Roadmaster Indy

Just wanted to give a rundown of the training I'm currently going through. On Monday I started my training at Roadmaster. I'm in the 3-week program so classes are M-F 7am to 6pm with one Saturday class.

The first day is pretty much a formality, you get a small tour of the facility and they introduce you to the staff. The director of the school will come in and do his spiel on why Roadmaster was a good choice. Werner is pushed hard here, and he makes sure to say good things about the company.
You're then given your drug test, standard plastic cup ordeal followed by a brief physical. Hearing, vision, blood pressure, and then you touch your toes. Nothing to stress about, real easy stuff.
After your class gets done with physicals you'll get an hour for lunch. You should know that on your first day you won't get a break until probably 1 in the afternoon. That's because they aren't allowed to let you leave until your physical is finished.
The rest of the day after lunch will be spent loosely studying for the written tests. The instructor of the class is a real fun woman. Not the type to yell at you for anything except for being late. YOU WILL BE GRILLED IF YOURE LATE.
One cool thing we got to see was one of Werner's operation freedom trucks. Real nice and darn near brand new. I'll attach an image of it if I can.

On your second day it's the same studying. Our instructor actually let us out early for lunch to try taking the tests at the BMV just to see what they're like. I actually ended up passing all three tests first try so once my physical comes back I'll have my permit. The rest of the class seems a bit more serious about studying now after seeing the test whereas I get to hang out with them and study for endorsements, apply for jobs, and watch training videos. So far I'm the only one who's passed so I'm kind of doing my own thing until next week when we go out to the pad.

Third day is the same, I'm on break right now actually. Lots of studying for the class. I've been applying to more companies and watching Roadmaster's training videos, they're boring of course but the information is good.

I'll try to keep this updated as I progress through school. Not much exciting to say about the first week as its all just class work. If anyone has any questions I'll do my best to answer them.

So far it seems like an alright place to be, the instructors seem like good guys. The other day one was doing card tricks for us on our lunch.

 

Today we went over logs, hours and resets, and sat through a presentation from Werner. Werner brought us free pizza, so big blue isn't all bad right?

Still nothing exciting as it's all classwork. The rest of the class went to get their permits today however, out of 8 students only two people have passed the tests so far including myself.

 

Chinatown, thank you!
That list will definitely come in handy. I've been throwing applications out like candy the last few days. Trying to have as many options as possible.
Prime has offered me a pre-hire and orientation date pending graduation.
I've been talking to Tyson but no pre-hire yet.
Werner of course gave me a pre-hire.
And West Side Transport has sent an offer as well, along with a date for orientation. (however after reading a little about them they're falling pretty low on the list)
So far Crete is the only company that has explicitly said no to me, not sure why but that's life.
WEL and Prime are standing out as favorites so far with but we'll see where the best offers come from. I've been applying everywhere despite posted experience requirements.

 

To follow up with my progress, I ran into some issues with the school I didn't want to publicize until they were all worked out, mainly in an effort not to trash anyone's name over a simple mistake.

This is quite a read, I'll try to make it as of a read as I can but if you're not up for it you can skip this first paragraph if you don't care about details.

To attend roadmaster you must fill out an enrollment agreement with your recruiter. This will show your total tuition, how much you finance, and what you owe. My enrollment agreement clearly showed $4,995 as the total tuition, and this is also the value I was told over the phone when I called about the school. BEWARE of anyone at Roadmaster telling you this is the total tuition. I paid the entire $4,995 on the first day of school, along with the medical and drug test fees ($110) You'll notice on the back of your enrollment agreement in the fine print (which I actually read before signing) you will have 3 days after your first day of starting classes to withdraw for a full refund. The morning of the fourth day of class, I was asked to sign a paper saying I owed another two grand. Not thinking I signed this, my mistake I know. When I got home that day I looked over my enrollment agreement to see if I had maybe missed something about an additional $2,000. I do remember the tuition IF financing was $6,995 but I was told if you paid in cash the total cost was only $4,995, which my enrollment agreement confirmed with the total tuition line showing that amount. I talked to the school director the next morning and told him my problems, I asked if the $2,000 was a mistake and offered the excuse that maybe they had forgotten that I had paid in cash. As it turns out, the total tuition at Roadmaster truly is $6,995 whether you finance or pay in cash, the $2,000 discount only applies if you go to work at Werner after graduation. The entire point of me going to an independent school was to have options after graduation. I showed the director of the school what my enrollment agreement said and told him even if I graduate and go to work in fast food I will not be paying them another $2,000. He told me that they would take care of it, I wouldn't have to pay anything more to the company and I was all paid in full. I asked for it in writing and they would NOT give it to me in writing, they promised back and forth but that really means nothing when you're dealing with a collection agency. If I had been thinking and refused to sign for the $2,000 it wouldn't have been such a problem to not get this in writing.

Basically, the enrollment agreement my recruiter and I signed said the total tuition was $4,995. I paid this in cash and then got slammed with another $2,000 bill pending on whether or not I went to work for Werner after graduation. With my agreement saying a total tuition of $4,995 and not $6,995 they promised me I would not owe another $2,000 no matter what I did with my life because my enrollment agreement was misleading. They were willing to waive the $2,000 but they were not willing to put that in writing so I told the director I would be withdrawing and wanting a full refund.
I pulled out my enrollment contract and showed him one cool little sentence on the back that said any misrepresentation of their enrollment agreement would constitute a full refund. Now I'm waiting on that refund and trying to get into another school as soon as possible. All in all I'm out a week of classes, behind two weeks to the date I thought I would have my CDL, and waiting up to 30 days for a $5,000 check.

To defend the school:
The director, who I won't name, was actually extremely professional and polite throughout all of this and I truly believe he wanted what was best for me (other than pushing me to go to Werner, but that's another story). He told me he could see how the agreement could be misleading and said they'd have to work on that with the recruiters. I also do believe that this problem is often rare for them as I was the only person in my class who paid cash.

As far as Roadmaster as a school goes, it's alright. You're stacked 4 people to a truck for your "drive hours" This is really common of all schools, but all of the schools I talked to had tuition costs of around $5,000 and none were even near the $7,000 Roadmaster tried to get from me.