Has anyone tried ICS study?

bmj191

I'm currently a night student taking a basic GCSE. Looking at ICS, its around £100 cheaper than my college per course which is a massive saving! Also college is 20 miles away, so the petrol saving is in itself a great incentive.

DCFC79

Have you searched the forum to see if others have used ics, [STRIKE]what gcse is it have you looked at the OU[/STRIKE]

KiKi

I studied with ICS. Never, ever, ever, ever again. Let's say I learned very quickly WHY they were cheaper. AWFUL administration, no-one called me back when I needed to ask questions, they ignored emails (which I rarely sent) and their materials were nothing short of SHOCKING.

I'm CIPD qualified with a specialism in training and development...and I do a lot of training and development design work. I would never, in a million years, ever release to clients materials of the quality supplied to me by ICS. Full of spelling mistakes, formatting errors, not proofread, basic mistakes (like "refer to page 9" when page 9 didn't exist etc). And factually inaccurate.

I would warn anyone off them. However, I can only speak from my own experience of the one course I did. Check the feedback for your specific course.

I'm now doing another post-grad course with the OU, and they are amazing. Professional, for starters, which helps. They also get back to you within a specified time. No contest for me! Don't know if they do GCSEs, though.

HTH
KiKi

colacubes

Avoid ics. You get your course materials, but shoddy back up from admin I also agree.

heretolearn_2

OU doesn't do GCSEs, it's a university. Lowest it does is sort of intro Access level courses.

bmj191

Eeek, thank you for the feedback. I guess sticking with college may be the right thing to do. I have a long term goal which unfortunately starts with 6 years at college (one almost finished) before 5 years at uni.
With my first choice uni now opting to charge maximum tuition fees, a cheaper course was appealing!

Thank you for your help :-)

pipscot

bmj191 wrote: »

Eeek, thank you for the feedback. I guess sticking with college may be the right thing to do. I have a long term goal which unfortunately starts with 6 years at college (one almost finished) before 5 years at uni.
With my first choice uni now opting to charge maximum tuition fees, a cheaper course was appealing!

Thank you for your help :-)

6 years at college sounds like a long preparation for uni! I did some OU courses while working full time to prepare for uni - have you checked out if they do any suitable courses?

Good luck with your plans!!

saintjammyswine

Depending on the course you want and what is available your local FE college may be a cheaper option than Uni. For example the same level Building Services Engineering (Level 4, Degree Level) £6-9k at Uni, typical college £1.5k.

bmj191

Thank you :-)
I'm self employed and unfortunately can only afford to pay for 2 courses per year! :-\ wish I could do it all sooner.
Year1 GCSE science (almost completed )
Year2. GCSE's maths and english
Year 3. A Levels year 1 physics and biology
Year 4. A levels as above year 2
Year 5. A levels year 1 chem and maths
Year 6. A levels year 2 as above

Then, hopefully
5 years Medicine at Lancaster. I'll finally qualify as a junior doctor at the age of 37 !
'Tis a long road but I'm determined ;-)

DCFC79

heretolearn wrote: »

OU doesn't do GCSEs, it's a university. Lowest it does is sort of intro Access level courses.

it was just an idea, after checkng the OU i found they didnt do gcses

pipscot

DCFC79 wrote: »

it was just an idea, after checkng the OU i found they didnt do gcses

No but some of their courses can be used as GCSE equivalents. For example, the requirement for teachers to have GCSE Maths can be satisfied using the OU course MST121 at most teacher training institutions.