<p>Congratulations! I hope your D has a wonderful college experience.</p>
<p>This thread has 3,833 views and 121 posts. It gave parents a few topics to think about or investigate when we are thinking about our high school kids and college selection. </p>
<p>The thread included lessons that are especially relevant to anyone who is, or is the parent of, a high school senior who has a strong preference for his or her intended major.</p>
<p>Great news! You’ll have to come back to give us updates on your D’s navigation through the B.F.A. program.</p>
<p>I think the key lesson here (maybe the only lesson) is that the week before Memorial Day is often a week when administrators and faculty go on vacation, and deans and registrars are still working to digest the needs of students (generally speaking) whose admissions have been account for less than 10 days previously.</p>
<p>Mini:</p>
<pre><code>I have to get the last word in. Of course it wasn’t because of vacations? There just wasn’t solid anything in place for incoming art majors, which I brought to their attention, and it is hopefully working out and will change. I also hoped to change their perceptions about the art dept. so it could be a viable major there. Take care.
</code></pre>
<p>Upsetmom</p>
<p>Congrats. I’m so glad this is on the way of being fully resolved.</p>
<p>I guess I’ll be seeing your D at AU then this fall. I’ve applied to Hughes, too.</p>
<p>So, I guess AU listened to the problem and responded well, in an even better way than the minimal solution of making space for her D in a class. It probably took time for them to come a consensus (and find the staff time) to add a section, which could be the reason for why the resolution of this issue took so long.</p>
<p>All in all, I would say this reflects well on AU.</p>
<p>I am absolutely positive (all right, only 99%) that they didn’t create an entire new section in order to accommodate this particular student’s individual need. After they finished with figuring out who was actually planning to attend (which they could only have done in the few days before this thread started), and looking at their upperclass course registrations, they figured out where their needs were. (They do this every year with language sections, and writing sections, among others). Thankfully (strangely enough), their endowment is relatively low, and they spend very little of it in yearly operating expenditures - otherwise they would have very little flexibility. Complicated by a vacation or two in the week before Memorial Day.</p>
<p>Very glad it is working out.</p>
<p>Mini:</p>
<pre><code> Once again, I agree to disagree. My daughter’s original advisor said that she always had to tell the freshman art students that all of the studio courses are filled, and that they would have to take other gen eds instead. Dean of Academic Affairs said this as well. That these classes are normally filled to the max with big waiting lists. This was the first time a new section was created and particularly for the art majors. There are also some other changes currently going on in the art department now. Memorial weekend has nothing to do with it. A university doesn’t close down for the week before Memorial Day. In fact, all of the administrators I called were ALL there with the exception of the Art Chair and they operated subsequently without him.
</code></pre>
<p>Upsetmom</p>
<p>The important thing is that your daughter is getting the courses she needs. There’s no benefit in continuing to brow beat the administration. They did what they needed to do (whatever it was!) and her needs were met. You need to move on…</p>
<p>Dear Hello: You are absolutely right. I am moving on. However, Mini has continued to make unfounded comments that downplay and belittle the efforts our family and kind people on this post have made and the stress my family has gone through to correct the problems. So, I have felt compelled to respond to this. However, that is her opinion and she has a right to it. The bottom line is hopefully and we will see in the fall, that the changes fully occur for my daughter.</p>
<p>Upsetmom</p>
<p>Go Red! Go Red!</p>
<p>:) still very happy that you were able to advocate for your D and all future students with this major. I think its wonderful you stuck your neck out (and footing the bill) so she can start AU running!</p>
<p>I too am glad this is working out. Your daughter deserves to start looking ahead with excitement toward college…</p>
<p>All’s well that ends well. :D</p>
<p>I’m a recent graduate of AU myself and wanted to chime in with a few thoughts.</p>
<p>First off, I’m glad everything worked out well, and in less than a week, and more than two months before classes start. Those factors cut both ways though, since with that much time between then and now, class schedules can change (as you found out).</p>
<p>As for the ‘freshman only’ sections, it does seem like a good idea now, when you’re a freshman, but what happens to the upperclassman who is going abroad their junior year and needs to fill some requirement before they go/after they go. If your daughter gets locked out of a class she needs a different school (Int’l Service, or Comm), it’s going to be another frustrating situation.</p>
<p>Though, in general, since upperclassmen do get preference for classes, the situation is going to get better and better over time. Small classes make it tough during class selection time, but that’s the advantage to going to a private school.</p>
<p>Some takeaways for the future: Get to know your profs ASAP. They can make things happen in terms of letting additional students in a class. The administration is not going to force them to take more students in (nor would I approve of that myself), but they can allow students through what’s called a “blue card.” You have to develop those relationships first.</p>
<p>Second, I’m not surprised about the reaction from the President’s office. The admin does stand behind each other in decisions. I would not want to be a Provost who constantly had his decisions being overridden.</p>
<p>Lastly, though I know this wasn’t the focus, the facts on how much is being paid should not matter at all. If you are paying the whole amount versus having a full scholarship or grant, you should get the same service. To think that a should University operate on a “pay for service” basis is wrong. Students who don’t have the means to pay full price and need financial aid should not expect and worse service than those who pay the whole tuition.</p>
<p>JOHN:</p>
<p>There have been articles lately in publications such as the NY Times that mention how the parents paying the full tuition are subsidizing the students who are getting a free ride or big
financial aid packages. Because of the economy, some schools are using the parents’ money, not endowment for merit scholarships. Those who have worked hard to save and made good investments are subsequently getting punished. The parents subsidizing should at least get the courses their kids should have.</p>
<p>Upsetmom</p>
<p>My goodness, this is wrong in so many ways. My D is the recipient of a Dean’s Scholarship (that she earned, by the way, by “working hard” and “making a good investment” in herself). I don’t see why a student paying full tuition has any more right to demand service from AU than she does. The same would obtain if D received need-based financial aid–and I certainly wouldn’t presume that anyone in that position got there because of profligate spending or foolish investing. So what if some of your tuition money goes to subsidize another student? Some of it will probably go for cleats, test tubes, daffodil bulbs and other things you don’t care about, and none of that is really your concern. You are not being "punished’ in any way–you are in fact blessed that your investments didn’t blow up like those of so many others. I hope you don’t express your position to AU’s administrators. Approaching them with that that sense of entitlement could only do more harm than good when you advocate for your child.</p>
<p>MommaJ:
Why should we be cleaned out of our investments by paying the full tab at any school, because we saved, but are not wealthy, but have “too much” in the eyes of the financial aid administrators. We know of many others in our same situation. The colleges and universities are using our funds to attract who they want. It is easy for others to tell us how to spend our money. We know of a number of kids whose parents instead of saving all these years, use all of their efforts to get a free ride off of others instead of working hard to fund their own child. It is sad but true, and many articles written this year in particular on the subject.</p>
<p>Upsetmom</p>
<p>We are in the same situation as well. We saved, did not overbuy, live within in our means and that does mean splurging - occasionally.</p>
<p>I do feel that ALL students should be treated equally. Mine feeling in regard to this specific situation - the parents are footing the FULL bill - they should be allowed to seek answers to a very specific scheduling dilemma. If Red was not on top of the ball, would AU have paid for room and board and tuition for an extra semester when DD failed to meet requirements?</p>
<p>I am resolved that I will be paying tuition for my son. I realize that much of the money might be going elsewhere, but I fully expect colleges to answer to me as well as my son. They need to get used to that. They will get his money with alumni donations.</p>
<p>I am furious. This is infuriating to me!!! I’m so upset my your posts I can BARELY type this. We too lost tons of money we had saved for 20 years to finance our children’s education. When the time came to apply to schools we recognized that we still would not be eligible for financial aid, but unable, as we are close to retirement, to foot a $50,000 a year+ tuition bill.
What to do??? Have S apply to schools where MERIT aid was a real possibility— and that’s what he did, and he received merit awards at nearly every school he applied to.
Your daughter could have done the same thing. There are tons of schools with good art programs where she could have received merit aid no matter what her stats! IF YOU can’t afford to send her to AU without demeaning other students and their parents, YOU should have considered that fact before you allowed her to apply.</p>
<p>I hope that Upsetmom wrote her comments without thinking them through. </p>
<p>I pay full freight at a private LAC and am using savings that we intended for retirement. But that doesn’t mean I deserve better treatment than the Pell grant recipient or even the work study parent gets. To create a hierarchy that rewards the wealthy (which I am compared to the family that makes $50,000 a year) at the expense of the poor goes against the spirit of academia. The students at a given university should be treated with equal respect and consideration, no matter what the family income is. After all, there are enough inequalities in society without adding yet another.</p>