Peralta Community College District

Zero stars! I swear it must be a job requirement in admissions and counseling to be useless. No one can lift a finger to be bothered to do their own jobs. Everyone I dealt with was slow, inefficient and unhelpful.

The Peralta District office oversees administration for four community colleges: Berkeley City College, Laney College, College of Alameda, and Merritt College.
The district gets one star for allowing students to take classes at multiple locations. This greatly increases your chances of getting the classes you need/​want for transfer at a time when you can actually take them. Their distance learning options are pretty great as well. However, since the quality of each school varies greatly, you may go to one school and have a positive experience (as I have) and take classes at another campus and have a very negative experience (as I have). I will review the schools I have attended separately and will focus on working with the Peralta District Office in this review.
Long story short, I have had a lot of problems with the District office. When you call the main line, if you do not choose an option quickly enough, the system hangs up on you. If you are being transferred to another department, the system hangs up on you. Sometimes, while you’re on hold, the system hangs up on you. It has been over two and a half months since they «accidentally» added an extra charge to my account and I am still waiting for them to fix the error. It was fixed after I bugged my school’s Cashier for a month, but someone did not get the memo and readded the charge again a month later, so back into the black hole of the Peralta automated system I go…

MOST USELESS ADMISSIONS AND RECORDS STAFF IN EXISTENCE.
The absolute worst place if you are looking for helpful staff.
You can call at anytime of day and expect to be hung up on, not answered, transferred between multiple people without warning and all together ignored.
The people operating the admission and records building are completely incompetent at what they do and cannot be bothered to do their job.
If you can I would recommend going ANY, literally any other institution other than Peralta because you will never get your transcript or other transfer information received. Furthermore, they will find a way to mess up and then ignore you. Their laziness put me a semester (and 10 grand intuition) behind for failing to send a transcript to my full time and I regret ever trusting them with 1 class of my education.
Admissions and Records are a known issue that the school refuses to address and until then I hope that nobody enrolls in this establishment until they get the message that they need to SHOW UP AND DO THEIR JOBS.
If I could give negative stars I would, THIS PLACE IS THAT BAD.

As the first Unilocal Elite for this review, I will be putting on my «serious» hat.
Took classes for my associates and CC degree in Paralegal Studies right after undergrad at UC Irvine. Currently on an uphill climb just to get an official transcript and a matriculation verification from Peralta for law school applications.
I have this to say– it seems that some, if not most faculty at Peralta have lost their «inner fire» to provide for student needs; educational or related.
There is no communication with faculty or staff. If anything, any type of student-​related communication seems to be more of a hassle than a core principle held in high regard.
Professors are late and faculty are always drifting in and out of their offices never to be bothered with. It seems they just come in for a paycheck.
Peralta has «checked out» with regard to what they’re there for. Clean up your act, your institution has more of an impact on this region than any research or state university around.

I have been extremely disappointed over the last few years. The Admissions and Records Department suffers from a sadistic psychosis caused by poorly-​run bureaucracies, and makes student’s paperwork processes as difficult as possible– giving them the run-​around for weeks when in fact they could fix a situation in less than a minute by bringing something up on their computer. I’ve even been yelled at several times in the Berkeley City College Admissions and Records office for suggesting that they accept my official transcripts from another college that were in a sealed envelope from the school. Isn’t that what that office is for, specifically?
This last week my mom died, and we called everyone we could think of at the Peralta District office, so that I could have the period of 21 days of respite given by all other colleges to those who have gone through serious loss. It is now over a week later, and we’ve gotten no response.
I am a straight ‘A’ student and a good communicator. If they can’t help me, how are they supposed to help anybody on the fringe who actually needs a community college desperately? Peralta needs to get its act together or suffer loss of accreditation.

Peralta District Office is a black hole of slack! Getting anyone to answer the phone, return your call or email is impossible… no matter the topic, question or request.
I love the campuses and the instructors but the district office is clueless.

A total mess of an institution. No communication, outdated information. I have worked with university administrators before, but the Peralta web of colleges is by far the worst, least organized, and least competent collection of idiots I’ve ever had the misfortune of trying to work with. Utter and complete failures.
To call this place an institution of higher learning would be a complete disservice to everyone.

I wish you could give a negative star for this College District. I have moved a few times and finally finished some credits so I could transfer to San Francisco State in Fall 2011 where I was accepted and it has been nothing but trouble with this district. At this point State wants my final transcripts so I can enroll and none of my grades are in 3 and ½ weeks after classes ended. I cannot get any responses from instructors. I have called and emailed all department heads and the presidents of each college (I have to take classes at 3 of the 4 colleges because they don’t have enough at one). It is an absolute nightmare. One instructor is in Spain and won’t be pack for a month. Thanks Peralta for ruining my chances at getting a higher education!

Unbelievably horrible experience just signing up for one class for the first time with Peralta. After this experience I emailed several people and did receive received some good responses and help. They were helpful and very nice people, but still only 1 star because it should not have to reach that level.

Yea, lotsa disappointment here.
Was given the run around many times by these people.
Most if not all employees here don’t seem to know what they’re doing & there tends to seemingly be mass confusion between departments.
Sad but true. I only deal with them because I have to.
Seriously.

Soon to be Berkeley Community college. Great place to stay educatied, classes are cheap and some are quite interesting