Wish I hadn't given Straighterline my money

[katelynn]

Can anyone else attest to the fact that Straighterline has the worst customer service? I'd put money on it that they've hired a bunch of kids to assist their customers. Several of the representatives I've spoken to, speak like actual children who can't maintain the slightest sense of professionality. I've had consistent issues with this company, but their representatives defend themselves to the point where they won't accept that there's a problem needed to be fixed. I'm sure this wouldn't be an issue if I had taken any other course besides English Composition, since this one relies so heavily on cooperation between the student and whoever they've assigned to be your grader -- which also changes like the seasons. I wish I had put my money elsewhere, such as a Sophia Learning course; the Sophia team actually knows what they're doing. I'm so dismayed about having to finish the rest of this course. I feel that I can't even reach out to the support team when I inevitably run into another issue, as it seemed this last employee caught an attitude and signed out prematurely. I'm uncomfortable knowing that my overall grade is in their hands, and I'm sure this is why they have a no-refund policy.

[kodiak61]

It's unfortunate that this was your experience.

I completed 72 credits with them in record time and could not be happier.

My only complaint is they don't offer more UL courses so I could have taken the full 90 with them.

[katelynn]

It's unfortunate that this was your experience.

I completed 72 credits with them in record time and could not be happier.

My only complaint is they don't offer more UL courses so I could have taken the full 90 with them.

As I said, I'm sure my experience would've been perfectly fine if I had taken a course that required little-to-no interaction with the people they've decided to hire. I wish this hadn't been my first experience with them.

What made you decide to stick with them over Study.com?

[kodiak61]

Speed.

The interaction courses (sociology, speech, eng 1, 2 and bus com) slow you down a bit, but the others....

I completed some start to finish including paying the fee for a fast proctor exam in a single day.

I just started on my study.com journey, the pretest has helped me to get through quicker, but still not as quick as straighter for me.

I'm also doing UL classes now, so that could also be the reason for my slowing down.

[zzzz24]

I have been a fan of Straighterline so far as well for the speed factor, but I haven't had to do any English courses yet. Hopefully I won't have to do any after my evaluation comes back.

[katelynn]

I have been a fan of Straighterline so far as well for the speed factor, but I haven't had to do any English courses yet. Hopefully I won't have to do any after my evaluation comes back.

I really hope you don't have to as well, I've legit been on the verge of a breakdown over this all day lol. I intend on doing the bare minimum to get through the rest of this course, and if it ends up getting me failed, I'll happily spend the money elsewhere.

[Merlin]

It's unfortunate that this was your experience.

I completed 72 credits with them in record time and could not be happier.

My only complaint is they don't offer more UL courses so I could have taken the full 90 with them.

As I said, I'm sure my experience would've been perfectly fine if I had taken a course that required little-to-no interaction with the people they've decided to hire. I wish this hadn't been my first experience with them.

What made you decide to stick with them over Study.com?

Too bad you didn't read any of the recommendations I've posted about the English Comp sources at Straighterline. They can be great, but you MUST take the teacher-led version!

If you take the generic version, you'll end up with random SmartThinking tutors as graders so you never know what you'll get, plus they don't even always follow the course rubric. I always recommend folks take English Comp from another provider if they don't want the teacher-led version.

The teacher that runs the teacher-led version is awesome, she's really easy to work with and is very consistent on her grading and in following the rubric.

If you do english comp 2 at SL, keep that in mind. The same teacher runs that one.

[katelynn]

It's unfortunate that this was your experience.

I completed 72 credits with them in record time and could not be happier.

My only complaint is they don't offer more UL courses so I could have taken the full 90 with them.

As I said, I'm sure my experience would've been perfectly fine if I had taken a course that required little-to-no interaction with the people they've decided to hire. I wish this hadn't been my first experience with them.

What made you decide to stick with them over Study.com?

Too bad you didn't read any of the recommendations I've posted about the English Comp sources at Straighterline. They can be great, but you MUST take the teacher-led version!

If you take the generic version, you'll end up with random SmartThinking tutors as graders so you never know what you'll get, plus they don't even always follow the course rubric. I always recommend folks take English Comp from another provider if they don't want the teacher-led version.

The teacher that runs the teacher-led version is awesome, she's really easy to work with and is very consistent on her grading and in following the rubric.

If you do english comp 2 at SL, keep that in mind. The same teacher runs that one.

I had no idea there was such a thing! I'm so mad at myself for getting stuck in this course. How does one access the teacher-led version? I didn't see that as an option.

[bjcheung77]

StraighterLine is great for most courses. For English, there are no proctored exams, but there are many assignments. I recommend Study.com over them for those type of courses. The best courses to take from StraighterLine are the Lower Level Business, Arts/Sciences courses that have open book final exams or closed book final exams worth 30% of the final grade or less. If you like courses where you send in assignments, the only recommended few are the Intro to Communications, Business Communications and Sociology courses - I love those writing assignments, I had perfect scores for most of them. Mcgraw-Hill courses are the recommended vendor they license from, Acrobatiq courses are harder to complete but do-able, I haven't tried their Calculus courses that use Thinkwell, and their final vendor uses Zyante for Intro to C++ Programming which isn't too bad either...

[Merlin]

It's unfortunate that this was your experience.

I completed 72 credits with them in record time and could not be happier.

My only complaint is they don't offer more UL courses so I could have taken the full 90 with them.

As I said, I'm sure my experience would've been perfectly fine if I had taken a course that required little-to-no interaction with the people they've decided to hire. I wish this hadn't been my first experience with them.

What made you decide to stick with them over Study.com?

Too bad you didn't read any of the recommendations I've posted about the English Comp sources at Straighterline. They can be great, but you MUST take the teacher-led version!

If you take the generic version, you'll end up with random SmartThinking tutors as graders so you never know what you'll get, plus they don't even always follow the course rubric. I always recommend folks take English Comp from another provider if they don't want the teacher-led version.

The teacher that runs the teacher-led version is awesome, she's really easy to work with and is very consistent on her grading and in following the rubric.

If you do english comp 2 at SL, keep that in mind. The same teacher runs that one.

I had no idea there was such a thing! I'm so mad at myself for getting stuck in this course. How does one access the teacher-led version? I didn't see that as an option.

If you haven't completed the course yet, you can contact support and ask for them to remove you from it and credit you from the course. You can then use the credit to apply towards the teacher led version. It's like $40 more, but worth it.