oh, hello, nervous breakdown, I was wondering where you'd been this year

[bedlamsbard]

God damn it, god damn it, god damn it. Considering the fact I just spend the last fifteen minutes sitting on the floor of my shower crying, I think we can say that I'm really stressed. I just can't figure out how I justify my personal happiness being worth (around) $80K plus interest in loans (max, I think, depending on how the AFROTC scholarship sorts things out. It would help if Tulane would just combine their merit scholarship with the AFROTC scholarship, but no).

And the fact that I'm crying over it (contrary to popular opinion, I do not cry at the drop of a hat. It must be a hat that I like) should probably show that I really want to go to Tulane, not Wellesley.

Fuck being twenty-twenty. Hindsight's a bitch. If I'd just applied for goddamn scholarships -- hell, if I'd applied for Army and Navy ROTC scholarships too, but no, I had to only go Air Force. Army's the only one where I can still apply for a full-ride ROTC scholarship while in college, and I may try that if I have to when I start in the fall (if I can somehow justify Tulane to myself), although I'll feel horrible backing out on the Air Force...

God, I don't know. Or rather, I do know, but it really sucks.

Comments

[limmenel.livejournal.com]

I meant to reply to this earlier, and I'm sorry that I didn't. I hope you're doing okay, though ♥

Personally, I think you have to do what you want, and damn the consequences. Yes, money is a big issue, but if you want to go to Tulane, if you think you'll truly be happy there, then that's where you need to go. You have a couple of options, it seems... you can call up the university's financial aid department and explain that this is absolutely your first choice, you want to go there more than anything, but funding is an issue... see if you can get them to assign you to a financial assistant (or whatever the equiv there is) who will help you apply for financial aid, Stafford loans, and private loans. If you explain the situation and tell them that Wellesly has offered you such a substantial amount, they may even (though I don't know how likely it is) turn around and make you a counter-offer, to try to get you to go to their school. And I know that private loans suck... I'm $75,000 in debt after four years of university, and I'll probably spend the rest of my life paying it off, but at least I got the education that I wanted. I could have gone to the University of Texas and had almost full scholarship, but I chose to go where I wanted to, and I'll never regret that.

But you need to call Tulane, you need to fight with them. Figure out what you have to do to get more funding. If you live off campus, will you save more money or not? Is there a way that you can attain Louisiana residency after a year or two, and lower the cost of your tuition from out-of-state to in-state? Did you fill out the FAFSA and, if so, what can the university give you based on that?

I truly truly hope you get to go to Tulane, because I want you to be happy and I want you to enjoy your school and the city and everything about your university experience. It sucks to go to a university in a place you don't like (I know from experience... I was miserable in Iowa City, despite the fact that the university itself was amazing), so I hope everything works out.

(and don't try to justify anything... this is one of those cases where you should totally do what you want, not what you should, because this is your entire life in front of you, and university should be the best years of your life)

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I can't even decide what to have for dinner; how the hell am I supposed to make a decision about college?

Yeah, I'm calling up Tulane on Monday, although I have to account for the time difference and financial aid office hours (which should be fun). I think I get some benefits from having an ROTC scholarship, although I have to ask and doublecheck and see what they actually are -- according to the AFROTC website, it's free room and board and 20% off tuition depending on GPA for the years the scholarship is activated. The main problem is that I also got a $24000 (renewable) merit scholarship from Tulane, but they don't let students combine that with outside merit scholarships, which include ROTC scholarships. (God knows why.) If I can use that for freshman year -- they only offered me about ten thousand more in financial aid, which puts aid up to about $33,000 (most of which is loans, aside from about two thousand in grants and another grand in work-study), which would be nice if tuition wasn't $50,000 (holy crap, college, what the hell) -- I might be able to cover the remaining twenty thousand or so, but it really depends on what happens with the next three years tuition-wise.

(As for living off-campus, Tulane is in the Garden District. The average price of a home in that neighborhood is a million dollars. The Mannings live there. So did Anne Rice. And residency on campus is required for freshmen and sophomores. *vaguely amused* Tulane's a private school, so tuition's the same no matter where you're from. There are additional scholarships you can apply for if you're a Louisiana resident, but that's not an option.)

Embry-Riddle and Emory are my other two options, or I got waitlisted for Vanderbilt; with Embry-Riddle I could probably go and cover almost everything between the merit scholarship I got, my AFROTC scholarship, federal financial aid, and the additional scholarships they offer for ROTC scholarship winners. I'd have to contact the Air Force to switch my major from Physics to Meteorology, but hopefully that's not too much of a problem. On the other hand, ERAU is such a focused school on all matters military, and one of the reasons I really like Tulane is because it's so balanced all the way around. And I can't visit it because I have a band competition on that day. With Emory, I haven't got back the financial aid info yet, because they keep requiring more and more paperwork that I can't get to fill out (apparently my income seems abnormally low for a family my size. Now I have to fill out a Low Income Worksheet. Hello, sometimes -- and I know this is a shock, Emory -- people just don't make much money), but I don't know enough about the school to make a decision and I probably won't be able to visit it before May 1.

It's not that I hate Wellesley or Boston. It's just -- Wellesley seems, I don't know, artificial? somehow because of how isolated it is, and Tulane just seems so much more real. More of a small town feel in New Orleans all around, even though Wellesley actually is a small town.

*beats head into wall* Now would probably be a good time to start applying for outside scholarships.

Thank you.

[ghostrunner7.livejournal.com]

God, I wish you all the best. I can only say from my own college experience, that to be happy with where you are and what you're doing is the most important thing.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm just trying to reconcile happiness now with happiness later.