West Valley College — Local services in Saratoga

I attended this school in-person August 2016 to December 2017, plus online Summer 2018. The campus is beautiful, woodsy, and has nice facilities. However, I had to leave this college for 2 reasons, and one of them affected a lot of people I knew who attends here.

This community college makes you take way too many prerequisites that don't count for many of their classes. I had to take two prerequisite classes just for English 1, and I passed that class no problem because the professor talked about nothing related to the class. I needed business classes and I couldn't register for those because I needed even more prerequisite classes that don't transfer. My first year there, I only had 9 transferable units, less that what I should've had in one semester.

Many people who I personally know just end up getting stuck here for years or end up losing motivation because of poor guidance and never being able to finish. I transferred to West Hills Community College in Coalinga and Lemoore, mainly because they offered ag classes. However, they didn't make me take prerequisites that I don't need or don't transfer. I finished West Hills in 3 semesters and transferred to Fresno State.

My advice: This community college makes you take way too many classes that you don't need and don't count and will make you lose motivation. There are a ton of community colleges in Northern California. Find one that actually wants you to finish!

If West Valley-Mission cares about their student's success, they need to rethink this! Otherwise, it just seems like they're squeezing money from poorly guided students that end up...

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...

you would not be a foo if you go to this schoo. I now go to San Francisco State university and I hate it. Sf state is too crowded and the people are unfriendly in general. West valley college had only 13,000 students who were from a more ritsy area plus the campus size was comparable with sf state. State, on the other hand has 39,000 stepping over each other and bumping into me without even saying so much as a sorry. Considering Stanford is the size of a city it is amazing that there are fewer students there than at state. West Valley college on the other hand is a college where I will always have fond memories. At 2:00PM there was hardly anyone left on campus and chances are they would be my friends. It was almost a private school education (aside from the library) at a community college price....