I was accepted into UConn for fall of 2016 as a freshman, but I decided to enroll in a different school instead. Today I received a letter from the other school, an extremely expensive private school, that upon reviewing my FASFA and CSS after I sent in my deposit, they have decided to cut a large portion of my financial aid. I’m panicking because trying to afford this school is going to be extremely difficult now, and I was wondering is it too late to put down a deposit for UConn and attend there in the fall instead? I know its past the May 1st deadline but I was wondering if there was any hope at all for me here.
That seems so unfair! I would call that expensive private school you chose and speak to someone in their Financial Aid Dept. See if they can meet you half way. This seems unethical to change their financial commitment to you. Conversely, you did not commit to UConn by the May 1st deadline, so you are unfortunately out of luck for this year. They have had many of us very hopefully waiting for waitlist spots who never wavered in wanting to go and never turned them down. Many have gotten in, but many have recently been turned down, and it hurts for us. We all had to commit to another school by May 1st too, so we will now go to the school we deposited with, and do our absolute best to fully embrace it, and if we choose to we can try to transfer to UCONN next year. Many of us if in-state will also spend more money to go to another school since we got turned down for UCONN, and it will be very financially challenging, and we are doing all we can to make it work. As hurt as you are about your recent news, you essentially made the choice to turn UCONN down, and I know it sounds harsh, but now you’d be asking to have officially stated, long-standing terms and conditions bent for you. You’d be asking them to break public trust and their own contract of sorts with applicants by allowing someone that turned them down and did not fulfill the agreement to send in a deposit by May 1st, to now get in over those that followed the requirements. We have to learn that our choices have both positive and negative consequences in life, and unfortunately we can’t always change our minds and ask others to change rules to accommodate us. I am so sorry for what this expensive college is doing to you, as it doesn’t seem right at all! Don’t panic (which is understandable, but you can’t), as life will always throw curves at you, but you must push through and solve things. Go to said expensive school for one year, get a work study, or off campus part time job to help bridge the gap, work extra hours this summer to help and then transfer to UCONN for sophomore year. If you go to UCONN the rest of your college years, the savings will certainly make up for the extra bit you had to spend for Freshman year at the expensive private school you chose. Besides you never know who you might meet at your chosen school that can change the course of your life in some way, or how your personal situation might change. You are stuck for freshman year, but don’t look at it as being stuck. Look at it as an opportunity to solve a problem and make the best of things for now, and look at things again after your first semester and if things are not financially better you can transfer for Sophomore year. Good luck - write back and let us know how you work it out! Nothing great is w/o risk, unforseen challenges and hard work! I am thinking that if you got into this pricey private school, it is probably very selective, and you are likely a quite bright, top notch, competitive, hard worker, and you will figure this out. It’s thankfully only one year to figure out for all of us, not our whole lives. You can do this!