Did anyone else realize that the college they chose was a piece of shit and end up transferring? That's what happened to me, so I'm going to 'drop out' for the rest of this semester, then transfer to another school next semester.

The school I'm currently attending is a very expensive, and supposedly very good, private school. Tuition is over $10,000 a semester. That wasn't a problem though, because I got a $50,000 scholarship, so I get $6,250 a semester from that, and my financial aid should have covered the other ~$4,000.

From day 1 I've been having problems. My first semster, somebody in the registrar's office marked that I never registered for classes, which doesn't even make sense because I did and I was on all of my teacher's rosters. So in October I got a letter saying that I owed ~$10,000, called the school to see why, and they said "Oh yea, we made a mistake. Sorry about that. We'll give you all of your scholarships and financial aid back now... Oh, wait, except for this $2,000 scholarship that you were supposed to get. We ran out of money for that, so you won't be getting it. Sorry. Oh, and by the way, we need $1,500 or you won't be able to register for next semester." (I guess I was supposed to be getting a refund or something, or maybe I'm getting my numbers mixed up [this was 2 years ago], but I do remember that I owed $1,500.)

Luckily my mom is obsessed with keeping me in college, so she paid the $1,500 and I registered. I had to fight with the business office to keep from having to pay the $150 late fee though, since it was their mistake that caused me to make a late payment.

I filled out my FAFSA this past spring for the current school year. I found out in June that it had been rejected because my mom didn't sign it. I went to the school and they gave me a form to have her fill out and sign, and she mailed it and faxed a copy of it to the school.

Wednesday I was trying to look up my degree plan online, and it wouldn't let me because there was a hold on my account. I went to the financial aid office to see why, and they told me that my FAFSA had been rejected again, so I owed the school $4,000. I called my mom to make sure that she had indeed turned in the form, and she said that she had.

I decided that enough was enough and got the paperwork that I needed to withdraw. I had to talk to the dean and get him to approve it, and after explaining everything to him, he asked me to give him until Monday before I made my decision so he would have a chance to talk to the financial aid office and see what was going on. He said that I should have been notified by the school that my FAFSA was rejected a second time, but I wasn't, so I have no idea what's going on with that. I have another meeting with him tomorrow at 1 o'clock, and he's supposed to tell me why my FAFSA got rejected for the second time this year and why the school didn't tell me sooner.

Which leads to the best part of the story (in my opinion): Yesterday (October 25th), I got a letter in the mail from the school which said that I owe them $4,000. The letter was dated October 9th (the day that they printed it), and it said that in order to avoid having a hold placed on my account, I need to pay my tuition by October 22nd. It was postmarked October 24th. I can't wait to show that to the dean tomorrow.

Anyways, I'm transferring to a public university where tuition is $2,500 a semester for 15 hours, and you get an automatic $500 a semester scholarship as long as you maintain a 2.0 GPA. Assuming I don't have the same problems with my FAFSA, I might even end up getting paid to go to school.

Has anyone else had the same sort of issues that I'm having at my current school in regards to financial aid?

I haven't had any of those issues, but I might be transferring to a different school for spring semester myself, and I'm wondering how well my scholarships will transfer over there. Sounds like your school is just really disorganized and shitty. I tell you there's nothing I hate more than when people fuck up like that. I had a bullshit $100 charge on my account because of a "lost residence hall key" when in reality, my lock had broke and we had to get a new lock, so they gave us a new key. And I turned in both keys at the end of the year! I had to talk to 3 people and bitch repeatedly to my hall director to get him to remove the charge. God I hate that shit.

I would suggest you talking to your financial aid department at your school and the place you want to transfer to.

Are you getting any of those Stafford/Perkins/federal or state loans? You might want to talk to American Education Services because I know they handle alot of that stuff too.

Again, the only people who can give you straight answers are the financial aid people at your school. I transferred colleges (not mid semester though), I pretty much informed the FAFSA people and AES and they got everything straightened out before I got there.

I would suggest you talking to your financial aid department at your school and the place you want to transfer to.

Are you getting any of those Stafford/Perkins/federal or state loans? You might want to talk to American Education Services because I know they handle alot of that stuff too.

Again, the only people who can give you straight answers are the financial aid people at your school. I transferred colleges (not mid semester though), I pretty much informed the FAFSA people and AES and they got everything straightened out before I got there.

Nope, I can't get those loans without my FAFSA being processed.

Yeah those FAFSA people are real d-bags. I just found out that my FAFSA was rejected for the second or third time because I put the wrong birth date for my mom. Someone from AES called me and I have to call them back.

Now they're saying that the paper that they had my mom fill out and sign wasn't for my FAFSA, it was just some random signature that they needed to get. :rolleyes:

They also told me that even if I do withdraw, I still have to pay the $4,000. I think that's bullshit because they didn't tell me that I owed the $4,000 until after the last day to drop was. They should have let me know before the last day to drop that I owed the money, not over a fucking month later. Now I just have to convince the financial aid office that.

Good luck.

Good luck.

Thanks, I need it. I'm going in tomorrow to talk to them.