classes and one of the 3 internship classes. I was then told I would not be allowed to complete the internship because the preschool I work at is not on their “approved internship list”. This makes NO sense to me as I was able to complete my internship for my associates degree at this same preschool. Also, I am confused as to why someone from the college would drive to my preschool to give me the scholarship if they knew my preschool was not approved in the first place. So I basically wasted years working for a degree they knew I would not be able to attain. Not only am I upset that they wasted my time, but also heart broken that I worked so hard for this just to be turned away 9 weeks prior to graduating. I would never recommend this college to anyone."

"Scf Venice campus is sufficient for one seeking a bachelor's degree or associates degree. The staff is helpful, however many of the professors are subpar. My peers and I have had instances of; political bias effecting our assignments, grading bias based on our relationship with our teacher although minor was present, or strange demands on micromanaging how we accomplish our assignments. Ex.) Having to complete our assignment one day. Comment on a classmates assignment the next and respond to an assignment the third. If this was done non-consecutively or in less than three days a zero was given. Regardless of the finished works quality. So if you want a cost efficient way to earn a degree and have the ability to learn outside the classroom this isn't a bad option, but do not expect a great education from this college."

"The staff are so nice and helpful. You can tell they actually like their jobs and helping students. I was there for about 30 minutes today and in that time I spoke to people in both financial aid and cashiering so not a long wait at all. Aside from that taking classes has been a good experience too. I am a busy stay at home parent and sometimes lag behind in classes and most of the instructors have been reasonably understanding and work with me."