Conflicted student with a confusing transcript + limited college options

austinmshauri
Tue, 17 May 2016 10:51:32 +0000

balochi:

I’ve written a lot of pieces on conflicts in my home country (particularly an insurgency movement I find very interesting, and human rights in the Global South in general).

Are you a US citizen or here on some sort of visa? If you’re a citizen, your family may qualify for a Pell grant (~$5k/year) and you can take out a federal student loan (~$5500/year). If you want to go away to college, you probably need to work summers to raise some money. You also need stats that are high enough to qualify for merit aid. There’s a thread about guaranteed merit pinned to the top of the financial aid forum. Use that to get started. I don’t think I’d graduate early if I were you. You need time to raise your GPA and test scores if you want a chance at dorming somewhere.

If you’re an international student it will be much more difficult because costs are higher and the competition is tougher.