<p>Hello- haven't been on in awhile and wasn't sure where to post this whether under Berkeley or under financial aid--I am cross-posting it in both forums...
My daughter is currently a senior at Berkeley. The first three years financial aid went smoothly. This past year we applied timely, doing everything as before. However in late July 2010 we received a "request for verification". They claimed they had first made the request earlier in the year, but if they did, we did not receive it. As soon as we found out about the verification request in late July we submitted all required information post haste, within a week. They stated that if it was received after a deadline (which had already passed!) she might not get any aid.
At one point back in Sept. it was communicated to me that I had made an error on the FAFSA. I had checked that I could file the short form but actually did not file the short form. This was an oversight, and they corrected it on my FAFSA.
MONTHS LATER WE ARE STILL SITTING WITH NO AID AND NO ANSWERS AS TO THE STATUS OF OUR AID APPLICATION, although my daughter has made multiple attempts, visiting the aid office almost weekly and getting the run-around. About a month ago on one of these visits she was told they would know something in "about two weeks".
Today I received a "past due" bill with monthly late charges and a notice that her registration and transcripts were blocked!
HELP!!! What can we do?!!</p>
<p>bummmmpinnnng</p>
<p>i dont know what you <em>should</em> do, but I would do is try to talk to someone higher up in the financial aid office. most of them there will solve minor/temporary problems, but probably wont know how to deal with bigger ones such as this.</p>
<p>perhaps someone higher up over there could better help you out.</p>
<p>thanks everyone-
today I received a reply to the email I sent last night to the finaid office (although it contained few concrete answers, the unnamed author promised to follow up), then my daughter went into the office and waited in line forever …and she now tells me her aid “should be paid out tonight”…
up until my email of last night I had left this to her to handle via email and going to the aid office- I can’t help but think they may be blowing off the students, but will pay attention when the parent gets involved-
in my email i politely requested to know the name and contact information of the Director of Financial Aid- but that information was never supplied</p>