<p>RAPHAEL,
Thank you and I am glad you have found some of my posts to be helpful. I am sorry for the delayed response as I have not been online for 8 days. </p>
<p>Congratulations on your son’s achievements! I give you a lot of credit as a single mother of five children! I can tell you are very supportive of your son’s pursuits and will be trying to find a way for him to realize his dreams. Kudos to you. I read on another thread about the financial aid and while it is a very good package for you, it falls short as you must make a contribution to his fees. I want to point out, in case you are unaware, that there are Parent Plus loans which you can take out at a very low interest rate. If your contribution is $9000/year, perhaps you can take out a PLUS loan over ten years for part of it, and your son contribute part through summer jobs. I don’t know if that is feasible for you, with the other children coming up. However, I will also point out that once your second child enters college, and I don’t know their age spread, your finanical “need” will appear even greater and often the financial aid package increases. I have only two kids but they are both in college now. While they are two years apart in age, my younger one (the one at Tisch), chose to graduate high school after her junior year and so they entered college one year apart. As soon as the second child entered, the financial aid package at my older one’s school went much higher and I am sure it affected the package that the younger one got since we have two in school. So, you can also ask at NYU if in subsequent years, with two in college, if they predict your package may increase as your need will surely increase. Also, perhaps your son can seek out any local sources of even small scholarships (even the $1000 type ones) and contribute those to the balance that you must fund. A combination of summer work on his part, local scholarship funds, and a Parent Plus Loan over ten years, might be the way to go. Consult the FA office for any advice, as well. A work study job would be very difficult to do with a BFA program. My kids did not accept the work study portion of their aid packages. However, my D who goes to Tisch, has found ways to earn money during the school year in flexible work she has landed. There might be something your son can also do during the school year to earn some money, besides in summers, but that is of a more flexible nature. (some of this is in response to a post you have on another NYU/Tisch thread.</p>
<p>As far as if my D is enjoying Tisch, yes, very very much so. She says she is learning soooo much and just loves all the various aspects of going to the school. I don’t think there are enough hours in the day to do all the things she wants to do! If you have specific questions, please ask, and I can try to answer. And yes, thankfully, my D was able to make a full recovery from her severe injuries from two years ago, just in time to enter Tisch. While she felt her dancing was not up to her own standards when she first began freshman year, it is amazing she was dancing at all. Besides the injuries, she was out of dance for six months. But now she is much more in shape physically, she feels. She is very thankful for being alive and doing what she gets to do. In fact, any audition rejections are not too big of a deal when she knows of things much worse. I’m looking forward to seeing her in her first Tisch musical which opens tonight, and am always grateful of the miracles of survival when I see her on a stage again. I hope things of this nature are behind her!</p>