<p>Please honest answers only...I am at a high (red hot high) risk of my GPA falling below a 2.0 which would mean I would lose my financial aid. I'm currently a sophomore and I would not be able to continue school if this happened. I get too much to just find it without seeking the money through illicit means which I do not even want to do (sex worker, drug dealing, etc)</p>
<p>I have had mental health issues since my senior year of high school...which shows in my grades. I knew at the time I probably should have waited to go to college but I was so suicidal that I thought if I changed the scenery it would get better.
I remember sitting in my room wondering...do I go to college or do I kill myself? I was also very happy before that year...I thought it would pass..I did well in high school, honors/APs, graduated top quarter. Just a pretty average, happy kid.</p>
<p>Well it didn't. My first semester I got by with a 2.8, and that was after dropping a class. I got in trouble for drugs that semester and they suspected I was trying to kill myself but I really wasn't (over the counter - not illegal. I don't do drugs and they can test me for all I care)
My second semester I got in trouble again for suicidal thoughts (I was reported) and this time for my past with overdose I was whisked away by school police to a mental hospital for a week. This did not help at all because I didn't cooperate. I did nothing but lie because I didn't want to take medicine. Things just got worse that semester, I developed bulimia, overdosed with intent to kill myself (a couple of times? - it all started to blur)
I dropped another class this semester, my gpa stayed stable.</p>
<p>I have trouble explaining why I am doing poorly in school.. I know I have mental issues beyond depression and I have been told that I am clearly mentally unstable by my academic adviser which was nice.</p>
<p>This semester...not so good. again not sure what is wrong with me exactly but my gpa is not good. I will most likely fail every class. I have pinpointed a professor in my past that if I took him to the dean I would probably get a grade change enough to save me. I just feel trapped and I'm not sure what to do. I have also gotten in disciplinary trouble this semester for communications with a professor. (oh well)</p>
<p>should I even try to take this to the financial aid appeals committee? I understand people have much worse lives than me...but I'm just wondering if this classifies as "serious illness". there's a notice about not caring about adjustment issues but this really isn't the case here. I've been dealing with this before college. I'm just wondering if I should not begin to be hopeful. I don't think I would take getting kicked out of school very well at all...no not one bit.</p>
<p>I think you should talk to the fiancial aid officer at your school in conjunction with a mental health counselor that many schools have. You need some help. It would be nice if you can take a leave of absence without being so forced. Let’s give it a good try.</p>
<p>But whether it works or not, I think you need to take a break from school and focus on your mental health. Find a job, find counseling, talk to a minister, an adult, some friends. and try to find some way to focus on balance. School is not the be all to end all, and if you are so close to the edge all of the time, you risk falling off, even if you get your waivers this time. You have some things you need to address, and writing this post is a good step, in that you are acknowledging your issues.</p>
<p>I think you can only help your case, and yourself, if you cooperate with your diagnosis and treatment. And do it now, tomorrow–you can’t afford to wait to get help.</p>
<p>go to the dean of students and ask for in completes while you seek medical treatment. When you are doing better you can complete the courses. For now you need treatment asap and with incompletes, you can worry about all of that other stuff later.</p>
<p>does anyone else have an opinion on this?
it’s just a scary feeling…some ease of people that have won in similar situations would be nice. I would really appreciate it</p>
<p>Lost, I think you are focusing on the wrong thing. I honestly think you should take a medical leave of absence immediately if possible or, at best, get the incompletes mentioned above. If you withdrew, you would have a semester of Withdrawls and it might mean you lose financial aid because of SAP (the percentage of classes passed versus classes attempted) but you would salvage your gpa for the future. (The incompletes would buy you some time to do the work on your own-- which is good IF the work is doable. If you are so way behind that you can’t make it up, it will just extend the stress.) Then, I think you need to focus on life outside of school. College is not the end all, be all. I know this is college confidential and that is the focus of these boards but the parents you are talking to know the truth: health is WAY MORE important than degrees. College is stressful and it’s not unusual for students to have issues dealing with the stress and for mental illness to come out while people are away at college, without the support of their families, and not taking care of themselves in the way they would at home. I think you should walk away from college for now, get better then look at working and going to college part-time while you work. You need to take care of you right now.</p>
<p>Not going to college scares me, going to college part time scares me, taking a leave of absence scares me…I grew up in a family where both of my parents worked minimum wage</p>
<p>if I left school even for a semester the anxiety of not ever getting back would cripple me. I just feel like people who take leaves never go back (and I know that’s not true though…some where deep in the back of my mind) and to me that’s too risky</p>
If this isn’t hyperbole, then I have to ask, and you should be asking yourself, what the point is of trying to keep your financial aid when you aren’t making real progress toward a degree? </p>
<p>To answer the specific question in your title, based on what you have related, I can’t imagine how you could win an appeal. Typically in an appeal process you have to show that you know what went wrong (you don’t seem to have any idea) and set out your plans to correct the problems. Could you make a persuasive case that you will be able to turn things around? If you don’t think so yourself, how will anyone else be convinced? In addition, your history at the school strongly suggests that college is not where you belong now and that the school’s financial aid would better used for someone else. </p>
<p>I concur with the other posters who urge you to tale a leave of absence and seriously address your mental health, deferring educational plans until a time when you are in a position to pursue them successfully.</p>
<p>I checked on the leave of absence. In order to take one you must have a 2.0, which I will not. So this quite literally is my only option. No, it wasn’t a hyperbole.</p>
<p>Well…I do not understand my mental state and that is the truth…but I am willing to seek help again obviously. I have problems with suppressing my past/emotions/feelings and it has made therapy difficult in the past for me because I actually do not know the problem with me. This has scared me enough to go in and face what I don’t want to face. I am unsure how personal I need to make this letter. I’m sure they don’t want to read someone blabber on but I don’t know what I need to do to win.</p>
<p>Because again - I have to win or I’m really screwed and that’s certainly not a place that’s good for me.</p>
<p>I think you are in a very troubled place but it is NOT ahopeless situation. I myself took a leave of absence for mental health reasons when i was in college and this was back int he day when mental health issues were more stigmatized!! This is actually something that not a lot of people talk about but it does happen and people survive it all teh time! We have this attitude towards mental illness that it is a moral failure or something that cannot ever be defeated but nothing can be further from the truth. The best thing that you can realise at this point is that college will ALWAYS be there. All colleges worth their salt have resources on campus! because they know about this stuff happening to students all the time! A lot of them will allow you to pick back up where you left off after your mental health leave of absence and others will allow you to take a reduced courseload and therapy at the same time. It sounds unbeatable but that’s because we have left you with the impression that if you leave college for any period of time you won’t be able to get back in without a massive amount of effort but most if not all colleges work hard to make sure that you can take care of yourself and do great in college and it’s not a balancing act where you have to decide between going to college or being healthy!</p>
<p>As far as the appeal letter – there’s no reason to worry about ‘blabber’. All of the information about your mental health is directly relevate to the issue at hand so there is no reason for you to feel bad to leave out. Include everything that is relevant; the people there are experienced and they know what they are reading for! If it makes your argument cohesively there is no reason to leave any information out!</p>