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Nokuthula L

1 reviews | Active since Jun 2022

25 Jul 2022, 20:04

The worst institute in the whole South Africa

In this hard economic times, I am sending a warning to all those who are thinking of studying at IMM, DO NOT. For your academic progress and healthy mental sake, DO NOT. Our country is going through a difficult economic downturn, jobs are scarce and Covid added another burden through retrenchments. However, if you are student at IMM and you happen to fall in these hard economic times, let me warn you, they will suspend your studies without a common decency to warn you about their malicious intention. I am a victim of that scenario. Whilst I am battling depression from retrenchment, trying to secure another job and writing my dissertation in order to improve my situation, I was suspended WITHOUT NOTICE. Another fact is that, you can explain your situation and pay the instalments towards your studies until you are blue in the face, they will never uplift that suspension or try to help a student like other institutes will do. Any prospective student aiming to study Marketing or marketing related courses, choose other universities and forget about IMM unless you are sure of your future financial life. IMM has a big aim: to keep poor student in poverty.

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Replies (4)
IMM Graduate School of Marketing
IMM Graduate School of Marketing's reply26 Jul 2022, 08:37
Official
Good Morning Nokuthula,

Your query has been submitted to the Accounts Manager for a formal response, and this will be shared with you as soon as this is received.

We will continue to assist you via your ticket reference  GVS-XMBBQ-641 .

Kind Regards,

Lauren Schultz
Head: Student Support
IMM Graduate School
IMM Graduate School of Marketing
IMM Graduate School of Marketing's reply29 Jul 2022, 16:39
Official
Dear Nokuthula, 

After a thorough investigation and careful review of your concerns, please refer to the below feedback: 

Your application for the Masters of Philosophy in Marketing was registered on the 25 June 2019, you were issued your student number, and were given information on the process for MPhil webinars and workshops to prepare you for the submission of your research proposal in 2020. The MPhil programme commences at the start of each academic year and does not have a mid-year start date. 

Students have four semesters to complete their MPhil qualification. 

The first semester is comprised of helpful webinars after which, students are requested to submit their research proposal. Once the research proposal is approved, students are assigned their supervisor and fees are then split into three consecutive payments, paid over the remaining three semesters. 

We received the following payments towards the registration of your programme on the following dates: 

1.       19 February 2019 – R2,250.00 
2.       6 March 2019 – R7,000.00 
3.       9 March 2019 – R1,740.00 

No further fees have been received after 9 March 2019 towards the MPhil qualification. The balance of R15,750.00 was still due. 

In July 2020, the research committee approved your research proposal and you were issued with the required ethics certificate in order to continue your research. In the same month, you were assigned a supervisor, Prof. Singh. 

We have continued to provide you with access to your supervisor and the eLearn system (upon request) throughout your studies, up to and including the first semester of 2022. 

At no point in the last 2 years has this access been suspended or made unavailable to you. The MPhil Academic administrators also confirm that they kept in contact with you throughout this period, inviting you to attend support webinars in 2021 and 2022. 

At no point in the last two years has the IMM Graduate School suspended you or prevented you from studying towards completing your MPhil qualification. 

On 25 April 2022, as you reached the MPhil programme deadline, you were sent a notification regarding your outstanding fees, from the accounts manager.  No response was received from you. 

The accounts manager emailed you again on the 4 May 2022, to which you responded advising that you would make a payment towards the outstanding balance – no payments were received. 

The accounts manager then suspended your Student Portal – this only prevents you from viewing your final results (you are yet to make the final submission for grading) and in no way restricted you from any academic access or support to complete your MPhil qualification. You still have access to eLearn. 

You requested an additional letter in order to complete your interviews; you were advised that as no payment had been received since 2019 we required some payment in order to assist with your required letter. We received two payments; the first on 18 July 2022 (R1000.00) and the second on 21 July 2022 (R1000.00). Once these payments were allocated to your student account, the requested letter was issued to you. 

As per the above record, it is clear that the IMM Graduate School has put your academic success ahead of any outstanding payments, to which you have made no effort or contact to discuss this and ask how the IMM Graduate School may assist you. 

Whilst it is clear that we have been sympathetic to the economic and personal struggles that our students have faced over the last two years, we, unfortunately, do need to ensure that students make the agreed payments before results are released or they are able to graduate. It is for this reason that the student portal is blocked. However at no point do we prevent them from continuing their studies. 

Should you wish to contact us directly, via ***, to discuss your payment options we would be happy to discuss this with you. 

Regards,

Lauren Schultz
Head: Student Support

NL
Nokuthula L's update29 Jul 2022, 18:07
Reviewer Update
Hi Lauren

You do not need to spin this issue, it really looks pathetic for you and for the school. Let me correct some of the deliberate incorrect utterances you wrote on the above email:

  • When I register for my MPhil, my cohort and I were informed that the degree is 3 years and I do not know anything about 4 semesters. I can bring evidence to that effect.
  • I was never told that April 2022 was my deadline, the email I received and from the conversation I had with few people at IMM, I am supposed to finish at the end of the year. I also have evidence to that communication.
  • Your account manager suspended my account after I had told her that I have been unemployed since the beginning of 2020 and have just received a part-time employment at the beginning of June. She suspended my account without a letter or a note informing of the suspension.
  • I only realised that I was suspended when I requested a letter of permission to conduct the interviews for my studies from the head of faculty. There was never any correspondence coming from the school about payment arrangements even when I requested the aforementioned. I even came to the school to inquire about payment arrangements but to no one replying to me. I also have evidence of that.
  • Even after the head of faculty informing me that he will be sending me a letter seeing that I have been paying towards my studies, nothing was send until I wrote to Hellopeter.
  • So please STOP LYING. I have ample emails I send to school that I can post them here, I also came personally to school after speaking to you one Saturday morning about this issue, so stop lying.
  • You and IMM have been trying by all means to not let me continue with my studies and that is for sure. No support except from the Head of Faculty
IMM Graduate School of Marketing
IMM Graduate School of Marketing's reply04 Aug 2022, 07:53
Official
Good Morning Nokuthula,

Many thanks for contacting the IMM Graduate School to discuss payment options available.

I am glad that we were able to find amicable solutions and a payment plan that is suitable for you.

Please contact us on *** should you require any assistance during the current semester as you finalise your Mphil dissertation.

Regards,

Lauren Schultz
Head: Student Support