I think I've made a mistake

Paying for College
1

First of all, basic info: I’m from Spain, I’m on my junior year, I am waiting my SAT scores but expect about 1500+ and about 790-800 on both Physics and Math II

I was submitting my application to UAH (University of Alabama in Huntsville), which I’d chosen not only for seeming to be an amazing option fro me but also for it’s generous financial aid which I can easily get (you need over 1520 in SAT and 3.5+GPA for a 100%, a GPA of 4 with he same SAT score gets you free campus housing), but after submitting the first part of my application, I see that they require you to send a “Certified financial statement be submitted as evidence of sufficient finances to cover fees and personal expenses while attending UAH” before you even apply for financial aid.

If that means proving that you can pay the expenses of living there, excluding the price of tuition, then I can submit it. But even assuming it does… “The completed affidavit form must be accompanied by a bank statement which indicates that there are sufficient funds to sponsor the student for one calendar year.” There’s no way in hell I can get that, I can cover the expenses of being there but we don’t have any savings (I can get about 6000€ by the next summer but I have almost nothing right now).

Do I cancel my score reports to the UAH and give it up or do I have a chance?

2

Call UAH on Monday. I don’t think this is unique to them, for what it’s worth.
¡Buena suerte!

3

Yeah, I’d thought of that, I’ll call to their financial aid office. I just wanted to get an overall idea about what to expect.

4

@mom2collegekids

Do you know what this kid should do?

5

You’re a junior in high school and you’re submitting an app now? Is the app for the 2018-19 school year even available? Are you submitting the wrong app?


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If that means proving that you can pay the expenses of living there, excluding the price of tuition, then I can submit it.

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But even assuming it does… “The completed affidavit form must be accompanied by a bank statement which indicates that there are sufficient funds to sponsor the student for one calendar year.” There’s no way in hell I can get that, I can cover the expenses of being there but we don’t have any savings


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? If you can prove that you can pay the expenses of living there, then what is the issue?

You don’t have savings, so how can you do your first sentence?

How were you going to pay for room, board, books, fees and travel??

6

“You’re a junior in high school and you’re submitting an app now? Is the app for the 2018-19 school year even available? Are you submitting the wrong app?”
Some colleges, like UAH, allow you to submit the app sooner than others, in fact, one of the sections of the application asks for your entry term. Also I’m kind of doing everything as soon as possible because I need to know my options, plus every college has different deadlines and I can’t afford to miss one.

On a short note, is it really that weird to start preparing my applications now? I’m less than a month away from finishing my junior year and have already taken SAT, furthermore, some schools -such as MIT- have deadlines as soon as september and october, so waiting untill I’ve started my senior year strikes me as risky at the very least.

"If you can prove that you can pay the expenses of living there, then what is the issue?

You don’t have savings, so how can you do your first sentence?

How were you going to pay for room, board, books, fees and travel??"
In their website, it says the following:

“A certified financial statement be submitted as evidence of sufficient finances to cover fees and personal expenses while attending UAH. An Affidavit of Financial Support form is available at the Graduate School website. The completed affidavit form must be accompanied by a bank statement which indicates that there are sufficient funds to sponsor the student for one calendar year. This affidavit must be received before an I-20 can be issued.”

I think I can cover the expenses of living there, my parents don’t earn much (both retirees) but it’d be enough to pay for housing, there’s also the fact that getting a job over there that I can balance with studying should prove easy once I’m admitted. Besides that, I’m also i the middle of a project that could add a couple hundred of euros a month.That said, I don’t have any savings just now, so I can’t send a “bank statement which indicates that there are sufficient funds to sponsor the student for one calendar year”, however, I can get at the very least 6000€ by june of next year, maybe 10000€ or more if everything goes as I expect.

7

What do you mean work-study program? That is part of the Federal aid that international students are not eligible to.

8

You won’t be eligible for work study under a federal program. You will be very limited in which jobs you can take while on a student visa.

I think you are right to be investigating this now. It IS expensive to attend a US school, even for US students. Many cannot afford to attend a school where they have to pay room and board.

There are reasons why the visa application requires you to prove you can pay for the cost of attendance before the visa is issued. Too many foreign students can’t afford it, can’t find jobs, can’t afford to get back home. You can’t get the visa until you can provide the needed documentation.

9

I didn’t mean literally a work-study program like the ones us students get, I meant getting a job over there (the student visa allows for that, already checked), it’s just I’ve gotten used to calling it a work-study program. I’ll edit and reword the comment to make avoid further misunderstanding.

10

The applications for the 2018-2019 school year are NOT yet available on any of these college websites.

What “deadlines” are you talking about at schools like MIT? Even their early application deadline is later than October.

You might want to read the UNDER graduate website…not the GRADUATE school one.

You are an international student. You will not be eligible to receive federal work study at any college here. In addition, the number of hours you can work here while having a student visa will be very limited.

11

There are very limited jobs ON CAMPUS that F-1 visa students may apply. But don’t count on it getting one. Also, for proofing your financial support, you don’t have the money you “may” earn in the future in your account. For graduate student, schools may provide a stipend and therefore support document for that. Unless you receive a scholarship for undergraduate, I don’t see how you will get one.

12

@thumper1 oops! In my hastiness I must have been looking at the wrong section, I’ve made quite a fool of myself it seems. Sorry for bothering you due to such an stupid mistake, is there a way to get the thread closed on this website or do I just let it die?

Anyway, so as to not open a different thread having one already, in reference to the deadlines, here http://mitadmissions.org/apply/freshman/dates you can see the deadlines for early application start on October 20th. Those are the deadlines sfor the 2018-2019 year, right? I mean if the course starts on september of 2018 they have to be.

@billcsho If I’m not wrong the F-1 also allows for off-campus jobs in certain situations as long as they are related to the field you are studying, and anyway as I said, that’d be a plus, since I should be able to get by without it (will be hard, but what isn’t?)

13

@41ADAN That is for practical training that has a time limit. Most students would leave it to internship before senior year and after graduation. For freshmen or sophomore year, I doubt you can find any study field related job. Don’t even dream on it.

14

What are you talking about?

Here is the MIT admissions info.

http://mitadmissions.org/apply

Applications for the 2018-2019 school year will be available august 2017.

LAST year, the deadline for early applications was November 1.

If you want to start college in Fall 2018, you will be applying sometime after August 2017…not in fall 2018.

15

@thumper1 That’s exactly what I meant, I seem to have worded my previous post quite poorly. What I intended to sya is that, seeing as their usual deadlines are on those dates (around fall of the year previous to starting the course), it would only make sense that the deadlines for the 2018-2019 term would be sometime in fall of 2017. Seeing as we’re already halfway through may, I’m starting to work through everything to make sure that as soon as deadlines start approaching I don’t miss anything.

16

It seems OP has more than one mistake. :wink:

17

@41ADAN

You do NOT have to apply early admission to any college. At. All.

From the MIT website…

18

@thumper1 I see, it seems my attemtp at preparing way ahead of time coupled with my bad habit of not reading everything and instead getting worried about the earliest date I read is again making me worry too much too soon and has me making foolish mistakes.

19

The University of Alabama application will become available in August as well. You can submit that with the supporting information…and complete the scholarship application…and you will get a decision…with projected financial aid…pretty quickly.

UA has Rolling admissions…they process applications as they come and send decisions.

Most schools don’t have rolling admissions. IF you apply early action, you will usually hear by Christmas…sometimes early January.

OH…and if you want need based financial aid, don’t forget to submit your Profile or whatever the school requires adhering to the deadlines the school publishes.

20

The OP is asking questions, which is what CC is all about. At least he’s doing it in advance instead of next March and then asking “But how will I get a visa, how will I pay for it?”

OP, just keep asking your questions. I think Alabama-Huntsville may be a better option than MIT, but no reason to thin your options yet. Talk to the schools, ask what other international students have done, if there are jobs available and what amount you can expect to earn.