Immerse Reviews

Immerse Education - Academic Summer & Online Courses

4.01
101 reviews
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Based on 101 user experiences
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O

This is a very well-run scam

This is a very well-run scam please see the end of the post that addresses the response from Peter at Immerse The organization has nothing to do with Oxbridge they advertise Bursaries which they do not actually offer The page on the website about Bursaries has no links or ways to register for a bursary While advertised the bursary opportunity is not actually provided in any fair or open way rather they send out emails with 30 percent discounts which they also offer through an essay competition That brings down your tuition to merely 4 k for two weeks It is SUCH a shame that this scam is associating itself with the names of these two wonderful universities As they are not registered charity in the UK they do not have to follow the rules In addition please notice that all positive reviews here were solicited But be warned Immerse has no legitimate connection with Oxbridge they merely rent dormitories If it is financially acceptable for you to pay this much 4-6K for an unrelated summer camp on an Oxbridge campus go ahead but do not be fooled by any illusion of connection with the University or legitimacy of this business I will take this to the Provosts of both Universities Response to Peter 1 You are saying We re sorry that you have had a negative experience and that you were unable to respond to our attempt to contact you for more information about what caused this This is entirely FALSE In fact it was me who emailed and tried to call multiple times and I have emails to prove this The phone number appeared non-working and to my request for your contact information I was told by Elizabeth Cooper that it can not be provided and the only person I am ever able to speak to is a student coordinator who does not know anything anyway 2 You are saying We do indeed offer means-tested bursaries but it appears that the reason for your negative review is that you unfortunately found out about this opportunity after the application deadline - which was 14th January 2022 and we think this was clearly labeled in the How To Apply section This is completely FALSE I have seen the page many times starting in October and at no time did it contain any application information buttons or forms There was also zero communication from the company about this application via email which is also easy to prove In addition I have the following language from your coordinator Elizabeth Cooper direct quote To be completely honest we are not advertising our Bursary Competition It is unfortunate that your university education did not include integrity 3 You are saying Firstly - we do our utmost to make it clear that we are not part of Cambridge or Oxford University and I m sorry that you had difficulty differentiating us Luckily I have no such difficulty hence the review I have also more than enough evidence as do other parents and teachers who posted here on Trust Pilot that you do not offer any bursaries in an honest and open way that would be expected for an educational organization in the UK It should be stated clearly on your web page that you are a private business not affiliated with the University instead you are calling your program Cambridge Summer School with zero further explanation Any mention of affiliation should be clearly announced and not hidden at the bottom of the page Your comment If you go onto the About Us section of our website you can see we were founded in 2012 Cambridge was founded in 1209 and make it clear that we are an independent organization is just laughable as the date when something was founded has no relevance to its association with a university most colleges did not exist at the time the University was founded To summarise the advertised bursary program does not exist the absence of affiliation with Universities is cleverly camouflaged and Essay competition is used as a marketing trick see other reviews here BTW reviews are turned off on your FB page I am can not comment on the quality of the programs I really hope they are good but I sincerely hope that this will help other parents see this for what it is and not break their children s hearts with false hope
P

Parent of Applicant

As other reviewers note please beware of this program If you are a student aiming to bolster your resume with a scholarship for a program at Oxford Cambridge steer clear You should know that the so-called 30 scholarships granted are nothing more than a recruiting marketing ploy not merit-based scholarships recognizing your writing Regardless of what the program sponsor represents most if not all students submitting an application obtain the 30 scholarship In addition from experience after submitting a deposit and retracting after less than a week upon learning of the foregoing business practice the program refused to grant a refund While the foregoing poor business practices may not represent the quality of the program perhaps they should make you reconsider whether the associated Immerse organization has the appropriate level of integrity for you or your student to do business with
O

Occam s Razor Says its a Scam

There are two glaring problems with immerse education that make it a scam in everything but name The first of which is their problematic essay competition This year I was granted a 30 scholarship the funny thing was all my fiends who applied over 10 people all also got a scholarship ranging from 10-30 It is statistically unlikely for this to be a coincidence and seems to be a ploy to bait people into paying an abhorrent amount for a course that is not even related to the university An easy way to clear this problem up is to announce all winners and people who receive partial scholarships on their website This would make the whole thing clearer and more legitimate and i see no reason not to do so Unless of course my suspicion is correct and they just give lots of them out to bait people into going to their program The second issue is their lack of transparency which also links back into the essay competition It took me quite a while to realise that they were not associated with the university in any way and when i found that out i was shocked It was advertised as Cambridge Immerse and yapped on about how the university was so great despite not being affiliated in any way This misleads people about the program as they think Cambridge university is involved in some way which is not true This lack of transparency also seeps through to the essay competition as i discussed earlier To add to that this will not help you gain admission to any university despite some of their claims In conclusion the essay competition and overall lack of transparency makes this shady and most probably a scam Consumers have the right to know what their product is before buying it
M

Beware

It is scam to grab your money They use the Cambridge reputation and the word Scholarship as a bait to attract the parents and kids to apply for their Summer Program My experience with my two kids in applying for this program from Australia 1 With my first kids their website said 100 scholarship To get the scholarship you have to write a solution to a global economic problem and then attend an interview online to select the candidate for the scholarship My kid wrote a solution to an economic issue and did the interview Then they sent an email saying that we got a scholarship of 50 When we asked about 100 scholarship as advertised they wrote back saying that we have share the scholarship with others so cannot give more than 50 We started to get a bit suspicious because it looks like the word scholarship was the bait and later to make us pay for most of the program fee 2 With my second kid they advertised you have to write an essay and you will get a 100 scholarship So to check them out 5 parents got together and purposely wrote some bad quality essays As we thought all the 5 kids got 20 scholarship In my opinion they want to make money so they are using the name Cambridge and Scholarship It is a tactic to sell the Cambridge University Summer Program It works specially well with parents and kids thinking they have got a scholarship to this prestigious Cambridge Program and send their kids to this program paying a lot of money which has little value This is a trap to get your money
J

Not all it is promised

My niece is currently attending the Oxford Summer Course and by all accounts is having a great time However her mother my sister who has paid a considerable sum for this experience for her daughter which was to include a graduation and dinner at Oxford has just been told 2 days before she cannot attend the graduation and dinner despite this being described in the brochure She is devastated having travelled across continents booked travel and accommodation to share in this time with her child So beware if you plan on seeing your child graduate it will suddenly turn into a first come first served cost-cutting exercise despite the vast amount you have forked out This awful behaviour has prompted me to start investigating this industry and I have to say the Companies House Records are looking very interesting
D

Not what I expected

Not what was in the description of the course Very disorganised and the mentors were careless Not recommending
C

Competition cheats

This company targeted what they called a Creative Writing Competition at pupils of independent schools outside of the UK I m a teacher at an international school in Portugal and three students aged 16 and 17 entered They asked me to look over their writing It was of very different standards given that it reflected the intellectual level of the students themselves Well surprise surprise All three of them received letters a few days later telling them that they had won 30 of an online course with can you believe it Yes Immerse Education This is a cynical marketing ploy to lure gullible foreign students rumoured to be rich into online courses for which there are few positive reviews I doubt if my students competition entries were even read The letter told them there had been a very high standard of entries but made no reference to content What makes me really angry is that my students put much effort into what they wrote in good faith and this company were only after their money Take a look at the brochure Photos of Cambridge University - not connected to this company Beware beware beware
Z

Immerse not ethical

It is such a relief to see other parents students complain about this negative experience with immerse education regarding their abysmal awards ceremony Firstly they sent out a generic email to both parents and especially students claiming their essay stood out and won a prize Obviously the kids and parents will be excited so we all go along only to find out that the prizes were limited to international students and for essays that were of lower standard compared to academically capable students The judges are biased and voted for the essay close to their niche The comments section in the call was full of immature students writing childish stuff and the Q A was ignored on some questions asked There was no proper adult overseeing this call It must be stressed that this so-called programme is more to do with making profit than students being enriched by opportunities that you can get elsewhere for free or less money for example futurelearn Open learn Coursera Most universities would prefer work experience than these short sub-standard programmes There s no real academically ethical practice adhered to what I mean is they want you to write an essay and have it put on their website but if you didn t win the competition then you shouldn t allow your hard work be put on there for others to copy Parents and students should be wary of such programmes In the end we left the call and my child has moved on to work experience Save your money and look at universities own website for courses programmes they offer and there is a lot out there I hope universities read these parents comments and be acutely aware the unfair way we were treated I do wish the other parents and students all the best who had the same disappointing experience as us Update It is highly unlikely there was a technical glitch because that would mean the actual winners also got the wrong emails too so they are not the true winners Immerse education was a wrong choice for our son and we regret ever giving this silly essay competition a try We don t accept the embarrassing Merit award and we don t believe the so-called judges have or ever did mark all those thousands of essays The essays were likely picked randomly and then chosen for the scholarship Either way we have put it behind us and advise parents not to invest in such a programme Please save your money for your child s university and encourage them to get work experience instead Universities have their own summer school programme just email them and ask Good luck
M

Marketing scam should be ashamed

My daughter who is a UK based straight A student invested her precious time in writing an essay like so many others here she got the congratulatory 30 scholarship only 4000 balance to pay Which prompted me to look through brochures lack of course descriptions bold use of Cambridge Oxford but in the small print not affiliation Thinly veiled marketing scam Also note how many 5 star trust pilot reviews they have from reviewers who have never posted another review maybe paid
R

Immerse Education

Immerse Education - HOW DARE YOU MESS WITH OUR BEAUTIFUL YOUNG PEOPLE Your company is a SCAM Our precious children are giving their time thinking that you are offering a legitimate essay competition Only to find it is a scam HOW DARE YOU

About Immerse

Choose from over 50 award-winning academic summer schools and online programmes. Enrol in a Cambridge, Oxford, London, Sydney, or Online Programmes.

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