heureuse21

to all posters who replied/commented on my post, thank you. i have applied to csu san marcos and couldn't be happier even if it does take me twice as long. my advice now would be to deal with lucie as a counselor. she couldn't recover my lost file/essay, etc but she returned my phone calls, called me and checked up on me. good lady. good luck to all!

hi all, i registered for this website just to be able to give my thoughts on Maric. whew, it's been a ride. just today, just now, i decided to go somewhere else, anywhere else but Maric. i did a yahoo search for "maric college bad" and found this post. after reading myriad pro and con posts, i saw enough to confirm my doubts. since april i have been trying to get information and apply to maric. the counselor to whom i was assigned was ernesto perales. initially i was sceptical of the sales-pitch approach but i understood that private school=business and that i was paying big money to knock it out in 15 months. he told me that it would be about 36k for the nursing and add'l for any pre-req classes. but, after that initial conversation, i could not get him to return my emails, my phone calls. i let days and weeks go by to give the benefit of the doubt. i would call and ask the receptionist to give me to someone else and then would end up transfered to ernesto's voice mail. at the time i was living in northern california and going through an accelerated EMT program to fulfill the medical certification pre-req for Maric. i called, i emailed. no response. i was a microbiologist, i had a fellowship in genetics, i had all of my pre-reqs completed save for two classes and i was anxious to know what to do next with my burning desire to be a nurse. i had been working in a bar for a year while i waited to get into public nursing schools in sacramento, but the waiting lists... so maric and 15 months sounded pretty good. pay the loan off after i get a RN job, right? and get to be in san diego! so finally, i decided to fly down to san diego and take the CPAT and complete the essay and application. (the week before, i finally was able to catch ernesto and find out that testing was necessary before we could talk about the rest.) (no apologies or excuses for the unreturned calls/emails) in september i flew from sac to sd and spent the hours for the above. ended up with a 197 on the CPAT. (basic aptitude test) before testing, i talked with ernesto who was very discouraging about my chances of getting in as a one-quarter (of pre-req before the 15 months) student as there were few and sometimes no spots for students like me. preference was for students with no general education. after testing, i spoke with another counselor, carol, who treated my 197 like i had won the lottery- she said this was an 1 in 10,000 score. BS? i don't know. she was helpful and encouraging. my first positive in the six or so months i had been dealing with Maric. i flew back to sacramento with mixed feelings. am i great? am i getting in? i know this is a long narrative, apologies... this is the abbreviated version. i had all of my transcripts sent to Maric in september in advance of the september 30 cut-off date. ernesto said he received 1 of the 3 i sent. he had told me to send them to maric, attention to him. i quit my job and moved to san diego in mid-october. after more un-returned calls, i requested a counselor change. i figured a change would help. left unreturned voice mails for carol, then unreturned voice mails for the admissions director. 3 weeks go by. i get a call that carol is going on a leave of absence. new counselor, lucie. lucie called and said that she could not find my file. (at least she called!) but----no transcripts, no essay, no paperwork. but i had flown down from sac, i was one in ten thousand, i had been so patient! lucie said that ernesto recommends that transcripts be sent to the students' houses and then be brought in. and why were there none when once there had been one and should have been three? what? lies? why should it surprise me? after all of the shady dealings and crap customer service? i called a friend to vent and they recommended checking the web for blogs on the experiences of maric students. and i found this. do what you will with the info. i wish i would have found this site before this ordeal. i had such hope. 15 months was soooo seductive. i think i'll be checking out CSU san marcos on monday. cheers. -jenny p.s. i'm glad you have a better experience, jim. good luck!