SMC Education - Introducing the Circle Club: 7000 courses and tuition-free degrees

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just received a response - SM founder's initials, C corporation.

 

I'm a student of the first DBA cohort. there are definitely no DBA graduates at SMC Education Group yet.

 

Huh.

If you scroll down the "all programs" page, you'd see "Partner Programs". These are listed as accredited by "UCN" and seem identical to SMC University offerings. They say they do not have any relationship with SMC University, but do they, really?

 

I believe they are connected rather they want to say they are or not. Just the fact that the Swiss Management Center acronym (SMC) is apart of both school names suggest that. The Student Relationship Manager contacted me after I inquired about SMC University with a discount offer, then the SMC Education Group offer a year later, and now the SMC Education Group Circle Club just one week ago.

 

The big question is, who is this founder named "SM"? What is his full name? Where can we read about him? I asked SMC and I'm awaiting that response. We'll see what they say.

 

Boom!

https://www.vijayeswaran.com/spotlight/honorary-doctorate-for-vijay-eswaran-2/

 

They had it fully, but they lost it. Sometime in the early 10's and up until the year they lost it, there were several controversies that I'm sure had a hand in them losing ACBSP accreditation. Here is a report about that connection and some matters surrounding it:

https://www.pulse.com.gh/ece-frontpage/fake-doctorate-report-swiss-management-centre-not-registered-nor-accredited-nab-boss/y3kfptj

While SMC Education Group appears to be legitimately and fully licensed in Malta now, their history follows them, and this shenanigan separation attempt doesn't help them, smh, lol. I mean, if you're legit now, why not just cut ties with the original outfit that didn't work, cut ties with UCN and these other validation plays, contact the evaluators to let them know your operation has turned over a new leaf, have the legit recognition now and move on? Why continue to hang on to something that has a crap reputation, then pretend to not be connected to it just to hold on to it? LOL!

Neither would I, not until they clean up this mess. They are still blacklisted at WES and I believe some other evaluators. Clean up the mess and this can be revistied, but until then this is a closed case that already has a proper standing verdict.

 

response said principal investor rather than founder. my mistake.

Anyways I'm not sure what the end game of this thread is - it started with informing about a cool program (Circle Club) and drifted to unleashing conspiracy? sorry for putting my SMC hat on now with a bit of emotion. SMC Education Group is a Maltese institution, licensed and accredited in Malta (EU), and their degrees are 100% waterproof (for my purposes) and recognized in the EU and probably everywhere else. you know better. that info can be easily retrieved and is publicly available. in this context who cares about some SMC University in switzerland or who knows where? how does this effect my or anyone else's experience, learning, career, degree, etc? I could not care less. even if somewhere in the abyss there is an investor who has interests in both, be it. why not. you can't forbid anyone to make things better.

I have informed SMC about this thread and asked them to comment here. not sure if this is at all allowed, or well received. let me know.

 

As this is an education board read and referred to by countless people around the world, the "end game" of all of our threads is fact-finding, never "conspiracy" because at the end of the day that would be on the institution, not us. After all, it's not us who are trying to hide a connection to SMC University, they are. That is an obvious red flag that should go without needing to be explained.

 

possibly being "related" to SMC University is a red flag? why? they are independent organizations. that's a fact. does a possible investor relation "connect" them and consequently delegitimate SMCE? let's judge them on quality (I certainly can) and not on an unwanted inheritance. I think if they really wanted to disguise something, they could have easily done that by giving it a different name, call it circle education or whatever, and we wouldn't have to discuss here but play with our kids ;-) I really don't think that there is any bad-meant hiding going on.

 

I checked John Roger's Bio in Quora and he lists his PhD in Business Administration with UCN as his alma mater. One of two things likely happened with his evaluation of SMC through ECE. Either he sent SMC's information in by itself without going through a validation with UCN initially or they may have ignored the validation of UCN altogether and had blacklisted UCN while still choosing to evaluate SMC University alone which is similar to how WES treated ENEB without considering Universidad Isabel I's certification although they may have to give it atleast a degree equivalency. In any case, a "non-regionally accredited degree" sounds better than a "non-accredited degree". Also, SMC University stated that one could start with SMC University for the coursework and then transfer into SMC Education Group to finish the dissertation at the SMC Education Group when it was first established since they had the European/Malta accreditation.

 

No. We're going to judge them based on everything they do the way we judge every other program. No exceptions.

Let's cut the BS. This so-called "independence" doesn't appear to be anything substantial at all. It appears to be the same people behind both schools, just one is now legit in Malta and the other is floating around in limbo with a crummy reputation, a couple of validation deals that probably helped get them blacklisted by evaluators, and all of that by association justifiably effects the reputation of the new outfit, that's it, nothing more to it.

They were asked a straight-up question about their connection and they answered it as if there isn't one and left the question of if there ever was one up in the air on purpose because they know they were backed into a corner there, even the whole initial thing is complete BS and we all know it. Who do they think they're fooling? SMC Education Group is just Swiss Management Center Education Group, period. Not some switching of the founders initials. Again, let's cut the BS.

Considering the many pop-up posters we've had over the years that did the same thing you did here (come out of nowhere with their first post ever being some defense or "revelation" about some questionable school), there is every reason to think you're not a student there at all, but instead a representative of the school posing as a student. If you're not, fine, but we've seen this too many times before to not consider that very strong and likely possibility.

SMC is still questionable, and until they fix a number of discrepancies and quit trying to evade their connection, they will remain being considered questionable, this little episode makes them more questionable because professional educators would never pull a stunt like this. We give every school a fair shot here, and we scrutinize heavily until we get to the bottom of what a school is all about, (just see the debates on ENEB which turned out to be legitimate). But a game is being played here with SMC, you can act like it isn't all you want, but we see it and we're not playing. We already have the answers, so continuing to test this and us is only making it worse for you and SMC.

SMC: if you want some positive pub, fix your issues. Don't play games, because in the end you only play yourself.

 

I do not see SMC as "questionable". They are providing a product in a specific niche, discount-priced education programs for those who want a "European" brand. Mostly from the 3rd world. They had a sense to strive for recognition beyond mere cantonal license, and were never in a "degree mill" category. They just did not keep up with market demands; DL is common enough now, and both students and employers look for mainstream recognition. UCN-validated degrees no longer justify what they charge for them.

With Malta recognition, they finally have a nice product for attractive price point. My main concern would be if they have enough business in this new form to sustain themselves long term. Also, I'd ask them to come up with a better name; a diploma that lists granting institution as "SMC Education Group Inc." is just too much. Even "NEOS Business School" would have been better; I wonder why they abandoned that name to go back to an even lamer one.