<p>Hi everyone.
I'm currently a 2nd year student at a community college, just doing gen ed classes and going for my Liberal Arts degree. I want to transfer for Acting and possibly English or Spanish and the deadlines are coming up. My financial aid for this college is all student loans and is roughly about 14k to 15k. Up until today, I've been dead set on going straight to another college, but my dad has been telling me that I should take a year off and pay off my loans. I live at home and my parents are pretty supportive financially in that they aren't making me pay rent or for my car or cell phone. I just pay for gas. However they are not financially strong enough to help me with paying for my education. Like I said, I've been pretty set on going straight to another school next fall, mostly because I'm worried that if I take a year off, it will hurt me academically. </p>
<p>But I woke up this morning with some doubts.</p>
<p>I really don't have a huge theatre resume or a lot of writing credits that I could show to colleges on an application at this point. I haven't gotten the experience that they might like to see. My city isn't like New York, Chicago, or LA in terms of a performing arts scene, but there is still a pretty strong one especially in my county and surrounding counties. If I were to take time off to get a full time job and devote more time to my acting and my writing, I could get both my student loans paid off (at least pay off a nice chunk), and get field experience and network with people who could give me references.</p>
<p>At the same time, I still want to apply and see if I can get into the colleges I'm looking at, see what financial aid they would give me. I'm also afraid that if I am accepted, they won't allow me (as a transfer student) to defer my acceptance for a year before I attend so I can pay off the loans I have. I'm also afraid that if I apply now and am accepted, I won't be accepted the next time around, because the acceptance pool for transfer students at any college narrows considerably smaller than the freshman pool. </p>
<p>I guess I'm looking for advice from someone who has gone through something similar? Thorough advice though, please. I'm really having a crisis and I'm not sure what exactly I should do.</p>