Is anyone seeing their freshman orientation fee deferred?
I was speaking with New Student Services trying to understand why I had to pay for orientation when it says" If you receive a financial aid award, your payment will be deducted from your fall award". So I was questioning whether this was working on the UT system.
Just thought I’d ask other people who are registering.
I assumed it was because of my low EFC ($365, lol thanks mom). My advance housing payment was also deferred.
We received an award for fall, didn’t pay the fee and were dropped from orientation. Lost our good spot, so I recommend you pay it if you can.
@rach98n @SlimShadyLady Our Enrollment deposit was waived and advanced housing payment was not required - but for Freshman Orientation they also dropped us and we lost our spot. I’m arguing there is a problem with their system as I also had an EFC of 0.
The wording on the website says:
The Orientation charge will be automatically deferred for students who qualify based on financial need. If you receive a financial aid award, your payment will be deducted from your fall award. IF NOT, you will have until the first day of classes to complete the payment.
So this means - regardless of when you sign up for Orientation (before financial aid is given OR not) - IF YOU are in need - your payment will be deferred.
Perhaps UT can enlighten us to WHAT THE DEFINITION OF NEED as far as their system is concerned?
Well at the moment - they refuse to fix this. Financial Aid Services says it’s New Student Services problem and they aren’t involved in this. New Student Services says nothing is wrong and no one is reporting any problems but they’ll talk to their programmers.
So…they dropped you from orientation when their website specifically said you have until after financial aid funds have been released to pay it? Sounds sketchy to me. I just checked the website and I’m still signed up for the session I registered—does this mean I should go ahead and pay it to avoid losing my orientation slot?
You only have 30 days to pay or your registration will be cancelled. At least ours was. We have stalked the website where you can change your session and were able to get into the 3rd session so it’s not too awful. We originally were in the 2nd.
Ah, geez. Looks like I know where my next paycheck is going. Sorry for your troubles, but thanks for the heads up
Edit: The orientation page says my orientation fee has been deferred and that I have until August 26th to pay it. OP, did yours say something similar prior to you losing your session?
@SlimShadyLady If your status page and your email says you were deferred - you are a-ok. Just make a printout of that page as the email is not the same as the status page.
It is unclear how the Orientation signup figures out you have financial Need.
After phone calls and numerous emails - yes we were eligible for deferral so we got our original session back BUT I had already paid via credit the orientation charge and they said they couldn’t reverse that.
For everyone else - You have 30 days to pay. You WON’t receive a reminder. You won’t get an email when they drop you. As I pointed out to them - it would be nice if they allowed a parent email to also be put on the students account so I could get these special LINKs and notifications.
Just FYI, STALK the registration page where you can change your session. I managed to snag a spot in the first session today. What is open changes every day.
My orientation date got dropped after 30 days of not paying, too. Thankfully, I realized it right away and was able to re-secure a spot during the orientation date I chose (I’m going to the second orientation, btw)!
Just throwing this out there because it’s hard to find ALL information in one place:
BEFORE Orientation
Get that Immunization shot and bring proof with you.
Make sure you complete any Required ALEKS for placement. Go to your schools website for required info.
So much to do prior to the end of Senior year - hang in there everyone, especially the parents who have to figure all this out!
Did everyone get that email saying their freshman orientation was cancelled? Wow lot’s of people are reporting getting some bogus email. Kinda nuts. Maybe UT got hacked or someone sent out the wrong email?
From: alexkyletx@gmail.com
…
This notice is to inform you that your reservation for Summer 2015 Orientation has been cancelled. Please note that any housing and/or testing requests have also been cancelled.
yes, called them yesterday and they said they were working with IT on it and to ignore the email. Weird.
Hey guys! I’m currently registered for the 7/6-7/8 orientation. I was wondering if anyone knows a way to get into earlier orientation in june? Is there any time of day that they open up? I really don’t want to be stuck with classes at bad times
@shirley258 Best you can do is check every morning. The only way slots will open up is if people have not paid after 30 days.