If you have a keen sense of instinct, listen to the warning bells that go off in your head. Very often, our instincts correctly alert us to situations where we may be setting ourselves up for potentially harmful situations. Very often too, we choose to ignore those very same alarm bells and attribute the ringing in our head as some form of risk-aversion vertigo. Until of course, the roof suddenly collapses.

Although the easiest way to check against fraud is to actually go and look over official records of government agencies under whose administrative jurisdiction online colleges fall under, very few people actually do so; preferring to use their better judgment most of the time.

Here are a few situations to look out for.

If the deal is too good to be true, it probably isn’t true at all. Claims of a complete bachelor’s or master’s degree within thirty six hours of equivalent school time is probably a deal that we can call as too good to be true. If the cost of the degree is higher than what you would normally pay, in return for a less strenuous intellectual requirement, then you might be looking at a probable diploma mill. Warning bells again.

Look out for too much lights, bells, and whistles when the online college conducts their recruitment fair. The dazzle of bright lights plus the sounds of the bells and whistles often cause potential enrollees to be impressed with the packaging that they forget about the contents at all. When you check out their websites, look out for the glitziest. Although they may just have hired a young web-designing prodigy with too much time on his hands, they could also have really souped it up to cover their educational shortfall. In the end, they might just offer nothing much more than air.

Watch out for FAQs that seem to answer the questions the way you wanted it answered. If you see the magic words you were expecting to see, then it may be too contrived to be true. Either that or they are mind readers and they know exactly what you want to hear.

When choosing your online college, just keep in mind your primary reason for striving towards your degree. By keeping your purpose clear in your head, it will be harder for you to be sidetracked by other non-essential details.

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