so here’s the exact process

so here’s the exact process i have to go thru…

1 – apply for schools (done)

2 – fill out the fafsa and receive ur SAR (done). of course this document sez i should be able to contribute $24k to my own education since it’s based on a tax return from when i was still working. i did some numbers the other day & realized i probably made btwn $10-15k last year. great.

3 – send acceptance letter to school along with a deposit (mine was A$500). have them issue a eCOE (electronic confirmation of enrollment). this was the fight this past week. the school said they wouldnt issue the eCOE until i paid them something like 1/2 of what i owe (about A$12k). we had to go back & forth. krista, the financial aid folks (2 of them) and a couple folks in admittance. Finally on oz friday they said i could wait til i got the loan to pay them. and today (usa friday) we received the eCOE.

4 – since i have the eCOE, now i can apply for finacial aid. meaning a federal stafford loan. swinburne is a title 4 school. i don’t know what that means xcept if it wasn’t i couldnt get a loan. every lending company i look at sez i can apply online, even provides a “FC – Foreign Country” option in the drop down and then doesn’t list swin. RMIT is listed. Uni of Melb is. I’ve even seen Monash. but of course not the one i want. So after 2-3 days of going back & forth w the dept of education, the lenders, various other 800 numbers, i’ve decided i have to do the paper route. a couple of hours ago i received the MPN (master promissary note) form that i need to fill in. guess ill do that tonite & fedex it to cali & fax to oz so they can get this moving. please please please please approve me!!!!!!

5 – after i’m approved for the loan, then i can send in the visa paperwork. i need to show proof that i can pay for school and support myself. more on this later.

6 – they approve my visa because i’m such a super cool girl and i book my flight. i guess i should book it before i send off my visa paperwork.

i haven’t been recording any

i haven’t been recording any of my horrors but figured it’s about time. i’ll back track. this way if anyone reading this goes thru the same school horrors i am, they’ll relate. or maybe decide not to go down this road.

sometime in november i received an acceptance letter from Swinburne. I was thinking they were my 2nd choice (monash being 1st & RMIT 3rd) so I waited. and waited. and still today I haven’t heard from the other 2. i waited til the schools got bk from xmas break and then decided to go with swinburne. also, over xmas break, i looked over all the notes i took when i originally researched the schools and realized swin was my 1st choice. because i moved in december my acceptance paperwork was kind of lost in the mail. finally i had krista, my coordinator in DC, fax me the forms i needed. that’s when i found out classes start feb 13. wow! the day after i receive the fax, my lost mail shows up. that’s the first time i find out the following:

a) the visa costs $190 not $50 like i had previously read
b) the visa takes up to 3 weeks not 3-4 days the way krista told me
c) the visa requires a physical, chest xray & urinalysis which i never knew about even though i repeatedly asked krista if there was anything i could be doing to hurry the process along or get a jump on things. this is an especially nice requirement since i have no money & no insurance.
d) i can’t do the visa online like i thought. i have to physically mail items to DC

grrrrrrrrrrrr

that’s also when i realized there’s a specific chain of events that has to happen. i can’t get the loan & the visa at the same time. which means i’m not going to be able to leave on the 23rd of jan like i wanted to. which means i’ll miss big day out featuring janes addiction & wilco. i’m really fucking pissed about that. now i’m just hoping i get there in time for class.