I told myself I would hold off on this blog until I could write the thrilling conclusion about my financial aid saga. Well I have some good news for you, the saga continues and although this is not the end to my story it is a thrilling continuation of its entertaining beginning. When I last left you I was currently waiting to hear from my adviser to hear if she would write me out an academic progress report stating I would graduate. To me avail I heard from her moments after posting that blog and was very excited to hear that I would be allowed to set up an appointment with her and get my letter in a cool five days. Seems about right. Fast forward five days and I get my letter. Fast forward another day and I submit my Academic Appeal so I can get my aid.
This story would be a lot better in my eyes if I could just say my appeal was approved and I got my aid. The end. The best stories don't end like that though and neither does this one. It was about a week later and I get an e-mail from the Great Financial Aid Department and what do I see? My Appeal was denied without cause. This prompted a spring from my apartment to the Aid Office looking for an explanation. What did I get? My appeal was not through enough. Interesting. The woman advised me to redo the appeal and be very specific about any class that I have ever taken that was not related to my major, I had to retake or I withdrew from. Keep in mind that I am no longer counting my financial aid trip office visits anymore but if you're that interested.....The next one I make will be my sweet sixteen. Anyway moving on. After this news I was deeply emotional and took the night basically to calm myself down to write out my new appeal. The next morning was my day off work and I woke early, walked to the ed school library and began writing my appeal. How in depth was my appeal? I copy and pasted my academic transcript to a word document and wrote about every single class I have ever taken in my college career and wrote what was essentially my autobiography with it. The end result was 11 typed pages of my college career. Something that might be posted as a blog itself as a spin off once from this one was my story ends. After I was done with the new appeal I made yet another trip to the financial aid office and probably talked to one of the most ridiculous women I have ever talked to in my entire life.
I wanted to appeal to be viewed by someone of significance before I was going to turn it in. Just to make sure it was exactly what they wanted . Well apparently someone significant wasn't available and I got this random woman. She went on to tell me what was wrong with my appeal even though she had obviously not even read it. Finally she told me that this appeal might be ok but it would be better with my semester grades with it. By now it is after 4 pm on a Friday. I go ahead and tell her just to take that appeal and I would work on getting the grades for my next appeal assuming that one got denied to and if you looked at the situation logistically I would probably have a hard time getting a hold of my professors over the weekend. This takes me to this weekend which was one of the more work induced weekends of my life. I worked 8 hours on Saturday, 10 hours on Sunday during a night shift and got up before sunrise on Monday to work 9 more hours. So by the time I got off work on Monday I was looking forward to my day off. Instead of normal turk night preparations I came home to an e-mail from the lovable Financial Aid Office stating that my appeal I been denied again and would at this point most likely not be approved for this semester but I was more than welcome to try to submit another appeal if I thought it was necessary. This was yesterday. It was 8 degrees outside. I had just taken off my work clothes and was in mesh shorts and a tank top. I read this email at 3:45. The Financial Aid Office closes at 4. I slip on my new balances and literally sprint to the financial aid office this time pissed off, really pissed off. The type of pissed of very few have seen me get before. I get in there and demand that I talk to someone about my financial aid and why I'm not getting it. Apparently my tone worked this time because I didn't get any of the excuses or follow up questions I have gotten before they just promptly led me to the back (where the big heads work) and took me to someone they thought could help me. The mans name was Klinger and he looked like Steve the Pirate from Dodgeball (when Steve the Pirate had short hair at the end of the movie). I told him my situation. AGAIN. This time though he actually appeared to be at least somewhat listening to me He tries to tell me that the reasoning from my denial was because there were 2 semesters during my college career that were somewhat of question. Keep in mind these are not the past two semesters or anything but just two semesters in general.
This was very confusing to me because everything accumulative about my academic progress is fine and I thought putting to random semesters together that were not even back to back was skewing the statistics in their favor. Well Klinger told me he would get on it and that I should hear something by morning. Well he was a man of his word and when I woke up this morning I had an e-mail in my hotmail account waiting for attention. He said in his letter that after talking to numerous people about my situation they had concluded that I would not be eligible for aid this semester and that I could apply for aid next semester but it is highly unlikely that I would ever get anything again.
My next steps were cautious ones. I knew this would in all likelihood be my last trip to the Financial Aid Office and I wanted to make sure I had everything ready and I was prepared . I go there, I tell them I want Klinger. Next thing I knew I got Klinger. For the next 20 minutes we argued about the poor system of the Financial Aid Office, their inability to help me or not hurt me and finally ending with me telling Klinger that dealing with his financial aid office was one of the top worst experiences of my life. Well that was fun. Now lets talk solutions. I'm not eligible for aid. Great. I do still need 3 grand by the next month so I can receive my diploma. I mean I'm open to ideas here. So we end up rounding out our hour meeting discussing Private-Non School Loans, Student Advocate Programs and other possible solutions. So finally I got up and began to walk out the door before he stopped me a final time and asked me about my coaching basketball class and how fun it was. I told him it was pretty cool but believe it or not I think I might have a hard time getting Tom Crean to send you guys my semester grade like you asked but I'll see what I can do. I'm not sure but I think he's kinda busy right now and should be leaving for Maui anytime now.
So here we are. A phone conversation with Sean during a walk to the library and I've been blogging ever since contemplating my next move. At this point though I think this story just might end up at a dog track with me putting a 50 spot on a 60 to 1 odds pup. Come on Santa's Little Helper! (The Simpsons) I need to graduate!
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