<p>Well, they wouldn’t be atypical for students in similar situations (unsupported student + financial aid slashed). It’s just that most students tend to have some form of support net and so by that, alone, it’s atypical.</p>
<p>Penn was far, far, far more responsive to students who had some degree of clout behind them. For instance, I could name you one kid in particular whose father’s influence and wealth was enough to justify having thousands of dollars hacked off some expense the kid had racked up. Someone like me has absolutely no leverage in that kind of negotiation. I’d get hit with a bill and try to knock off what I could out of pocket from work, or put the rest into a loan if I could get it, but whatever spilled out past that I’d have to try to negotiate. If I couldn’t negotiate in time, I’d be placed on financial hold, which meant your status as a student is effectively frozen and you can’t do a thing. It’s impossible to buy books or register for classes or access certain interfaces or leverage your student account, etc. By the time you get something figured out, classes have already started and you have to play catchup, etc etc etc. It’s just a neverending cycle.</p>
<p>I probably should have transferred (but even this, at the time, was infeasible and expensive), but I felt like the one who needed to change was Penn, not me. I was a top applicant who got into multiple Ivies and had perfect marks across the board coming out of a broken family, first gen – there was no way in hell I was going to sacrifice that lifetime accomplishment. On some level, perhaps I felt that a top institution like Penn should have cut me a bit of slack and help me figure out a way to finance everything instead of just shrugging their shoulders at me every time I asked a question. Sometimes I’d get hit with the weirdest errors and penalties (the more blatant being a charge for $100 for not returning a cart within the hour allotted when I had taken it out for maybe a grand total of 10 minutes – but nope, couldn’t get it removed, even though I told them to just check the cameras). It was ridiculous, and there’s no other word for it.</p>
<p>It’s just not what I expected from a top school at all. </p>
<p>Sorry for the rant but I obviously have major gripes with the way I was treated there.</p>