figured this might be a decent spot to ask this (didn't want to start a new thread)

i'm headed back to school as part of a post-baccalaureate medical device technician program. i have no prior experience with student loans whatsoever, but will need some now. what do i do? i filled out the FAFSA as best i could (i couldn't enter the school because it didn't have a college code so i just added my undergrad) and it says i could be eligible for 20k or something like that.

are there any other methods? private student loans? btw i need the money by like 2 weeks! halp?!

I don't know about US but here in Portugal is perfectly natural 30-40 year old people in college, they're not the majority but it's def not uncommon

either email your schools financial aid office or go there in person

If you don't know the college code you should be able to look it up on the FAFSA site. Otherwise as someone else said contact the financial aid office. Also I think the money you would receive would vary from one school to another, I might double check the amount you'll receive.

Private student loans have interest rates more than twice that of government loans afaik.

the thing is it's not a college or university, but more of a technical certificate program. so i don't know that they would even have a financial aid office. in fact, i know they don't. i guess they deal with a local credit union mostly, which i will be contacting soon. still though, i'm wondering if i can get govt. loans.

pwned

so i guess private loans are my only option it seems? how can that be right though?

is there a difference between a private student loan and just a private loan? i might only have the latter available to me. i could also get a home equity loan but that might be a bad idea. i know nothing about any of this.

hey i am in the same boat kinda. is there anyway for me to get into non community college? my high school grades were ok but not great. i did community college for like a semester but hated it. like would i have to retake the SAT or something to reapply to normal schools? and would it use my high school grades? i am out of high school for 6 years now.

email admissions@whateveruniversityyouwant.edu. you can even just copy and paste your forum post into the email if you want to.

what was your GPA in community college and how many credits did you earn? if you have under 24 college credits then they use your high school gpa.

well my highschool gpa is bad can i still get into college?
go to community college until you have 24 credits then transfer.


whatever you decide to do you better do it quick. fall semester comin for you soon

What have you been doing since hs?
With decent HS grades and a decent but not recent SAT score, youd probably have a good shot at a 4 year university, especially a public one in your state if thats the way youre interested in going. It depends on the school if they still want to consider your SAT valid. Some will take the old score for adult students, some will just waive the SAT and allow you to get in (if possible) on your GPA alone... FOr many state universities, they have a cutoff HS GPA (usually higher for OOS students) and if youre above that you get in.


For a smaller school, or a more competitive one, a lot of it depends on what youve been doing for the last six years and how well you can sell it/you.

alright i was an ok high school student. i basically tanked my senior year because of my family situation. i was having to go to school from 50 miles away or staying at friends house and going to school. i prob ended up with like 3.0 gpa. maybe a lil lower. i wasn't legally allowed to apply for college because i was basically an illegal alien for like a year lol. then i did community college for like a semester but figured i was good at poker so i basically stopped going there and supported my family that way for the last 5 years. i took the old SAT like the 1600 max one. i think i can sell my story pretty well though. i just have no idea how to do it. like what do i have to do to sell my story? i am not very good with writing so its very hard for me to express i guess in emails and letters. like if i could i guess get an interview or something?

given the SAT scores and GPA, you could proably get into most public universities in your state just based on the numbers. Depends on the state kind of.

Sometimes schools do admissions interviews, sometimes they want a written statement. Decide on a couple of schools that interest you and call either the office that handles adult students. It usually has a name like "continuing education" "office of adult learning" "office of non traditional students" something like that.

I think the idea of going to CC with the plan of xfering to a 4 year school is a bad one.

If a 4 year school wont let you in as a real student and you still want to go, you can register as a non-degree student in some places with a lot softer requirements, then convert to a regular student after you have some credits under your belt.

Where do you want to go to school... around where you live now? Any particular schools in mind?

i live in DC. i prob preferable would want to go to UMD college park but its in such bad neighborhood. i feel like i would hate it. i emailed their admission office earlier today but no response yet. i think my SAT was 1240 and my gpa was 3.0. its not too great. i kinda remember those numbers not being good enough for UMD back in high school but i am not exactly sure. my high school was very competitive and 1240 was an average sat score. although i prob studied for 5 days for the sats while they studied 4 years. that prob got something to do with it

http://seo.dc.gov/seo/cwp/view,A,122...v_GID,1510.asp

^^^ something to keep in mind.

Im not sure where that leaves you for admission requirements but as far as public schools you lucked out cause you can get near instate prices pretty much anywhere and a pretty big grant towards tuition most places in DC metro.

GMU is a lot nicer, but it might be a bit out of your reach... UMD is in like the pg county area i guess?

yea i know about the in state dc thing but i am not sure i am a residence in dc yet. been here for a year now. i lived 5 minutes outside of dc in maryland 10 years before that so i got to figure it out. i know like its easier to get into UMD being a MD residence but is it the same way like if i want to go to like UT and i am from DC, is it super hard to get in? yea i mean it sucks that i had pretty ****ty high school grades but i mean i have done quite a lot last 6 years to make up for it i think at least. i rather go to a big state school than go to a school like GMU imo though.

lol, everyone I was talking to ITT got banned. oh well, time for a bump.

33 now and graduating this semester with double major in History and Political Science with (probably) a 4.0 GPA. Glad I did it and thanks to people in this thread that encouraged me to! Whoever's not banned anyways. Worked during the day and went to school at night for a couple years, then this last year and a half I sold my business to attend full time. taking ~6 credits a semester was just taking forever, and after a certain point many of the classes I needed were only offered during the day. Probably going to end up back in the entrepreneurial world now, because lol liberal arts majors, but I think it was still totally worth it for myself and my own personal growth.

cheers

Congrats.

I too was laughing reading the thread and was thinking how the hell did half the people in this thread get banned?

Now that I posted in it, I hope I don't get banned.

Respect

Woah, maintaining a 4.0 GPA with presumably a part-time job? Impressive!

Congratulations!

Since a thread is here, i would like to ask for a suggestion. I completed bachelors by the end of 2015. Have been working since then and also as a freelancer. I want to start with my masters.
I need to ask am i eligible to start of with the program since i have taken a break and is it going to be difficult for me to start off again with books since am not in the mode at the moment.
Please suggest.

You're still eligible to pursue a master's degree. How difficult getting back into the groove of academia will depend on you.

I'm a 33-year old American living in France and gonna give this a try.

I completed about 65 credit hours back in '03-'04 before dropping out and I've been playing poker ever since. Decided to move to France last September on a student visa, but for the first year I'm only going to a French language school. Now that my French is up to par I'm applying to a couple universities here, but have no idea about my chances of being accepted.

Really my only motivation is to keep my student visa going so I can stay here longer until I can figure out a way to stay permanently. I guess it would be nice to have a bit of an education to fall back on too. Might be extremely difficult to earn passing grades in a 2nd language I'm not totally fluent in and in a totally different educational system, but I'll (hopefully) find out next September.

I would imagine it would be waaay easier learning a science based program in a second language (computer science, math, etc) if that's the route you want to go. The immigrant kids seem to be concentrated in those majors at my school at any rate. gl bro, keep us updated!