<p>School of the Art Institute of Chicago has offered me a financial aid award that includes $33,000 in loans. $9,500 of it is in Stafford loans, the rest would be in Plus or private loans. </p>
<p>SAIC is my first choice school, but it is a great deal of debt to incur. I went to community college and have worked full-time for the past 5 years, yet I have no savings due to medical expenses and losing my job at the end of November. The only student debt I have is for a Stafford loan from when I originally went off to school at $1600 (originally $2500) that I have paid off gradually when I have taken time off school (I have worked and taken classes online or in the evening when I have been able to pay out of pocket) and I have medical debt that is about $12,000. Because I was working two jobs my EFC is 5526, but I do not have that. I am currently applying for food stamps and medicaid because I can not afford my epilepsy medication even though I am working two part time jobs, neither of which offer me health insurance. I can barely pay my rent, honestly. I plan to appeal my award, but how do I approach this?</p>
<p>I have heard that if you appeal and ask SAIC for more grant money they usually will meet your request if you have legitimate reasons. Does anyone have experience with SAIC or other schools that were successful?</p>
<p>Even if your work history qualifies you to take out a private loan, that amount of debt is absolutely unmanageable - particular where you are embarking on a career with a very uncertain earning potential.</p>
<p>You can appeal the award by telling them that it’s your first choice school and you’d attend if it were affordable . . . but that this amount of debt is simply unmanageable. Even if they’re willing to adjust your aid package, I don’t think the adjustment would be enough to make the school affordable . . . and, if it isn’t, you need to be willing to say “no thank you” and walk away.</p>
<p>But it can’t hurt to try.</p>
<p>I realize I may have to walk away from SAIC, the debt they are asking me to take on is more than I have ever earned even working two jobs. I have applied to other schools, but haven’t gotten back any other letters, acceptances or otherwise. I recently applied to a state school that I am guaranteed admission to and I hope I hear back from them soon. </p>
<p>My question is really how do I write the letter to appeal for more aid? What has been successful for other people in this regard? How do I communicate that I am consistently on the verge of not being able to pay my rent, so how could I possibly foot the bill at SAIC without sounding like a sob story?</p>
<p>You got NOTHING from SAIC, absolutely zero, as the Staffords are available to anyone vetted through FAFSA and you can get the same to use at any accredited school with a cost that is justifiable for the amount. PLUS and private loans are not being offered to you. You have to APPLY and there is no guarantee that you will even get one if you don’t make the requirements, and again that same option is out there for any number of schools for anyone. So understand that they gave you nothing. That is where you are starting when you appeal. Getting from there to what you need is not going to be likely, and they already know what you need as they have seen your EFC. This is not a school that guarantees to meet full need and they don’t tend to do so. You can give it a try, but I don’t think a sob story is even going to do it for you. They don’t have the money to give out. They are LOOKING FOR money from the students, not the other way around. This is a business. Please understand that as you are looking at “offers”. The schools are looking for paying customers. The only time they generally pay is when you have something they need to enhance their own profiles and they have their wishlists as to what they want. If you don’t get a scholarship to go, you don’t have what they want to pay for.</p>
<p>I actually did get grants and scholarships from SAIC, a substantial amount of them, actually, just not enough. I meet many of the criteria that many colleges want, but again I made a lot for a 27 year old because I worked full-time with an additional part-time job and was very frugal. What the FAFSA and my EFC don’t account for is the fact that I pay almost $5000 in medical bills every year because I have two chronic medical issues, they don’t account for the fact that I lost my job in November and have been unable to gain full-time employment, that neither of my two part-time jobs offer medical benefits, or the fact that I am waiting on decisions for food stamps, tanf, and medicaid benefits. There is a lot that the FAFSA doesn’t take into account, but I was banking on my portfolio to carry me because I had two very, very positive portfolio reviews with the school (I don’t use superlatives lightly as a general rule,) met with one of their star faculty when they visited the university I worked at and have maintained favorable correspondence, was allowed to apply for merit aid, am a member of my CC honors program and a member of Phi Theta Kappa. I don’t expect a full ride by any means, and I understand why I don’t qualify for the Pell Grant nor begrudge it, but I worked very hard so please don’t make gibes at me. I understand financial aid, I have attended a few schools and applied for FA many times. SAIC is a non-profit organization with an endowment $186,722,000 in 2011. I wanted to go to SAIC and neglected to apply to Yale’s program which meets need for students which I regret, and I have gotten better offers from all the schools I applied to. I was asking for advice about writing an appeal, not for a critique of my wants nor my abilities, thank you.</p>
<p>I think you are asking for appeals “success stories” and there aren’t too many of those or, people embellish their stories here a little. That’s why you’re not getting responses on how to appeal. </p>
<p>The posters here are trying to be honest and help you avoid more debt. But you’re taking their honesty and experience as criticisms. Most schools know who they want and they don’t guarantee full rides for anyone anymore especially transfer students. Remember that FAFSA is a holding agency of information; they don’t make financial decisions for the schools; they provide a number called an EFC that is based on a formula. It’s up to the university to number crunch.</p>
<p>Re our family, we tried appealing but the FA offices just exchanged one set of funding for another but it didn’t change the gap in what we needed. It wasn’t worth it so our daughters went to schools we could afford.</p>
<p>Medical bills are an extraordinary expense, so you want to request a special special consideration based on that expense. Medical expenses are one of the very few things that might warrant a deviation from the formula the school would otherwise use to calculate your eligibility for aid.</p>
<p>What you might want to do is contact the admissions office and find out who your specific admissions officer is. Then speak with that person, explain your situation, and find out (1) if that person can help and (b) if there’s someone specific you should be speaking to in the financial aid office. I’d guess that you probably want to bring this to the head of the financial aid office.</p>
<p>Good luck!!!</p>
<p>With medical bills, you can ask for an appeal. Send copies of the bills you PAID last year, not owe, but PAID. Also show when you lost your job and what your income is right now. </p>
<p>Still when a person shows higher income that the true picture (job lost towards end of the year, expensive catastrophe) or anything that is more money than what the person will get this year, then a gap year is often advised. Financial aid is based on the year before and that principle often cannot be given enough exception to get certain need based aid. So you take off the year, and show the school truly low income for 2013. But then you risk losing the grants which are not guaranteed. When you are dealing with a school that does not guarantee to meet need, you are taking that chance. But the year is still barely out of its first quarter, and colleges are not likely to give aid on what the future looks like financially, just on what is done and documented. That documentation is very important. </p>
<p>But frankly, a $30K gap is not likely to be closed with anything but loans, and that’s what has been suggested to you for that gap–loans. Unless an outright mistake has been made, the chances are slim to none that you get much more. Most appeals, unless some something was left out or there was an error, result in a thousand or so in adjustments, not $30K.</p>
<p>I can’t really take a gap year with SAIC, this is the last semester they are enrolling students into the BFA in Art history, theory, and criticism program. If I take a gap year, that option will be off the table. I applied to SAIC just for the BFA Art history program. At other schools I would have to double major in Art History and Studio Art/Photography and it may take longer to complete my degree. I would love to be able to work as an artist, but realize that is probably not feasible, but a career in academia might be more so. I don’t know of any other school of this caliber that offers a very similar degree.
So basically it’s give up the dream forever and settle for an inferior program or appeal/take out the loans.
It’s really difficult for me to think of taking a gap year, basically the past 2 years have been gap years with me working two jobs and taking additional cc classes at night because the cc I got my degree through didn’t offer classes pertinent to what work I want to do. I don’t want to stay in the city I’m in, especially since I’ve lost my job that I loved. I don’t have parents to help or move back in with, I have no older adults in my life to help with this decision. I’m 27 years old and there aren’t many gap years left for me, and that gap year facing me seems pretty destitute. I’ve been out of full-time work for four months now, on of the small companies I work for part-time might fire me because they found out I have epilepsy and think I may have misrepresented myself in them hiring me because I didn’t disclose and I told them that I can work alone (which I can since my condition is very well controlled with medication, and they are not covered by the ADA because of their small size.) I’m applying for public benefits, and am trying to find programs to cover my meds that I will run out of in the next month. I applied to three schools because I couldn’t afford to apply to anymore, and SAIC is the only one I have heard back from so far, though one is a TX state school and has guaranteed admission for me because of my Associate’s degree and GPA. Basically, I just don’t know what to do at all with this situation. I appreciate you all’s help, I’m just in a hard spot because whatever I do, wherever I go or stay, I will be in debt.</p>
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<p>This is the part I would question. Lots of schools offer art history . . . and I’m not convinced SAIC would offer you any advantage when it comes to finding a job in academia. This is NOT my area of expertise, though. You might want to raise this question over on the [Visual</a> Arts](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/visual-arts-film-majors/]Visual”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/visual-arts-film-majors/) forum.</p>
<p>The problem is that teaching may not pay enough to cover the high loans you’re looking at, and there’s also no guarantee you’d be able to find a job immediately (or even soon). And then you could be in real trouble. It just seems to me (again, not an expert on fine arts!) that it would be safer to get a bachelors degree you can afford and then, once you have a job and steady income, look at going back and getting a masters.</p>
<p>My advice? Go elsewhere for the undergrad & then get your masters at a really good MFA school.</p>
<p>Many schools do offer Art History, that is true. Not many schools offer a BFA Art History program, so I would have to get a BA in Art History plus a BFA in studio art/photography, this might double the amount of time I am in school and not really change how much debt I wrack up. The only schools I can find that offer a BFA in art history are Pratt, MICA, and Paris College of Art. All of which are priced similarly to SAIC, but are not in the top three schools like SAIC.
I am not planning to teach, mainly I want to work in a museum or a university doing research. I have over 10 years experience working in museums, I recently was terminated at my job at the largest university art museum in the country. I wanted to move up there, but couldn’t because UT-Austin requires curatorial assistants to have a BA or BFA to even apply to the position, it didn’t matter that I had worked there for 4 years, had previously worked with the curators and tech teams, knew our catalog like the back of my hand, etc.<br>
And now the issue is that I’ve missed the deadlines for many, many schools, not even considering if I could have afforded to apply to them. And on top of that SAIC is the only school I have heard back from, I can’t stay where I am and I cannot wait another year. So what does that leave me to do?</p>