<p>I'm a transfer student at my current school. I came in with 44 credits (12 from my first semester) and the rest were from IB/AP classes in high school. I started out as a biology major going for pre-med, but I couldn't get through the chemistry classes and soon I switched to poli sci, thinking I wanted to be a lawyer. I have come to find out that I absolutely hate poli sci and I don't want to go to law school. I miss my science classes. So I was contemplating switching to speech pathology until today. I went to meet with a fin aid adviser and I have come to find out that I only have 34 more credits before I will be cut off from financial aid, even though I transferred as a freshman. I am paying for college entirely by myself; my parents MAKE NO contribution to my education, except by allowing me to stay at their house. I pay for everything else, my car/insurance, gas, food, etc. I am devastated because I can't complete my speech pathology degree in 34 credit hours. I could appeal at the end of the period I am given for financial aid, but there's no guarantee I would be able to get the money. I am trying to figure out how I can graduate, the only possible thing I can think of is a psychology BS because I already have the science/math credits and some pre reqs completed. What should I do? </p>
<p>This is completely unfair, FIN AID never paid for the credits I received in high school. If I started as a normal freshman, I wouldn't graduate until 2012 would get 180 hours. I have to graduate fall 2011 and I have 90 hours to complete my degree total. The problem is most of my credits are for EXTRA gen eds that I didn't need in the first place and I didn't have any classes in my major except bio pre-reqs when I transferred. In addition, my academic advisers advised me to transfer EVERYTHING. How was I supposed to know that was a bad idea if I changed my major?</p>
<p>How am I supposed to get great letters of rec for grad school if I only havse 2 semesters left? I don't know any psych professors at all :[ I'm being punished for not knowing exactly what I wanted to do with my life. Any advice?</p>
<p>You are not a victim. You did not do the proper research, and it sounds like you think you are entitled to FA. There are requirements I did not know about, but it’s my fault for not reading the information. If you honestly did not know what you wanted to do, you should not have dished out a bunch of money to go to school. Plenty of my friends either didn’t go to school or left after a semester or two because they did not know what they wanted to major in. That’s fine, but don’t feel like you got screwed because you decided to continue to pay for school despite not having an idea of what you wanted to do. The funny thing is, my friends who dropped out weren’t paying their own way, but were able to make the responsible decision.</p>
<p>Sorry, but I hate it when people whine when their problems are self created. When you transferred and realized that your FA would run out at a point, you should have either decided on a major or taken time off. Don’t major in something for the sake of getting a degree. If you still don’t know, take time off. Talk to people in student affairs about the credit situation, talk to people at FA. In the meantime, don’t waste money taking classes you are not interested in. It sounds like you should have taken time off when you realized you didn’t want to do pre-med. </p>
<p>You can either stick it out and get a degree there or transfer. You may need to take out more loans to get a major you want.</p>
<p>You are being punished because you did not do enough research and have all the facts. If you didn’t know what you wanted to do, you could have taken time off and worked and figured things out. Don’t point fingers, accept you made some mistakes and look for solutions. You can forge good relations with Prof’s in a semester or two, just go to office hours and always talk in class. I got receomendations from Prof’s I’ve only had 1 class with. The thing is, if you are so unsure or unenthusiastic about your major now, why would you go to grad school? And I don’t think letters of rec are really that big of a deal for grad school, they are all kind of generic. Take a step back and don’t get worried about hypotheticals. Take control of what you can and make informed decisions going forward.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input; however, my situation didn’t allow me to take time off. So as for it being the responsible thing to do…maybe if it was an option I had, but it WAS not an option for me at the time.</p>
<p>Under what rule is your financial aid being cut off? The only one I am aware of is something about a certain amount of time, something like you are eligible up to 150% of the published length of an eligible program or something, before you get cut off, which it doesn’t sound like you would meet. Unless you do? I had a friend who hit that because she has dyscalculia and had to take remedial math like seven times and she appealed and I believe was able to extend her eligibility on that basis, but from what you’ve said it doesn’t appear that this is your problem. What rule is ending your eligibility in 34 credits? That’s where you need to start here, you have to figure out why your eligibility has run out so you can figure out your options from here.</p>
<p>Because I was advised to transfer so many credits from high school, I started as junior because I started at that college with 44 credit hours. Because this particular school’s Satisfactory Academic Progress states that I was a junior by credit hours, I only have a total of 90 credits to complete my degree. I have taken about 10 courses at this school, so I have 54 credits right now.</p>
<p>It surprises me that it would work that way. I would have thought that the length of time would begin with the period that you started receiving financial aid and go from there, I wouldn’t have thought your high school credits would have anything to do with it. And you still wouldn’t be cut off, by the rule that I posted if that is the one we are discussing and if I have it correct, until you reached 150%. If you have 54 now and are only allowed another 34, how many credits is in a bachelors degree at your school? It would have to be well less than 88 credits. I have a hard time understanding how that could be 150% of a program, but math is not my forte. I would suggest mentioning this in the financial aid forum and see if they have any advice regarding the policy and the appeal process.</p>
<p>I know, 10 credit hours and 10 courses doesn’t seem right to me either. The way she explained it was really weird and she couldn’t even total up the hours herself, she had someone else do it. </p>
<p>She said I have 54 credits at that school and 44 from high school so I’m assuming they add them together. The degree program is 120 credit hours at my school. I have 98 total then I guess? I’m so confused about this whole process.</p>
<p>You need to figure this out. Get copies of all your transcripts and count everything out yourself, and you need to find out what the actual financial aid policy is-- because like I said, I really didn’t think they would use credits gained while not receiving financial aid (your high school credits, presumably?) against your term of financial aid eligibility. I am largely uninformed about this so I am only able to share bits and pieces of information with you, you need to do the legwork and figure everything out for sure.</p>
<p>I can’t really help with your FA situation, but I just wanted to say a few things about grad school,</p>
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<p>This is absolutely not true at all. In fact, letters of recommendations are the one of the most, if not the most, important factors in grad school admissions. But since it seems you aren’t even sure of your major yet, and (you probably have like very research experience?), you might have better luck applying for just masters programs where you only need a decent GPA to get in. This way, you can get professors that can write good recommendations, and a thesis or something that will give you research experience.</p>
<p>You need to figure out what your real situation is credit-wise and financial aid-wise, because you clearly have no idea.</p>
<p>You say your degree maximum is 180 credits and that you had 90 credits eligible for FA upon transferring. You also say you had 44 transfer credits and ten courses somehow totaling 54 credits, and that you have 34 eligible credits remaining.</p>
<p>Nothing adds up, so please figure out what’s really going on for your own sake…You can’t make informed decisions when you’re not informed.</p>
<p>You need to know: how many credits you transferred in with, how many credits you’ve taken in residence, how many credits you can accumulate and still be eligible for FA, and whether these FA-eligible credits include transfer credits or not.</p>
<p>Thanks, I’m sticking with psych because its my only option right now. I am looking in to research and internships. Talked with an adviser today.</p>
<p>I did figure out my financial aid. I don’t have 180 hours, I was saying that I thought I did because I transferred as a freshman. I transferred 44 credits, have 54 in residence and I can only have a total of 90 credit hours at my current school. Therefore, 90-54=34. That’s what I figured out today, the fin aid officer had no idea how to calculate it so she got someone else to do that for her. So when she explained it she didn’t know how they got the answer. That’s why I was confused. I only have 34 credit hours left but I can finish my degree in 35 credits.</p>
<p>I know letters of rec matter for grad school. Tiff90 has responded to my questions before, always very negative and pretentious about it. I tend not to take that person’s advice just because its scolding and pretty much useless as they have no idea of my personal/financial situation and what options I had. I didn’t know those cut off existed because I transferred as a freshman, didn’t know that they cut off my hours even because I didn’t know AP/IB credit counted toward fin aid. My school is NOT helpful at all about educating students when there are problems. They tend to pass the buck because there are so many students and just not enough staff.</p>
<p>90 - 54 = 36. So, hopefully that’s good news. But please double check your facts so you’re not going at this blind. FA is a big deal and it doesn’t sound like there’s any reasonable way you have 34 credits left with the info you’ve given.</p>
<p>Thanks yeah, sorry I meant to write 36 and put 34. :[ Yeah I don’t understand how I only have 34 credits either. No matter which way I crunch the numbers it just doesn’t add up. I am definitely going to see another financial aid adviser.</p>
<p>Plus, on the federal aid website at my school it states that 30-59 credits is a sophomore. So shouldn’t I be considered only a sophomore if I had 44 transfer credits? And I think they counted my gen psych and english I&II classes twice into my transfer credits because they are listed twice on my transfer credit transcript? Can they do that? I mean they wouldn’t make me take the class twice unless I failed, so why would they count for double the credits? It’s the same classes, I got both AP and IB exam credit.</p>