<p>I'm currently attempting to get my father's income/assets waived at the University Of Michigan. The school requires a document verifying the divorce, a letter from the custodial parent, a letter from myself, and a letter from a 3rd party individual. The 3rd party individual must not be a close family friend or a family member. The school recommends a teacher, counselor, clergyman, or an employer of the student’s custodial parent. The problem is I do not have a 3rd party individual that can verify my situation. I've never felt the need to share my personal information with my teachers or counselor. Without the 3rd party letter, I cannot get the waiver approved. Anyone have any suggestions?</p>
<p>We used my son’s GC. How about your Mom’s divorce lawyer?</p>
<p>Has there been a sustained period of no contact? And no one knows or ever noticed your father’s absence?</p>
<p>Hmm. That’s a possibility, but my mom has not had contact with her since the divorce 10 years ago. UofM requests that they provide a detailed letter explaining my relationship with my father.</p>
<p>@BrownParent No, but I have very little contact. Sure people know and notice his absence, but those individuals are all family and friends of the family. There’s little reason for a teacher or counselor to notice his absence, since mostly mothers attend events such as conferences. I’m sure they notice, but there is little reason for them to speculate with minimal evidence.</p>
<p>It is about you not having contact, not necessarily your mom. Too bad people don’t know at least by freshman year that this is coming. Have your mother talk it over with your GC and see if s/he has suggestions for your mother. Your mother needs to work this out.</p>
<p>Did your dad pay child support?</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids Yes.</p>
<p>@BrownParent Well my mother knew nothing about it, since my older sister only applied to schools that required the FAFSA. I could explore that option. Unfortunately the counselors at my school are quite terrible. Would contacting the financial aid office for advice on what to do be a good idea? </p>
<p>Your best bet is to contact the aid office. However, given the fact that your dad has been paying child support, I am not sure your waiver will go through. Usually, waivers are for those who do not have any contact at all … and for those who should not have contact (abuse situations). In such cases, there is generally a third party involved who can corroborate the situation. Just not being involved in the kid’s daily life does not generally get the parent off the hook. Of course, each individual situation may vary, so do talk with the aid office about your specific situation.</p>
<p>Why don’t you just go sit down with your own guidance counselor, and tell that person that you need a letter stating that you have had no contact with your dad? Ask him/her whether you need to provide any more information in order to have someone write it. Surely your counselor can find a way to get this letter written for you by someone within the staff at the school. After all this is part of his/her job. And you might wake up the counseling staff at your school to the need to stay on top of this kind of thing in the future so that they are ready to write letters fro students in situation like yours.</p>
<p>Talk to your high school counselor. This is something that comes up often, and it is highly likely that s/he is familar with this process. That’ s part of the job. Your high school counselor is the one that would have had to have written the school reference for you, whether s/he knew you well or not. Most likely the GC will ask a few questions, or just state that the s/he has had no contact with NCP while you are at the school, unless university itself has specific questions directed to this third party. </p>
<p>since your dad paid child support, on WHAT grounds should you get a waiver?</p>
<p>I’m not in contact with my father at all (no divorce, never married, and I never knew him). All I did was get our college support counselor to testify that she knew my brother and I for years and she had never seen nor met my father - only my mother, who she knew to be a single parent, and that was enough. The letter was like a paragraph long.
Just get something brief by someone who kinda/sorta knows you or your family. Good luck!</p>
<p>While it may be true that some schools give waivers based on a teacher or GC saying that she
never met/seen the NCP, that seems a bit ridiculous. I’ve known intact families where the GC has never seen the father.</p>
<p>Well, if OP doesn’t have anyone who is not a friend or a family member around to say so, a GC is their next best bet. All they can do is try because without a 3rd Party letter, there is no way their waiver will get approved.
I’m assuming if the school figures there is enough of a back story (from everyone - I had thorough letters from my mother and myself) to explain no contact, they’ll just waive the non-custodial information.</p>
<p>It so depends upon the schools. Some don’t scrutinize the NCP statements, some do. Some have questionnaires they send out to the custodial parent and all the third party statement does is make sure the parent is not in the picture as far as the school knows, like his address is not at the school for copies of reports to be given, etc.</p>
<p>What often kills the whole thing is if child support has been paid or any other sort of contact that can be proven. Tax statements would show that along with the some directed questions. I know one situation where a school disallowed even though there was no contact, no child support for years, but the child was on the NCP’s health insurance. That was specifically asked in the questionnaire sent to the CP. But I think that some schools did give NCP waivers–just the one school, unfortunately for the child, it was the first choice school, would not waive.</p>
<p>Look, it’s generally quite difficult to prove the absence of something or someone, so don’t even attempt to do that. What you can do is provide a statement from your family physician saying that he or she has never spoken with your father - when you had health issues, he or she always dealt with your mother. You can also provide a statement from your school guidance counselor, saying that he or she never had any dealings with your father and, what’s more, your father isn’t even listed on your school paperwork as an emergency contact.</p>
<p>In other words, forget what U of M said about finding one person who can tell the whole story - that’s impossible. Enlist a few people to submit bits and pieces. It’ll be more manageable and likely just as effective.</p>
<p>Thank you for all the advice everyone! I greatly appreciate it! Good news: my mother was able to get someone to write the letter for us. My mother is a RN and the doctor she works with agreed to write it. I’m still extremely nervous about this whole process though. It infuriates me that my father is the determining factor on whether or not I can go to umich, but yet he will not support me at all and does not play an active role in my life.</p>
<p>Does anyone have any advice for writing the letters by me and my mother? What should be included and what shouldn’t? I’m sure stressing our distant relationship that keeps on getting more and more distant and stating that he did not help my older sibling out with college at all is vital. I really need to make my case.</p>
<p>I received a waiver because I had a counselor I worked with for several years. I will tell you if your Dad paid child support it makes getting a waiver very hard. </p>