Hello, I happen to go to the worst college which only recently let me know. Wait they did not inform me of my suspension until I checked my awards like I did daily and saw “ineligible”. My school seems to have a “Help none” policy in place for this is the 4th time I’ve had troubles with this college and it’s Financial Aid office loosing papers and generally screwing around. Thus I am in a panic over what to do over an appeal letter. I’m hoping you could read it over and see what I could do better. Sadly I am a healthcareless student who has had issues gaining help all my live and have no confirmed diagnosis due to being from a low income family. Yet I was hospitalized due to attempted suicide in a semester that caused issues with my schooling before and after this event. I have received no help regarding it and due to my situation and learning problems I have no idea how to do all of this on my own. I have no paperwork… centers tends to throw out files on non current patients so I have no case, but it is what caused my problems. My only proof in my long term battle with anxiety and depression lies in the few school files I viewed back in middle school and the programs I was a part of. I have no idea on how to access such files as I have been out of public school since 2012.
My letter is kinda long, but I need them to realize what was happening without skipping out on important details.
Dear Financial Aid Committee:
XXXX’s Appeal Statement
Today I state my plea for an appeal for my FASFA grants and loans, stating why I have been below what is acceptable for this institution. I acknowledge that my grades haven’t been in the best of state, especially concerning my mathematics. I have balanced my time unwisely and my grades have reflected that. Being used to six classes in high school I was unwilling to go below four. I have spoken with those in the financial aid office at The College of **************** regarding what I should do to improve my grades as in taking less classes to reduce stress, 4 classes was too. Along with my mother was pushing for taking more, she never went to college so she had little understanding on which has been revised and now understands what pushing myself too hard has done nothing but harm in the face of my education.
I have always had a problem with anxiety and depression which reached a peak in late summer of 2013 which landed me in the hospital and being able to see doctors regarding my problems. Sadly due to a lack of health insurance I was quickly dropped at the beginning of 2014 after only a few visits to The xxxxxs. I was told over the phone over why my appointments were cancelled for they stopped taking patients after the beginning of 2014. I have since looked into applying for Medicaid and if that fails then to search into College Health Plans again. These issues have plagued my learning and were the main issues to why the first two times I took a math course I did not see it to completion, I was filled with fear and anxiety when I could not understand the material and the teaching styles were difficult to comprehend.
Last semester (fall 2014) I had problems with financial aid and it came extremely late in October. There is financial stress in my household so my ability to purchase my books was put on hold further and further because I had believed my funds would arrive soon. I withdrew from one of my courses in Fall 2014 due to a sudden change in professors in which teaching style was too fast and not what I could take. I was also not able to get books at the beginning of the semester because it was unclear if I would even be receiving it then or not. I will retain more of my financial aid funds for more of my schooling needs rather than the house bills. I was working more with a job I had started in June(xxxxs 2014) and that clashed with my schooling with slow willingness to change my schedule and regularly placing me on days in which I went to school. I have since left that job on the 23rd of this month to put more of my schooling ahead in what was important to me.
There is a plan that after this semester
That I will only engage in 6 credit hours that I can handle as to not fall behind again
To look more into health care options without wait to get the help I need
To work harder than I did before and working with tutor groups on campus
To retain more of my financial aid excess for emergencies and tighter grip on my financial crisis at home
Thank you for taking the time to review my case,
XXXX
I’m really sorry about what happened to you. It’s tough trying to balance college and those other issues at the same time.
As far as your letter goes, I think you should rework a lot of it. The people who review these filings probably get a lot of similar letters right around now, so it’s important to make it easy to understand and reasonably brief. I think that it would help if you confined the reasons for your academic difficulties (anxiety and depression, financial issues) in one or two paragraphs and then your proposed solutions (taking fewer credit hours, Medicaid health options, tutoring, etc.) in a separate paragraph instead of jumbling them together.
You can probably lose most of the first paragraph, especially the part about your mother. It’s great that she now understands that taking six classes might be too much but that doesn’t really add much to the appeal.
The second paragraph should probably touch on your time management issues as well as the anxiety and depression. You have the information all there but I would put it together more so that it’s all in one place and appears early in the letter.
The third paragraph can be about money problems. Try to clarify what the problem with the money specifically was. I’m not sure if you want to include the stuff about the professor’s teaching style being too fast; that’s not really relevant to financial aid or grades, right? Especially since you dropped the course rather than fail it.
The fourth paragraph is good in terms of but the part about spending money on schooling instead of housing is a little confusing; why won’t you need money for housing any more? If you weren’t able to get your financial aid money last semester to pay for books, what would be different about the next semester? It might be worth mentioning how you solved these problems because it’s hard (for me, at least) to tell why you think they won’t happen again. You don’t have your job any more so wouldn’t that make the financial crisis worse?
(Just a quick question – have you checked to make sure that taking six credit hours won’t harm your financial aid eligiblity? I know that at some schools students who take too few credit hours in one semester can be reclassified as ‘part-time’ instead of ‘full-time’ which can reduce or eliminate some forms of financial aid).
Concerning the number of hours was what the FASFA office told me to put down, as well to say I’d retain my fasfa refunds. My financial situation hasn’t changed, but I was told to “pretend everything is better already and lie about it”. Last time on my funds being late wasn’t even my fault I tried to attack them every week about it, there is nothing more I could of done about that situation. So I can’t really predict in what way I’ll be harassed about it and held back my funds for no reason. I thank you for your help and will rework my letter.
Anxiety horse, I understand you are frustrated, but really, you need to drop the attitude that they are all wrong and you are all right when trying to resolve this.
Your letter is way too wordy. It needs to be concise. There should be no lying in it…everything should be honest.
I would suggest that you go to the financial aid office and ask to speak (politely) to a financial aid officer. You need to state only the facts…no opinions…and hear what they explain to you.
If you can’t seem to get help from the financial aid office, see if your school has an ombudsman. If so, make an appointment with him/her.
You can also make an appointment to speak to someone in the Dean of Students office. It is possible someone there can help you.
But first…take a deep breath, and a giant step backwards. You will get a lot more answers with polite queries than with ones that are less polite.
I encourage you to visit your school’s academic advising center to find out what help might be available for you academically. Work with an adviser to develop an academic plan that includes courses and out-of-class assistance. These should be submitted with your appeal - they will show the steps you are taking to make sure you are successful in the future.
I will also encourage you to visit your campus’s mental health counseling office. They can arrange any testing you may need, as well as help you with counseling sessions. You will want to mention in your appeal the steps you have taken in this area, as well (don’t say you are going to do it — do it, then talk about what you have done).
Fair enough. I guess my concern is that, since the things that you wrote about how your problem is better now aren’t true, what makes you think that you won’t end up in this situation again next semester? I’m not trying to attack you here since I can understand how stressful and challenging this situation must be. But it sounds like more or less all of the problems that caused you to lose your aid eligibility before are still around; you may have been encouraged to lie about these issues in your letter but that doesn’t fix the problem, it just kicks it down the road another semester.
I second the recommendation to see if you can have a sit down with someone at the Ombudsman or the FA office. I think most folks at these places want to help and while it can be frustrating (especially on the phone) to play tag with them it could be worthwhile especially if they are able to work with you in actually fixing the obstacles in your path rather than just delaying them and making them worse later on.
As far as I know we don’t have a mental health care office or what an ombudsman(looked it up, my god do I need this) is? My school is extremely small and has numerous problems. Like my FASFA being on hold for months by some unknown person in the office who had questions, but never would answer phone calls during office hours, never left me a name, no one knew who it was who put the block in the way. It is a small school, and a very small office. I have reworded my letter and hope to be able to see an adviser today. The last few times I was told to try another day, or no one was in. It is beyond stressing and straining to keep smiling at them for when all I want to do is scream at them at the bullcrap they are pulling. For crying out loud I was advised by the fasfa people to LIE about my situation. People aren’t kidding when they say my state has the worst schools.
If someone advised you to lie, I hope you did not listen to them.
I still say…you need to drop the attitude, and stick to only the facts. I’m sorry, but you cannot convince me that on all this time you have been unable to schedule a meeting with someone to have a face to face discussion about this.
If someone on the FAFSA helpline actually told you to lie about your situation, that person should be reported and fired.
I work at an extremely small school, and I am the only person in financial aid - in addition to the numerous other hats I wear. Small school, small office … no excuse for poor service.
If you do not have a mental health office/counseling staff or an ombudsman (big schools have those), you do have a Dean of Students, Director or Student Services, Enrollment Director or similar person. You may want to schedule an appointment with this person to talk about your poor service - and to ask for assistance with this matter.