Good Morning,
I have written courses and worked for the Institute.
#1. They are not connected, IN ANY WAY, with the "draw bambi" art school. Different folks. No relation.
#2. Folks do fail the test. I happen to know without a doubt that they do. Also, if someone should be coached through the test but cannot write or isn't getting anything from the course, the instructor is told to tell the Institute and the Institute refunds the student's money. It happens. I've done it to students who weren't getting anything because they (1) couldn't or (2) wouldn't. I haven't done it often because the test does weed out folks can't handle the course pretty well.
#3. I honestly cannot imagine the Institute suing anyone since I know -- for a fact -- that the money back promise is real. If you didn't want to pay you could have complained about the quality of the course (clearly you had a chuck load of complaints) and you NOT ONLY would not have had to pay, you would have been given your money back. Naturally there is a time limit to when this can happen after you've finished the course but I know -- for a fact -- that they have refunded money; there's no excuse for paying if you hated the course so much.
#4 I know -- for a fact -- that if you don't like your instructor and he/she is telling you stuff you already know and doesn't seem to be helpful, you can have a new instructor. Zip. Just like that. No pain, no strain. No one breaks the instructor's legs or anything. I've had students ask for a new instructor (some folks don't like actually being told what's wrong and what they need to change to be published -- they wanted an instructor who said more good things than corrective things and they told the institute that. The institute gave them what they wanted -- they couldn't get college credit, of course, but the Institute wanted them to complete the course with joy, and some folks don't care about college credit.) So there is NO EXCUSE for having an instructor you don't get anything from. Not every two people mesh, but the key is to be proactive, not to sit through the whole course with an instructor who isn't helping you or giving you what you wanted. If you wanted a "tougher" instructor -- we're out there and the Institute would have happily given you one.
#5. The course doesn't give grades or passes or whatever. It's not high school. It's designed to improve your writing -- period. The students in the magazine course I teach, you only get a diploma if you produce work that I believe could get published. I have a lot of experience in magazines so if I believe it can get published -- it can. If it's obvious a student is not going to get to that publishable place -- I tell the Institute and they give back the student's money. That doesn't happen often -- it's very rare. My students work very hard and I'm very corrective. I only have 8 lessons to get them up to publication level so I don't mess around. But they have to put into it to get success. They must be proactive. Passive people aren't going to be happy in the course.
#6. I took the Writer's Digest course not long ago because someone else paid for it for me. If the class of students wasn't unhappy, they are an incredibly tolerant bunch because there was NOTHING, ZERO, ZIP, NADDA about improving their work for publication. The concept of publication wasn't brought up at ALL. And some of the folks were producing work that was not going to sell in today's market but the instructor NEVER ONCE told them that -- she looked only at things like grammar and minor writing style points. I expect some of the folks may have seen some improvement but if ANYONE was ready to be published at the end, it was because they were ready to be published at the beginning. And ALL, every single bit of the set instruction was cut and pasted from writing books readily available from any bookstore. So you were paying for that critique from the instructor -- and it wasn't cheap.
#7. Now having said all that. I would not have taken the Institute course in my early years. The marketing grossed me out. And it was expensive. And I was poor. So I got published the old fashioned way -- I collected rejection slips until I figured it out on my own. This was not a quick process but I'm pretty proud of it. I do know of multi-published authors (Verla Kay, for one) who took the Institute course and says it shaved years off the publication process. That's cool. Those years were already spent for me before I learned the nasty ICL marketing wasn't reflective of the course itself.
But out of all the ICL graduates I've heard online -- probably in excess of three dozen -- I have heard exactly two complaints. Both would have been solved with a change of instructor. In other words, both would have been solved by taking advantage of the options in place to prevent unhappiness, but the two people didn't want to 'make waves' or some such. Or maybe they just didn't know and didn't feel like calling the 800 number for the Institute to find out what they could do about being unhappy. So they decided to stick with it, be unhappy, and have something to grumble about. The Institute doesn't want unhappy students and they would RATHER have given you back your money. They gave it to other folks. So basically you screwed yourself out of all that money back...sounds like it wasn't the Institute you should be mad at.
As an ex-student, you can call the Institute and schedule a visit if you're ever up in CT. I know they'll be happy to show proof of the things you doubt -- like students who complained and got instructors who suited them better, students who didn't pass the test, and students who got their money back. They are serious about helping you be comfortable with what you got and understand what you're talking about.
gran