a lot of people on here have used them.  I wouldn't worry about them scamming you if thats what you are asking.

Leicester is a good university for archaeology, ranking a respectable 7th in the UK for that discipline even if overall it rates a lower score (23). I actually did my undergrad there back in the day.  It has also been engaged in distance learning for quite some time, so has gotten over the "newbie" mistakes common to newer programs. With that said, some distance learning programs suffer from the typical woes of delays, communication issues, and so forth.

I am surprised that they were asking for everything up front.  I was toying with the idea of an MA with them and they do take a payment plan.

I've heard positive things from friends who have finished their distance learning MA program. I was accepted to their grad program a few years ago but had my GI Bill funding pulled before I could begin classes, and was never able to continue. There are several message threads here on archaeologyfieldwork.com about the school and programs if you do a keyword search for the school name.

Jennifer

Out of interest, Vicki01, what course were you applying for?

Thanks for all the responses.  MATrickett, I was applying for the course in Archaeology and Heritage.

Vicki,

I am currently finishing my MA in Archaeology and Heritage through the Distance Learning and have had absolutely no complaints. The staff at Leicester are very responsive to the students and have started a blackboard for questions or concerns. There is even a non-university Facebook page for the Distance students as well, so there is more than one avenue to get responses. 

Not to make an assumption, but is it possible that there was a misunderstanding as to how much was due upfront? I know I made scheduled payments during the two years and was even allowed to stop classes for a semester (or module as they call it) and was not made to pay. I would definitely respond to them in order to get clarification!

As far as the program goes I would recommend it to anyone. The only real drawback to the program is that it doesn't get into theory as much as some or most may want but from what I understand they have started to put more theory into the program.

Classarch,

It is possible that there may have been a misunderstanding, one of the reasons I was starting to get worried about them was that they took over two weeks to respond to my email about payments.  Most of what I'd heard about them before was really good but I wanted to make sure it wasn't a scam.

Thanks for the information, Vicki01--it's always nice to see what people are interested in!

As to the delays in communication, I can put say that they're common for DL courses.  For example, another department in the same university engage in DL stipulates that, after sending an email to a tutor, you should wait 10 days before trying to recontact them.  I'm not sure whether it's the same in Archaeology, but from my perspective that's a bit... odd.  Perhaps I'm just too used to being plugged into my email/IM through my phone or tablets, so that I don't think anything of knocking out a quick reply to a student.  (I think I average something like 20 minutes turnaround, or something like that.)

Similarly, students would frequently comment that they didn't receive their marked papers back (and more importantly the feedback in those papers) until after the deadline for their next paper so, yeah, it's a known feature.

If you're concerned just give them a call.  Skype, Google Voice, and I presume other services, offer entirely reasonable US-UK call rates.  It can be a bit harsh having to get up early enough, especially if you have a day job, but talking to them and explaining the situation should assuage any worries that you have about it being a scam.

Good luck and let us now how it goes!

Oh, forget to say as a general warning.  When in Leicester last year talking to Archaeology and another department, they indicated that tuition fees will be going up at some point.  The Autumn 2011 intake might not have seen this, but it was suggested that the Spring 2012 would do so.  Not sure how true this is, but something to pay attention to.