<p>I am a sophomore in college at a two year school. My freshman year I did not pass two of my classes which brought my GPA down drastically but I still had over a 2.0 (barely) , I believe I had a 2.12 . I pulled off a 3.0 w/ 12 credit hours this semester so now my cumulative GPA is about a 2.45 . Originally I was taking 18 credit hours but I dropped two classes in fear of not doing well in them. It was crucial for me to bring my GPA up so I did not want to risk anything. But now, I didn't meet the requirements on completing enough credits so my financial aid has been taken away. I am going to appeal this but if it does not work out.. what are my options as far as school?</p>
<p>I live on campus at my school so I can't afford to go there without financial aid. There are local community colleges in my hometown area. But will they give me financial aid? I didn't know dropping the classes would make me lose my aid, if I would have known that then I would've kept them. Can I transfer to a local community college? I don't know what my options are now. After this spring semester, my cumulative GPA will be close to a 2.9 to a 3.0 (if I can stay in school). </p>
<p>-Do I withdraw from my current school or do I put in a request to transfer?
-Will another school give me financial aid?
-Should I transfer to a four year for fall 2015? (Well, try at least? It's gonna be hard with a 2.4 no school is going to take me) I need my spring semester to bring my cumulative GPA up. </p>
<p>I honestly do not know what to do. I have never been in this situation before. If I would have known this would happen, I would have kept the classes. It wasn't that big of a deal to risk all of this, but I really didn't know this would happen. I don't have much guidance, no one in my family has ever gone to college before. Maybe someone with experience on this issue can help me out?</p>
<p>If you have a plan for which four year school you were going to attend after your current two year school, perhaps you could meet with an advisor there. Presumably you were making plans soon anyway for what to do at a new school next year.</p>
<p>Yes my plans were to apply to VCU in january and still attend my school in the spring. If I got in, I’d be at VCU for fall 2015. But if I can’t get financial aid, I won’t be able to attend my school this spring. What happens with my credits and everything? Do I owe money after this? Like I’m completely clueless and it’s stressing me out. I don’t know which way to go. How do I become eligible again for financial aid? </p>
<p>Your college has guidelines on what conditions must be met to continue to be eligible for financial aid. You should be very familiar with these conditions if you expect aid. So the first thing you need to do is to look up, read and understand your school policy on Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP guidelines are often online in the student handbook.).This outlines completion units and gpa requirements to keep aid. Once you know those policies, then you can better write your appeal to address how you will satisfy those requirements. I hate to guess but it seems that you didn’t complete enough overall units. Maybe your appeal will be okay because you are making progress.</p>
<p>You also need to see what the timing is to submit an appeal and get aid for the coming semester. Haven’t you gone to see an advisor about this? Probably you are up to date payment-wise, but I don’t know for sure. Your credits to date are still intact. If you do owe any money, though, the transcript won’t be released until it is paid off.</p>
<p>If you are suspended from aid, you likely won’t get it anywhere else either. You would have to pay your own classes until your are within SAP guidelines again. You may have to return home to do that but try to work with your school first. You really need to contact someone there, but I suggest you understand the guidelines first. Here is what the federal guidelines say, then you need school guidelines:
<a href=“https://studentaid.ed.gov/eligibility/staying-eligible”>https://studentaid.ed.gov/eligibility/staying-eligible</a></p>
<p>@BrownParent I just got a letter in the mail yesterday telling me about all of this. I have until the 6th of January to appeal it. I have to write a letter and I also have to get a 3rd party to write a letter on my behalf. My counselor at the school said they will write a letter for me. The counselors at my school don’t do much honestly. I am up to date thus far with payments. If my appeal is not granted, do I withdraw from the school and transfer to my local community college? If you withdraw isn’t there some type of penalty, or no? I don’t know how all of this works. I have been sending out emails and no one is replying. </p>
<p>I will read up on the federal guidelines and my school guidelines. I don’t think I completed enough overall units either. I was never put on academic probation or anything. I feel like if I would have kept my 18 credit hours this fall, none of this would have happened. </p>
<p>@Madison85 I am in a dorm. </p>
<p>Thank you guys for your input, it is well appreciated. If anyone has more information or advice on what to do next, feel free to speak your mind. </p>
<p>It is good that you are in university housing (a dorm) because if your appeal is not successful, you most likely won’t be on the hook for paying dorm rent through the end of the contract / school year.</p>
<p>I don’t see why you can’t transfer to a community college. My concern is only that as a second year sophomore at a 2-year college you may have already completed all of the work that you could have completed at a community college so you might just be wasting money at that point. But I could be wrong about that, so that’s something you might be able to go over with an adviser as a contingency in case your appeal doesn’t work out.</p>
<p>Do you have a plan for keeping up with those percentage of completion requirements? I understand that they can be pretty tricky to deal with if you drop or fail courses since even one or two of those each year can be enough to put you below the threshold. Do you think that if you had kept the 18 hours that your GPA would have been OK?</p>
<p>A lot of this information about withdrawal penalties and the requirements for financial aid should be on the school’s website. Is it really not there? It might be in a student guide that is maintained either at your college’s registrar office (in person) or on their website. I think all colleges are required to have this information available so I don’t think that you necessarily need to get the policies on FA requirements and withdrawal information from emailing a counselor during Christmas break.</p>
<p>@DmitriR Well, I still need to either one or two English courses, an art, another history, math, and science. So I haven’t completed everything. I will definitely go over what I need to complete with an adviser to be sure. I definitely think I would have been fine GPA wise with the 18 credit hours. I wasn’t comfortable with the professors of those two classes I dropped, so I figured since I could pick them back up next semester (this spring)… it didn’t really matter. But if I would have known this would happen, without a doubt I would have put up with it and stuck it out. I don’t want to go through this at all. This could throw me off of my 4 year plan completely. </p>
<p>& yes, the information is on my school’s site. According the website, full time students must complete 66% of all attempted coursework, if not then we fail at making “satisfactory academic progress” which makes the school take away financial aid. So with me not passing two classes my first year that were 4 credit hours a piece, it put me below the 66% . If I would have kept my 18 credit hours this semester, I would have been fine . After my first year I only had 16 credit hours. </p>