Competition is the american way. Can you imagine only having 3 or 4 colleges available to attend?

• Opening new school for MTs - Texas MT
  • Having instructers answer questions quickly is a BIG plus. - Lauren nm
    • Oops, meant instructOrs. - Lauren NM
  • Why reinvent the wheel? M-TEC & Andrews do a superb job producing job-ready MTs. - An MTSO
    • That was kind of a ridiculous statement! nm - MT
    • Competition is the american way. Can you imagine only having 3 or 4 colleges available to attend? - Lauren nm
  • Hearing actual dictation files versus professionally read ones was a major plus - at my MT school. nm

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This insistence on Andrews or M-Tec makes me very uneasy.  I've been responsible for hiring and training thousands of MTs and even I don't know these two schools that well and I rarely see graduates from there.  I know they have good student support.  I do see lots of graduates from Career Step.  BTW, the Career Step grads are not well prepared for employment- not at all.  Not like you'd think from reading current posts.  Most of my past hires from Career Step failed to stick with it.  Only a small percentage could hold up- bad typing skills- but good on terminology.

Most of our employees (MTs) are either graduates of community colleges or staffing schools that we contract with.  If Andrews and M-Tec were as dominant as you read here, I'd expect the only good MTs to have come from those schools and I don't.  I didn't go there.  I've done fine.  I've never had a problem being hired in my early days as an MT.  I went to a community college and they used HPI publications.

I think this insistence on a "big three" is very misleading.  As a person who hires and trains, I know you don't need to attend one of these 3 schools to get a job.  Attitude has far more to do with it than book training anyway.  We'd much rather have a graduate with a poorer education who has a great attitude than the reverse.  The education can be improved quickly while the attitude is impossible to change.

I will just take your word for it that these 2 schools have great classes, but why all this drum beating when there are untold numbers of excellent community college programs and also staffing schools.  How about Mentoring Internships too?  There are lots of resources that my MTs have used to become well educated.

However, there are "schools" that are nothing but internet marketing machines.  It is obvious who they are.  They are the ones who sell diplomas for almost anything.  New students should definitely beware of those.  Medical Transcription is too difficult to learn from a mail order house.  You can't sit in isolation at home and learn medical transcription very easily and that is the big trap, IMO.  This is not like getting your real estate license and only needing to pass 1 test to get a job.

That's my view from my corner of the world.

likely be able to get a job upon graduation.

Andrews School - www.andrewsschool.com
MTec - www.mtecinc.com
Career Step - www.careerstep.com
SETT - www.settinc.com

Don't fall for the fly by night schools.  What are fly by night schools?  Generally, those that advertise all over creation trying to drum up business.  Those that rent out halls in hotels and have conferences promising that you'll make a ton of money the first year.  Any school that promises you big bucks straight out of school.  Those that run TV ads offering every "degree" under the sun including medical transcription.  Those that make you buy their expensive players and footpedals before you can get started.  Those that you find a zillion "testimonials" posted on every discussion forum available.

Hi Allie,

I wouldn't attend that Community College from what you have said.  The CC I went to had two wonderful teachers who were semi-retired MTs.  I vaguely remember that the clerks I enrolled with knew very little.  I grew to be very impressed with the teachers over time.  A great teacher is such a blessing.

Med Workshops' staffing school did a good job for us almost 2 years ago.  I've spoken with the owner Karen over the phone.  She is bright and honest.  We moved to another school because they offered us a better deal financially.  We will probably use Med Workshops again in the future sometime.  Remember that they are like a wholesale alternative.  They probably don't have a sales staff for the "retail student". 

But, a wholesale approach doesn't mean you don't get assistance.  It means they make most of their money training students for individual employers.  Companies like this don't advertise to the public.  They contact the larger transcription companies and are looking at a different model.  They are dealing in groups to be able to cut overhead, etc. etc.  Companies like who I work for find this very appealing because a basic education is usually very similar everywhere because the same 2-3 teaching aids (books, CDs, online) are used by almost all schools. 

We are looking at teacher/mentor support for the students and also the cost of education.  We won't be able to find enough students at one time if we have to rely on a very expensive retail school- they aren't set up to satisfy our needs, but their program might be great.  Retail at $3800 or wholesale at about $2000?  For employers like mine the answer is simple.

I'm getting caught in a "25 words or less" dilemma in trying to explain this.  I feel some here will jump all over me if I don't say just the right thing.

I've been saying that, I see this wholesale or staffing school approach as the new wave in education because it solves problems for the students and the employers.  It's a win win.

I hope everyone keeps an open mind and just considers these ideas.  I'm not saying this is the only solution for everyone.  Don't hit me, I'm just a messenger.