I’ll call them to make sure, but I am sure they can provide enough aid for me as a transfer. I’ll call just to make sure.
My academic situation is tricky since I have contacted all my teachers, but it is hard for them to help me since I am the one of few and by few i mean 2 students going through the same thing. I go to the highly ranked hs and that means most students are privileged. My teachers have helped me, but since my situation is rare they do not understand it, are not able to do much to help since my case is unique or think I am lying. By bad, I mean Cs and Ds which for me is bad since i have always been a good student and never received a C or below. Its also not good at all for the school I want to transfer into.
If your UM cost of attendance is actually $10K, I think that is your best option. I like the Ithaca option too, but the distance could become a bigger problem than anticipated for a family with no discretionary income. Maryland is close enough where travel should not be a debilitating obstacle. Maryland is close enough for you to find a quick way home in case of family emergencies.
I generally am okay with the CC-to-4yr path, but I don’t know if it’s the best option here. There are simply too many potential pitfalls in this situation. I think your #1 plan Adara is to get into the school you would feel comfortable graduating from from. It doesn’t have to be your favorite, and honestly, you don’t even have to like it much. But if it has a major you like and is not sub-standard academically, that school should be on your short list.
I also don’t think a gap year is the best path. The biggest pitfall for either CC full-time, CC part-time, or a gap year is you will likely get an off-campus job and work as many hours as you assume you can handle or even more. That may prove to be damaging to your grades and your stamina. Too much of that and you may end up dropping out. My S20 has a good friend from high school (first gen college and first gen immigrant family) who has already dropped out of his freshman year because he worked too much and tried to send money home. I’d hate to see that happen to you.
I recommend you get into the 4yr school that is the best combination of cheapest and acceptable to you, sign up for work-study, and spend as much time as you can focused on your education. If that’s Ithaca or UMd, fine. If that ends up being a school you have not yet applied to like UMBC or Towson, fine. But I think your goal should be to be ready to start classes in the fall of 2021 and try to restrict your working to work-study jobs.
Also, for the reasons you stated regarding your grades and test scores, I see no benefit and the possibility of detriment in taking a gap year. To increase your chances of finding a suitable option, I suggest you apply to a few more lower-priced schools.
Lay it out for them: no broadband connection, doing hw from the place you work at, showing your W2 slips with the number of hours you worked, “marked” utility notice, eviction threat, whatever applies. They need to understand. Protecting your GPA and senior course grades matters more to the rest of your plans than anything else (beside subsistance of course).
Are you on free lunch? Does the school help with breakfast?
Ask the GC for help with resources for students in your situation - places where you can get food for a discount or for free, help with bills, etc. I don’t know if a social worker could help.
Can you drop the classes where you’re getting D’s and take them over the summer? It’d balance out the courseload - with fewer courses at the HS, you could still work full time and have more time to devote to the remaining classes, thus better grades for them, and over the summer you could take what’s left.
Otherwise, the only other solution is for you to cut your hours a little (by 4 or 5 hours a week if you can?) and use that time to bring your grades back up.
UMD is not a school I applied to, it would be the one that I would transfer into after attending CC for 2 years. I wish I had lol. I appreciate your advice otherwise. I am looking at all the options possible and to be honest, none seem too good other than Ithaca and that is not even the best option. I wish American gave me any aid, but I am now stuck in this situation and although it might be distressing financially there is not much I can do about that.
I will have to struggle and transfer out of Ithaca to a communiting school and live with my parents (GW or American). Even if I get scant financial aid because I am a transfer, the debt would not be a colossal amount since I would only be paying for 2 years.
The pitfalls of Community College or gap years are important: they require you to stay focused and determined to go to college, without anything pushing you off track.
How will your family cope if you’re at Ithaca?
(Which, BTW, is a good college)
Protecting your GPA is crucial in order to keep your options open.
In May there will be a list of colleges that miscalculated yield (it means they thought more students they admitted would accept their offer of admission; they use yield management software that can be thrown off by unexpected events, such as… a pandemic, so there should be quite a few colleges). There are also colleges in rural areas with strong academics but less exciting locations for HS seniors, large universities that always want more students, etc. From that list, we can help you pick colleges likely to offer admission and financial aid (although, as an international, it is not likely). Waiting till you get your green card is the safest route and makes a world of difference. But if you get C’s and D’s, it won’t be a possibility.
Yeah, thanks for the advice, but in terms of grades there is not much they can do even if I provide evidence. The first semester already ended anyway. My school is notorious for having an unhelpful administration, they are not willing to help students struggling and that is the way it has always been. My school would not let me graduate if I dropped my classes. They would force me to go to a public boundary school, so they can maintain their 100% graduation rate and I would be forced to redo my senior year at another school, which I do not think is a good idea. The only option would be a private school with a 5th year of hs, but those are costly and do not offer scholarships.
I believe I am in a pretty bad state due to my circumstances and will have to live with them at this point. I am frustrated, annoyed and disappointed, but I will just have to work hard to get to a top school later when I am eligible for some aid, even it means going into some debt. I wish I had known about my status sooner, but I am a minor and that information was not accessible to me but my parents.
I think Ithaca is a good college, I worry living costs might be too expensive since it is NY (a expensive city). I am unhappy about my situation that will not let me improve my grades, trust me, I have done EVERYTHING to fix them, but you know a pandemic happened and the circumstances I am in are out of my control. Thank you for your help I have learned a lot and will take your advice into consideration.
1st semester is over, but 2nd semester is ongoing. Protecting your 2nd semester grades matters a lot.
I understand that, working full time, you don’t have time to do homework, which is how your grades end up being impacted. Add to this the tiredness from all the hours worked and the sleep hours cut. In short, you’re still the same smart and dedicated you, but you’re powerless in the circumstances caused by covid.
Can anyone in your family pick up a few more hours to give you time for your hw? Are they all maxed out?
Why is it crucial you graduate this Spring?
Is it because that’s what’s expected from an excellent? Because you want to be known as a graduate from your prestigious public school? Because you worry you’ll never graduate if you graduate this Spring?
Why wouldn’t redoing senior year and getting all A’s be a bad idea, therefore erasing the bad grades due to Covid+working full time?
Is your boundary school dangerous? (Guessing it’s not Wilson)?
(I would understand graduating and moving on to college, but (in addition to risking being rescinded if you get D’s or Fs), in this case, graduating with C’s and D’s and not necessarily going to college would not be the best unless you go the CC-> UMD route. UMD is very good for poli-sci BTW, I think it’s a restricted major actually, ie., with an additional selection.)
Can you talk with your GC (or the principal), to explain your circumstances and ask whether you can drop 2 classes and take them over the summer, because your job pays the rent for your family and covid is forcing you to choosing between making your family homeless and keeping your grades at the level you know they can be?
Hoping you get free breakfast/free lunch so you have decent food to keep you sustained at least, in this ordeal.
Covid and having to work full-time would be a legitimate reason why you couldn’t graduate on time. It’d go under the special “Covid special circumstances” box on the CommonApp.
It wouldn’t penalize you.
Ithaca is in Ithaca, the same town as Cornell university (you can cross register for some courses), it’s about 4-5h north of NYC.
My boundary school is actually Wilson. I have been wanting to transfer there since I moved to this area, but my mom will not let me. She is the one who wants me to graduate this Spring at the prestigious public school. It would be terrible to be in constant arguing with her if I made the choice of transferring. I know is my life, but she is my mother and I do not want to disappoint her or develop a bad relationship with her due to my choice. I am not even sure if DCPS would allow me to redo my senior year since right now I am on a track to graduate but with low grades. Do you think going to Itacha is the best option I have?
I have four realistic options right now. 1st: gap year and then going to CC hoping to transfer to UMD. 2nd: going to the bad 4-year institutions that provided me with full tuition and attempting to transfer out after 2 years. 3rd: going to Ithaca but then transferring to an even better. Do you think I could transfer to an even better institution after going to that school? I have no idea if that is even a possibility. 4th: Applying to more institutions now and even more once they release their miscalculated yield.
Which one do you think is the best option to ensure I go to a college that will guarantee me with good job opportunities? My desired field at this point would be anything related to political science including IA.
And sorry for the grammatical and spelling mistakes. As you stated I am tired and today is a day off but I have been overly stressed today trying to find out what to do after finding out that neither American nor GW will give me a single penny in aid. I am desperate to find out a solution but it seems like no one knows one (including my college counselor)
I am assuming that you package at Ithaca included room and board? Ithaca is NOT NYC. It’s upstate NY, in Ithaca NY. It’s a decent school, and if they gave you enough aid, that’s where you should go. If you have bad grades in senior year of high school, taking a gap year and reapplying is a terrible idea.
FYI, American and GWU are not known for providing significant (I mean at least 70% of tuition+R&B) FinAid to many students. They both have a few (very few) scholarships that are very competitive, but it’s not easy to get them. Your GC should have known that. It’s possible your GC did know that but knew that you might prefer to remain close to home, so those two had to be included. Still, the GC should have provided more schools for you to apply to.
I think you need to stop factoring “better” and “even better” into your school shopping vocabularly. First, the reality is many people do not know what actually makes a school “better” beyond rankings in various publications. In your case (and my family’s) what makes a “better” school is one that has good academic standards and one that offers enough FinAid to be affordable. Those are the two things that matter first, second, and third.
It sounds like Ithaca is your current best option. Ithaca is doggone good academically. There is nothing to be ashamed of about going and graduating from Ithaca. While you consider your other options, you should concurrently keep communicating with Ithaca. Ask them how to apply for a FinAid Appeal which might award you a few more dollars. Ask them how to apply for additional scholarships - many schools have a link to outside scholarships affiliated with the school. An extra $2000 here and $600 there will make a huge difference for you.
Next, apply to more schools. NOW. There are many schools still accepting applications until April 1 and May 1. If you used Common App and/or Coalition App, get on there now and apply to as many schools in a 200 mile radius that are still accepting applications and that you are the least (and I mean least) bit interested in attending. As in - “I’ll go here only if the first 33 schools on my list say no.” In that case, #34 will look very good.
Try Loyola Maryland. Try UMBC. Try Randolph Macon. Try VCU. Try St Mary’s. Try Goucher. Try Allegheny in PA, a little further, but worth a shot. Don’t restrict yourself to some imaginary list of “better” schools. Some will deny admit. Some will admit but offer not enough FinAid. Fortunately, all you need is one to admit and be affordable. But you can’t find that one if your don’t apply to it.
The solution is there. You just have to try to find it a little differently than your GC has been trying to help you. Ask more questions here in this thread. Apply to more schools. Keep trying. Maybe broaden your radius just a little. After all, you have to go where the money is.
Wilson is a ‘prestigious’ DC public school #justsayin
Agree that if your senior year grades are bad you either take Ithaca, Marymount or CC. 2 years at any of them will ameliorate your bad HS grades. For IA it’s really not about the coursework- it’s all about internships. The advantage of Marymount or CC is that your are in situ for internships. It will take hustle to get them- half of the 18-25 population in DC is trying to get them! but it can be done. Marymount has a long history in the area, and lots of people have friends or family who passed through there. You can be sure anybody teaching polisci at MoCoCo has some awareness of how internships work. In either place you could be a star, which is more of a benefit than you might realize.
you can only borrow $6-7k/year and 2) debt + IA is veryveryvery bad combintaion
Ithaca is not affordable. The gap is too wide for a low income student to bridge. It shouldn’t even be under discussion. COA is around $68k, and I think it’s conservative as the personal and travel costs in that budget are low and she’ll likely need health insurance.
Can you list what you see on your financial aid package from Ithaca:
(tuition, fees, room, board) - (scholarships, grants) =…
Your 4 realistic options are correct.
However, if you can’t take fewer hours to spend more time on your schoolwork, lots of doors will close because these final grades senior year will be anchors around your neck. Most colleges won’t recognize D grades, so it’ll be as if you didn’t graduate from HS with these courses. There has to be a way: either find a way to get your grades up (fewer hours/someone else in your family to pick up the slack? asking the school for help with something- for instance,free breakfast/free lunch would be that much saved for your mother, not much, but it’d be a little every day, enough to offset your not working for a few hours…)
Wilson is the only high school in DC that parents try to get their kids into and don’t try to get them elsewhere (there’s even a study about it, you can look it up and show your mother). It’s an excellent public high school! Graduating from that school would not be detrimental, especially if you graduate with A’s.
Look, your mother wants you to go to college, not just graduate HS, right?
@happymomof1 could you please talk about MD community colleges and transfer to a four year school.
To the OP…your issue here is you are an international student right now. You are not eligible for any federally funded need based aid. It will also be a challenge for you to get private loans here unless you have a qualified U.S. citizen as a cosigner.
I went back and looked and you’re right. I was still assuming it had come in affordable because when it was originally brought up, the COA was mentioned as being around $13K.
All the more reason to continue applying elsewhere.
I think I would also be concerned that your family will need you to work when you’re at CC or Uni and this will be detrimental to your grades. If you took a gap year, you could work full time to help your family (and hopefully save some yourself), and it would give them 12+ months to sort themselves out, and time for your immigration status to change.
I would hate you to start somewhere and then have to leave or fail out due to working long hours as @EconPop said happened to his friend’s son. It happened to a friend of mine at university too. He eventually went back aged 26 to a local school, and has had a successful career as a HS science teacher, but he was in lots of debt with little to show for it for a long time.
I do appreciate, however, that with low grades a gap year may not be best. But perhaps gap year to MoCo CC to UMD would be a suitable option?
Happykid graduated from Montgomery College, and I teach there now part-time in the Continuing Education division. If your family can move to Montgomery County, you would have in-county residency for tuition and fees after three months here. Talk things over with your parents. Find out if that is possible.
Get a meeting with the financial aid office at MC, and find out what you are eligible for there. Montgomery College has a whole bunch of merit scholarships with different requirements, so spend some time on the website and look for them. The transfer advisors are excellent. You will be well-prepared for transfer and for success wherever you end up. Happykid transferred to Towson after finishing her AA at MC, and graduated from there in two years.
From your description of your situation, it looks like your family is in some kind of asylum application waiting situation. If you are, you have all my sympathies. I have a number of former students who are in that situation and paying for their kids’ educations has been a nightmare. Fingers crossed for you.
I am a big fan of Trinity Washington U. It made a successful pivot from being a very White, very Roman Catholic institution that served the daughters of the upper middle class, to serving a more local student base (many of them working and studying at night and on weekends). If it turns out to be your only affordable option, go there and rock your experience. It can still help you achieve your goals.
In short, you’re still the same smart and dedicated you, but you’re powerless in the circumstances caused by covid.