Hello, and welcome to my full blown sheer panic. It turns out that you have to pay money to apply for college. Did other people know that? Just to apply. If you don't get in? They don't refund the money. Everyone says you should apply to nine schools. Three safe schools, three probably schools and three reach schools. There is no way in hell we can afford that. My thinking is that I'm going to apply at three schools, total.
Hunter, Queens, and I'm not sure where else yet. A CUNY school will cost $2,000 for each semester for just the classes. Then there's an activity fee and the cost of all the books. I am going to have a panic attack. Then there's like, living. So overwhelmed.
I registered with Families of Freedom but Craig is helping me with the application forms for the scholarship. He said I should assume that I'll get nothing just to prepare for a worst-case scenario. Even though they keep saying they have enough money to give scholarships through 2030. I stole Aunt Elaine's tax stuff for last year to fill out the forms but then realized I'll need this year. And I can't get that until next year. I am scared that there won't be enough time. I want my mom to just swoop in and do everything for me because I know she'd get it all right.
Edited to add - before anyone goes suggesting the guidance counselors please know they are useless and the biggest joke around here. Maybe wherever you live they are actually smart and helpful people but here they are one more obstacle to work around. Here is an example that proves my point -
GC - have you considered Rutgers?
Me - I hate New Jersey and have to stay in the city for my sisters
GC - you'd be lucky to get into Rutgers
Me - then why'd you bring it up?
GC - have you considered applying to it as one of your reach schools?
Me - I can only go to schools in the city.
GC - My son goes to Rutgers
Me - your son has a parent who has a job
GC - you should think about Rutgers
see? guidance counselors are retarded.
15 comments:
Hang in there...I recall my guidance dept. at my high school had a budget to help with these fees for students, check into that. Don't forget you'll qualify for grants as well, just focus on the applications for now, get them done then work with the schools that you get into and like on the budget stuff...the good part is that there is money out there to be used, the bad part is it takes work and time to process the forms to get that money. I had to get every cent I could to go to college and finish, it's worth the extra hours to put all the applications in for scholarships and grants. But check with your guidance department for help on all of this stuff.
All the Best,
Lil'sis
Lurker here - take a deep breath, you'll get through this. Not sure how your grades are, but I went looking at the NYU website under financial aid, and NY state has a tuition assistance program
"The New York State Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) provides awards to students to assist them in paying tuition. To qualify you and your parents (if you are considered a dependent student) must have a New York State Net Taxable Income (gross income less deductions and allowances for exemptions) of $80,000 or less. Income requirement is different for independent students. (Visit the Higher Education Services Corporation web site for more information)."
Google around and you can check the websites of some other colleges in NYC and see what they have to offer in terms of information about financial aid. And I would also check with your guidance office about help with paying the application fees.
If the plan is for you to be your sisters' guardians once you turn eighteen and are in college, then your financial aid won't even have anything to do with your aunt any more, right? You won't be her dependant, but rather have two dependants of your own, yes?
The counselors at your school probably won't know anything about this; you need some financial aid and legal specialist who has experience with people in your situation, who can not only tell you about waivers for application fees, but also can advise you about the financial and legal aspects of becoming the head of the household, how to legally be emancipated and take over guardianship, how to apply for financial aid based on the upcoming new status, how to get the assistance services (housing, food stamps, whatever else your aunt receives to "support" the three of you) switched to the new status, etc.
Maybe Josh's parents know of an attorney or financial adviser with this experience who can help you?
You don't need to apply to nine schools, if you know what you want and need, and if all three to which you apply are not reaches. Hunter and especially Queens are smart choices. Queens is a very smart choice for you and your situation! City College too, perhaps? Baruch? Too bad they are no longer free.
Cooper Union is free, though. It is selective, but worth a try if you are interested.
Don't discount the more expensive schools, if there's a chance for you to get a full scholarship. Think about Fordham and Pace, for instance, though Pace's Lower Manhattan location may make that option uncomfortable.
Also, think just a little bit about your past ideas of starting over in a new place. It would be less of a transition to stay in NYC where your sisters are settled, you have some people to help you, and your situation is familiar to others. But you have also expressed a desire to start fresh in California or something. That may not be the right choice at the moment, but it is better to examine it and decide against it than not to consider it at all.
Rutgers is a great school with a good community, but probably wouldn't work for you and your sisters, logistically. NYC is the best for you all transportation-wise, but it is also expensive.
Philadelphia might be workable and nice, a good match. Check out Drexel and Temple, to start. Beware of unsafe areas; even though you are used to this in NYC, you are unfamiliar with the places to avoid elsewhere.
With scholarships, grants, loans, working, and public assistance, you'll be able to cover tuition and associated fees and costs and be able to live.
Not too much in the way of loans, though! You don't want to be paying back ten thousand dollars when you are done. Small student loans will be fine, but if education at a particular institution requires large loans, even if the offered package means less out of pocket now, think about the long term and look somewhere else.
The good thing about the CUNY schools is many people will be in similar situations, financially and family-wise, and the schools will be used to helping students arrange things.
College textbooks are expensive. You'll be able to get many books used, between your NYC location and the internet. Also, you can use the books at the school library, for texts you need only on occasion.
While I do not recommend that you get into credit card debt, something that many college students do, if you end up stuck without enough money for books at the beginning of the semester and no other choice, but some money due to come in from working or whatever soon, you can charge some books on a card -- you will be able to get one once you are in college -- as long as you have a plan to pay off the balance in full within a month or two before the grace period ends. It actually will be good for you to get one (only one!) credit card, as long as you barely use it and never carry a balance.
You'll need to fill out some financial aid forms before the end of this year, but the ones that require your 2008 tax returns shouldn't be due until early next year -- before the IRS deadline, but after January. And, again, since your situation is unusual and will be changing, for the forms that go directly to the schools you will need some special assistance, from an advisor or from the financial aid offices of the schools to which you will be applying.
Families of Freedom should of course be used to handling situations like yours. Contact them and find out exactly what they require by when and how you should fill out the forms given your changing situation.
Your guidance counselor is an idiot. This is unfortunately common. Schedule a meeting to talk with the director of guidance. Share that conversation as an example of how your needs are not understood, and then list your needs, your restrictions and responsibilities, very plainly so the director can understand your situation and see you know what you are talking about and can find you the assistance you require to properly execute your plans.
This is going to be a lot of work, but if you become clear about what you need to do and get yourself advisers who are experts, you can do it!
Wow. I was going to give you some tips, but I think anonymous totally covered it! I wonder if you contact the college's admission department and explain your circumstance they might waive the fee?
http://www.qc.cuny.edu/financial_aid/save.php
https://portal.cuny.edu/cms/id/cuny/documents/informationpage/016159.htm
http://cuny.edu/financialaid
http://web.cuny.edu/admissions/undergraduate/scholarships/vallone.html
http://web.cuny.edu/admissions/undergraduate/appcenter/applicantworksheet.html
http://web.cuny.edu/admissions/financial-aid/Filing-date-of-2008-2009-FAFSA.html
http://web.cuny.edu/admissions/financial-aid/faqs/all-faqs.html
http://web.cuny.edu/academics/academic-programs/programs-of-note/seekcd/seek-page.html
http://web.cuny.edu/admissions/financial-aid/faqs/tap-questions.html
http://www.nasfaa.org/linklists/911scholarship.asp
http://www.thesalliemaefund.org/smfnew/scholarship/911_fund.html
http://www.scholarships.com/september-11-scholarships.aspx
Hopefully some of these will prove helpful also.
I'm sure there are a lot of scholarships for children of 9-1-1 victims. You might start here: Twin Towers Orphan Fund
your GC is an idiot, sorry, my school many years ago had a great dept, and it was in NY too, but sounds like you're having no such luck...anon seems to have lots of info to check out.
All the Best,
Lil'sis
Possible help with the legal issues.
http://www1.cuny.edu/nyc/wtcscholarships.html
http://www.hesc.com/Forms/WTC_scholarship_inst.html
http://www.pace.edu/page.cfm?doc_id=3629
http://www.nyu.edu/financial.aid/september11.html
There are guidance counselors who are retards everywhere. I went to a good high school, but the guidance department still sucked.
Don't limit your choices until you talk to someone (who knows what they're talking about) about financial aid. Don't worry about cost at first. And if you're grades are good, you HAVE to try for NYU or Columbia. If you're lucky enough to get in there, a lot of opportunities will open up to you. Good luck...you'll get through this and be on your way to better times.
Don't worry about cost at first. And if you're grades are good, you HAVE to try for NYU or Columbia. If you're lucky enough to get in there, a lot of opportunities will open up to you.
I vehemently disagree!
Given your situation, you must worry about cost and what will be covered and how. The above might be wise advice for a child of a middle-class family on a tight budget who is worrying first about cost, but that child has far fewer financial and logistical obligations than someone who will not be a dependant of anyone and is about to have two dependants of her own.
While you ought not to let an application fee alone limit your opportunities from, say, four applications to three, there is no point in wasting money on an application fee for a school that is not financially wise for you to attend.
And you have so much to do, more so than most students applying to college with the financial aid forms your responsibility too rather than a parent's and with scholarship applications as well, on top of all your ongoing responsibilities as the functional head of your household, that you do not need the added stress of unnecessary applications.
Applications are stressful! Better to pick the schools you want, to thoughtfully research and determine the opportunities that possibly could work for you, and focus on them well and do a good job on the applications.
That is, even if there is only a small chance that you can get into a certain program and have the finances covered but it is an opportunity that you would like and potentially could work, don't discount it, but don't just blindly NOT WORRY about the finances and just apply without research and then find out that it never would have worked out whether you got in or not.
Saying that you "HAVE" to try for NYU and Columbia is ridiculous. The CUNY schools are good schools! There are plenty of people who attend Ivy League schools who end up dead-ended with educations that are not useful in the real world and plenty who go to CUNY and other similar schools who become successful and do stuff that really helps regular people in the world. People who work hard in CUNY schools and make something of themselves are respected!
If you like very rigorous academics, then yes, you might go for the more elite schools. But just because of prestige alone is no reason to attend a more expensive, more difficult, more time-consuming, MORE STRESSFUL school.
And if you are planning to subsequently go to graduate or professional school, the "prestige" of that school will be more important than where earned your undergraduate degree anyway.
If you get a scholarship that covers or piece together a bunch of scholarships to cover everything including ALL fees no matter how high they are (and covered without a work-study requirement since you'll need to be working to cover expenses for your sisters and do not need to work more on top of that), cost will not make a difference, but if you end up having to cover miscellaneous fees yourself even with full tuition paid, the more elite schools will cost you more a few times over for books, activities, and other fees. This adds up!
And you cannot rely on large loans. You will have no safety net upon graduation, as those with supporting parents or guardians have, you will not be getting tons of monetary graduation gifts and being bought interview suits, you will no longer have the status of student and the support services of the school, and you will still have your sisters. A "free ride" that includes huge student loans is NOT a free ride.
While there's no point in going to an easy school, coasting through, being bored and getting annoyed by academic stupidity that might abound, and gaining a degree much less respectable than appropriate for you, there is something to be said for attending a school where you will learn and be challenged but will be able to tackle the workload handily without it taking over your life.
Also, the CUNY schools have students with all sorts of familial and financial situations, and the schools are used to students having financial difficulty and familial complications. They are so used to it that have many ways of helping! They are much less rigid about policies when life gets in the way because they understand about real life and don't value elite rankings more than helping students. At them, ones encounters much less often the other kind of stupidity, the kind that involves ignorance of an unsheltered life. The elite schools have people -- students and staff both -- who JUST DON'T GET IT. It is very uncomfortable and unhelpful.
I am NOT saying you are not smart enough for an elite school; rather, I do not respect people who look down at those who do not attend elite schools, I think just-as-good educations can be gotten for way less money, I think
it is wise to spend less money on a good-enough education in a more healthy environment, I think you cannot afford to end up with massive debt upon graduation, and I think you will have more emotional energy for all that will be your responsibility if your classes are only reasonably difficult and those around you day-to-day do not p--- you off with their idiocy.
Saying "you HAVE to try for NYU or Columbia" sounds SO F---ING ELITIST. I am sorry; I am sure the commenter meant no harm, and I apologize for being so crudely critical of what was written rather then more coherently explaining my opposition, but the statement has me very angry, and I am not expressing myself in a nice way.
NYU or Columbia might be the right fit for you; I don't know. NYU does have a 9/11 scholarship, even, though it doesn't include the miscellaneous fees, which are much higher than at CUNY. But you have many other considerations, and the statement doesn't seem to take anything other than f--ing prestige, elitism, and snobbery into account.
This is just a quick reply to anonymous. I don't take offense at your comment. Suggesting that NYU and Columbia are better than other schools is elitist. And it's true that many graduates of less prestigious schools can be incredibly successful and ivy league graduates can waste their lives. But, it's also a fact that going to a prestigious school opens up opportunities that are difficult to get for some others. Is that fair? No. Is it true? Yes.
I'm not suggesting taking out loans to go to a fancy school, but if someone gets in and gets scholarships it's really not an opportunity to let go.
All that said, Sam, you'll do great wherever you end up. I hope I didn't write anything that offended you.
Post a Comment