<p>rounders
A friend has come on hard times and is not able to obtain 9th grade records from private school his son attended (owes the school $$$). Anyone have any ideas,his son is unable to get into college</p>
<p>Why are the 9th grade records needed? Isn’t the high school transcript sufficient?</p>
<p>If he is unable to pay for previous schooling, how is he going to pay for college?</p>
<p>student loan , U PENN</p>
<p>This is a classic case of the real problem being much bigger and deeper than the problem you’re asking for advice about. (I’m also wondering how this problem is taking place in October… and UPenn is a certainty. Is this a real question?)</p>
<p>There is a limit to how much students can take out in federal loans, and parents who can’t afford a high school transcript shouldn’t be taking out a pile of money in loans, either.</p>
<p>The best answer is that your friend should defer from Penn for a year, work and save up some money, pay off the private high school debt, and then start college. He/she should also take a financial literacy class - mostly because parents who send their kids to pricey private schools that they cannot afford are likely not teaching their kids to manage their money.</p>
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<p>9th grade is part of high school.</p>
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<p>Really? Ever hear of financial aid???</p>
<p>Rounders, I’ve never heard of such a thing in the high school context, and I’d guess they don’t have the right to do it. Ordinarily, when a student transfers between High School A and High School B, School B requires that School A forward a copy of the student’s transcript.</p>
<p>My first suggestion would be to enlist the help of the current high school. Ask the guidance counselor or registrar to get on the phone to School A and demand that the 9th grade transcript be forwarded to the current high school.</p>
<p>If that doesn’t work, then I’d suggest any of the following:</p>
<p>(a) See if the parent can’t find an attorney who’d be willing to help out by writing a carefully worded letter to the head of School A. Parent might be willing to find someone who’d do this at no charge.</p>
<p>(b) Contact whatever associations the private school is a member of and file a complaint.</p>
<p>(c) Contact the colleges, explain that the 9th grade transcript simply cannot be obtained (no need to explain why) and ask if the student’s application can be considered without that one transcript. It may be possible, depending on the school.</p>
<p>Edited to add:</p>
<p>The problem with ariesathena’s suggestion is that the parent’s debt to the private high school has NOTHING to do with the student. The student does not owe that money and has NO obligation to “work for a year to pay it off”!</p>
<p>Yes, that would be the correct solution if this were a prior debt to a **college<a href=“which%20is%20the%20student’s%20obligation”>/b</a>, but it’s not. And the parent’s failure to pay any outstanding debt should not impact the student’s ability to continue in school. Really, it’s like a doctor refusing to forward a child’s medical records because the parent hasn’t paid the doctor’s bill. The doctor, or, in this context, school, has an obligation to the child that is independent of the financial relationship with the parent.</p>
<p>What “ideas” could there be? Facts are he needs the official 9th grade transcripts to complete his apps and the school won’t release them until the outstanding debt is paid. Unless your friend wants to break into the registrars office it seems the solution is pretty clear cut.</p>
<p>Private high schools absolutely do hold up records pending payment of all outstanding amounts. Usually, one signs something at enrollment certifying that the family understands the policy.</p>
<p>If transferring from private to public and even some privates, a report card is good enough and those are usually accessible in some fashion.</p>
<p>student loan , U PENN</p>
<p>?</p>
<p>the family is borrowing the COA for UPenn?</p>
<p>The legality of a school holding up transcripts for unpaid tuition varies from state to state. Retaining an attorney to handle it will cost money your friend apparently doesn’t have. Finding a pro bono attorney might be an option.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.isacs.org/uploads/file/Monographs/Business%20Operations/Withholding%20Transcripts%20Non-Payment.pdf[/url]”>http://www.isacs.org/uploads/file/Monographs/Business%20Operations/Withholding%20Transcripts%20Non-Payment.pdf</a></p>
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<p>Yes, but rarely is financial aid so stellar that there will be no parental contribution. If they cannot pay for the earlier schooling it is doubtful they have savings for college and borrowing more money seems ill-advised even if it is possible. The student’s ability to borrow on his own is very limited.</p>
<p>I don’t understand the U Penn comment. If he needs his transcripts he has not been accepted and yet his acceptance seems to be presented as a given.</p>
<p>And while the student is under no obligation to pay the debt, if that is the only way to have needed transcripts released it is still the student’s problem. (As the former board member of a private school I believe the school may well be within its rights.)</p>
<p>Perhaps this is a recruited athlete. </p>
<p>He got a verbal pre-read and verbal acceptance based on current high school transcripts that included the 9th grade year because a report card is good enough for <em>that</em> but the University requires official transcripts from all high schools attended. His acceptance is “more or less” a done deal – it’s contingent on the official sealed transcripts that the private school is reluctant to provide since there is an unpaid tuition bill.</p>
<p>He may qualify for a need-based full ride at UPenn. We don’t know. It’s also possible that this was a scholarship student at the private school and even the minimal payment required by the private school was not doable for this family.</p>
<p>Recruited athlete occurred to me, but when asked how college was being paid for the OP responded “student loan” with no mention of financial aid.</p>
<p>If the school the student is attempting to get into is U Penn, then yes, a family that can’t pay 9th grade bills (and presumably the student left at the time for public school), may well get enough aid to not need to pay. That’s the point of a meets full need school.</p>
<p>And while he may or may not be able to count on getting in, it’s true that other schools can offer enough FA to low income students. I work at a does-not-meet-full-need non-exclusive private, and many students there, if they commute, get enough aid that there is not or very little parental contribution.</p>
<p>so getting this information makes sense, and yes, the student can presumably have places he can go to school if he gets accepted, with little cost. Poor kids do go to college, too.</p>
<p>That’s a possibility but when asked how college would be paid for I would have expected some mention of a scholarship or being a recruited athlete and not merely “student loan”.</p>
<p>When D2 transferred to a new high school junior year, the new high school asked for her old school transcript. The new school normalized her grades from her old school, then they sent in one transcript when she applied to colleges. They didn’t send in 2 different transcripts. Are you saying that this student’s 10-12 grade school doesn’t have his 9th grade transcript? So how did they give him credit for 9th grade. Is he going to be able to graduate?</p>
<p>But the new hs does not always incorporate the 9th grade transcript into the graduating school’s “official” record.</p>
<p>If not, how would they calculate a student’s GPA, ranking? Without the old school’s transcript, how would the new school know if a students has fulfilled all 4 years of requirements?</p>
<p>Coming after freshman year, often a report card would suffice and that probably would have been available.</p>
<p>So we are to assume the school will loan the student 100% of cost of tuition, books, room and board, and spending money too? Really?
Clearly a parent that can’t come up with a 9th grade debt(they’ve had how long to pay it?) is in no position to help pay any student’s costs, or to accept responsibility for a student’s loan. Or does the student have a nice paying job lined up so he can pay 100% of all costs that school loan doesn’t?
As said before, this debt may legally belong to parent, but it is a family problem. If this family doesn’t have the money to pay for 9th grade, and no other family member will loan it to them, and no employer will loan it to them, no friends, or no church, or no private charity, then unless the school loan is for the 100% of everything- then maybe this family isn’t financially ready to send a kid to college.</p>
<p>Does a “meets full need” school loan 100% to student with no parental obligation? Does full need include groceries and pizzas and money for dates, and gas money, etc etc etc? Based on the Op’s post, we have no reason to believe the parents have money for that. I am assuming from the Op that the parents do not dispute the debt, and I will assume they are honest people willing to pay an honest debt. I have no reason to believe they hoped to merely let this debt “hang out there” until it was forgotten. The Op does not mention a “good faith” payment plan in effect, so based on that, they just don’t have any money to pay.</p>
<p>Unless the loan is to the student only, and is for 100% of ALL costs, then I agree with this from post 5: “There is a limit to how much students can take out in federal loans, and parents who can’t afford a high school transcript shouldn’t be taking out a pile of money in loans, either.”</p>