<p>Are you female? Your grades are excellent, and your story may be compelling enough to get the attention of the admissions officers at the top women’s colleges. All of them have some type of special program for non-traditional students - which you definitely are albeit not of non-trad age. All of them also have excellent financial aid for the students that they want. Start with Bryn Mawr. It has formal transfer agreements with a couple of Philadelphia-area community colleges and so has experience evaluating CC transcripts similar to yours.</p>
<p>If the transfer advisor at your CC is not well-prepared to help you with your issues, ask if that person can put you in touch with one of his/her colleagues at another CC in your state. Perhaps no one in Illinois has the kind of expertise you need, but you may pique the interest of someone who can help you out. You also could root around in the various websites of the Illinois CCs to find out any transfer information that they have. Here is what our local CC has for its students: [Counseling</a> & Advising | Transfer Planning](<a href=“http://cms.montgomerycollege.edu/edu/tertiary1.aspx?urlid=67]Counseling”>http://cms.montgomerycollege.edu/edu/tertiary1.aspx?urlid=67)</p>
<p>Your situation is uncommon, so it is challenging for us to come up with the advice that you need. Please do believe that we are wishing you well as you sort through your options.</p>
<p>Did your dad have to fill out a FAFSA? It does not matter whether or not he was willing to pay; did he provide his information to qualify you for federal aid? </p>
<p>Keep in mind that admissions and financial aid policies vary from school to school. You must also look up the admissions policies for a "homeschooled’ student. Some of them may still ask for testing requirements. </p>
<p>transferring to another school is going to be a challenge.</p>
<p>If you were considering remaining in state and going to the University of Illinois system, even as a "homeschooled’ student, you are going to need additional reqirements.</p>
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<p>I think you are going to run into this type of road block wherever yo decide to attend because as a home schooled student, most schools are going to request additional information, which you don’t have.</p>
<p>Obviously you are very bright. I think right now you would be best served getting a GED book and taking the exam *you can probably pass it on the first try). I would recommend that you do it this year because the format of the GED exam is changing next year. most places will allow you to do it as a walk in and many places give the exam once a week.</p>
<p>Wow. I didn’t realize my transcript situation was such a mess. Other homeschoolers I know have identical transcripts and got into great schools. Maybe they had the supply course tiles. I needed to get the diploma and invent the transcript just to get into the CC.</p>
<p>My dad gave me his tax information a year ago, and so I have the information for the IRS retrieval tool. I know I am not the one who is supposed to be doing it, but he doesn’t bother. He has given permission though, and isn’t going to “stir the pot” with the FAFSA people over it. The pell grant pays about $700 of my tuition costs. The rest I pay out of pocket.</p>
<p>I am female. I didn’t think about how that might effect me. I will have to start doing a lot of research into it.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies, everyone. It is really helping me.</p>
<p>So your father gave you his tax information and you knew exactly what the family assets were the day you filed the FAFSA using his electronic signature which has warnings that anyone else using is fraud? There may be pots stirred, if this comes up for verification. And you’ve been using mail in diplomas and transcripts? Are you paying in state or out of state rates? </p>
<p>You may be able to get away with this at some colleges, but really, many colleges do look at these things a lot more strictly. </p>
<p>If you are going to pick a state with decent public college costs, IL is not the one, I can tell you. </p>
<p>However, you are getting a transcript and track record right now at the CC and picking up some college courses as well. Congratulations on that achievement. I think that another year there, and a ASA could make a difference in terms of transfer possibilities but as long as you are dependent, you will need your family financial info and your parents should be filling out their part of the FAFSA.</p>
<p>In a perfect world, my parents should be the ones filling out the FAFSA. But it’s not. I either fill it out, or don’t go to school at all. For the amount of money in their back account, I called me dad and he gave me an estimate. It wasn’t down to the dollar, but probably close (if anything, higher than what he atually has).</p>
<p>I am paying in-state costs. However, it is in a very rural area, and I don’t drive. My life is waking up, taking the unreliable public transit to school, taking it to work, walking home, sleeping, and doing it all over again. I have zero friends in school, and in the area. The college has very low graduation/transfer rates. I just don’t know if I will be able to make it another two years here.</p>
<p>Brielle, it’s not a “perfect world” thing. It is federal FRAUD, and yes, you can go to jail for it, if it comes down to it, or he can if the info does not check out. You aren’t just dealing with a bunch of little school papers here. If the government should take notice, it will spend vast amounts to go after piddling amounts of fraud. So please, understand that this is not a little thing. If your family was so abusive, if push comes to shove on these things, your dad may not hesitate an instant to blame the whole thing on you and it would take nothing to figure it out with computers who was doing this. Do understand the seriousness of what you did. It is not a “perfect world” type of thing to play around with. And from what you have said, you are doing this for a lousy $900 that you could borrow from the Staffords without a parental FAFSA, but legally.</p>
<p>Around here, anyone can get in state costs for comm college. Just say you live here and have a local address, and probably lie on the form, but no verification is done. Not so, with many 4 year schools. They do check it out. Especially those that have a lot of OOS kids, and you won’t get away so easily at such schools. They count on that OOS differential for budget purposes. </p>
<p>Why on earth are you where you are for college, if the locale, school and life there is so terrible? In a state with high costs even for instaters for college? Also, is there anyway, your fin aid person can get you declared independent? Have you been n imminent danger of being homeless for instance? Are any of the abuse issues documented? How long have you been going to school there, what have you achieved in terms of college credits, and more basically a high school degree? Would the AA degree give you an auto GED? Should you take the GED, as Sybbie has suggested, so you officially have a high school degree. You can say you are home schooled and have the documents, but many home schooled kids also get a GED because that is often what some place want. SOmething universally recognized. Can you take the SATs or ACTs? Have you taken a sample test of them and done reasonably well? A lot of things to think about. As for only one school having your major, I suggest you look at other majors too. That’s not something to limit your options about. Not saying to give up the quest, but the reality is that you need look at where your best chances are, and one egg in that basket is not a good idea.</p>
<p>Sometimes you have to be like a horse; put on your blinders and run your own race. </p>
<p>You can’t worry about other people who in your opinion are not motivated or are not doing anything. So what if your school has a low graduation rate? As long as you are one of them who are graduating, you have beat the odds. Right now until you straighten out your situation, you don’t have a lot of options and it is going to just be a matter of time before your house of cards collapses on you. Right now you don’t’ meet neither the Illinois or Florida state requirements regarding having a home school education (this is one of your biggest obstacles and is probably keeping you from receiving state aid, because you have no documentation).</p>
<p>You’ve got one year down, live on a few more days and it will be May 2014 before you know it. Use the year to finish your college course work and get the GED done before December 2013. This way you will have more freedom to make moves when the time comes.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, you will walk across the stage by your self and with the exception of your your administration it will be your name and yours alone on the degree.</p>
<p>Remember this;</p>
<p>A journey of 1,000 miles starts with a single step (you have already started taking those steps). </p>
<p>The race is not given to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but to he that endures until the end. So pull your big girl panties up and do what you have to do to finish and get the associates, which along with a legit diploma will give you more options for your future.</p>
<p>Cpt–I’m confused about what you’re telling her about filling out FAFSA. at the college I work at, many of the students fill out their own FAFSAs. IN fact, I used to run workshops where they brought in their and their family’s information and fill it out, with me there to answer questions. They have PINs for themselves and their parent(s). The only way that would be fraud would be if the parent disputed it and said they didn’t authorize that PIN. Our FA office also helps students fill out FAFSAs. In what way would the government itself see this as fraud?</p>
<p>I have a lot of home schooled friends and none of them did the GED. It is considered offensive to expect a home schooler to get a GED where I live. And no one expects it! The transcript your parent/guardian made for you is your “official transcript.” You need to take the SAT if you have less than 30 college credit hours.</p>
<p>I think you should go for the transfer. And in the future, only ask other home schoolers for this advice. There is a home school to college support group on yahoo. They can help you a lot better.</p>
undecided 2014, your rant is uncalled for. Have you read the whole thread? No one is denigrating home schooling or questioning the legitimacy of a valid home schooling experience. However, it appears that Brielle was an autodidact, but was not actually home schooled in the normal understanding of the term–i.e., fulfilling her state’s requirements for curriculum, oversight, grading etc. No parent or guardian made her transcript–she made it up herself; it is a fiction, a fraud. Getting a GED would be a relatively painless way to legitimize her status for purposes of continuing her education.</p>
<p>I don’t see why a GED would be offensive.
Don’t most schools / states have exams for graduation?
Why should homeschoolers have fewer hoops than students in a public school?</p>