In my last entry I said that Penny is hoping to go to Colorado Christian University. However, over the weekend of Feb. 21st, we filled out their application online, as well as filling out the FAFSA form for financial aid. Even though she should be getting federal aid, just by looking at the cost of the tuition, compared with the amount she is predicted to get, there is a large gap. She definitely was hit with sticker shock over the price of a private school education. So, she decided that she wanted to also apply to a public university. So, we proceeded to also fill out the application for Metro State Univ. in Denver. The cool part about that is that our neighbor lady, whom Penny waters her garden in the summertime, is a professor at Metro. Also, the other front desk receptionist at my church said that her grandson transferred there this past year and really likes it. I also just found out that one of our youth ministers did his undergrad work there and really liked it. The other great part about it is that it is easy to get to by public transportation. And Metro recently expanded their education program and that's what Penny is interested in. So, we took a trip on the bus/train to visit those colleges last Friday to really get a better feel for the two schools to help her decide for sure what she'd like to do. We ventured out in 20 degree temps with it snowing all morning.
In all, we probably walked at least 3 miles in the cold. I think it was quite overwhelming to Penny. When we went to Colorado Christian, she really like it and ran into some very nice people. She was also told that she was officially accepted by the school. So, initially she was saying, "Yes, I think this is the school for me." However, after talking with an adviser in Admissions, as well as a financial aid counselor, we came to realize that there were no extra scholarships that we were unaware of. In fact, even some of those that we had hoped she may qualify for were out of reach. Thus, even with her pell grant, she'd still need to borrow close to $40,000 over the course of the next 3 years. She felt that was too big of a burden to face. So, next we went to the campus of Metro State University. Here's what the campus looks like in the summer time.
We met with an Admissions adviser who helps transfer students from Front Range Community College.
There it looks like her pell grant and a scholarship that she should get, due to her good grades at Front Range Community College, will likely cover her entire year of school. That sounded a whole lot more promising. And she liked the fact that, because there is a diverse population of students at MSU, she saw a number of Asian students on campus. I wish I had personal photos to show you of our first campus visit. But, we were too cold running around for me to remember to take any photos. Two days later, on Monday, Feb. 27th, she got her official acceptance letter from MSU. It was certainly something to celebrate. The only problem was that it was rather hard to celebrate, when she came down with the flu that very same day! When I left for work that morning, I thought she was just coming down with a cold. So, I gave her some medicine and told her to rest. But, I left work a half hour early to check on her and came home to discover that she had a fever of +103 degrees. So, I gave her a tylenol and took her to an Urgent Care, where we had to wait for over 2 hours to see the
doctor.
So, we went without supper and her temp had only dropped to a little over 102. Once we saw the doctor, he was very nice and wrote her a prescription for Tami-flu. By 8 pm I was able to get her the medicine. Between that and a couple of ibuprofen that the doctor had given her, by 9:15 pm her temp had come down to normal. After all of that excitement, I tried to go online to help Penny fill out the application for scholarships at MSU, since their deadline is Mar. 1st and we had just received her new student ID number, needed to fill out the application. Only, I ran into troubles trying to figure out how to get onto the site. So, I called a tech who gave me some info, which he believed would help me out to try for it on the next day. Only, the next morning, on the 28th, it still wasn't working, so I called another tech who told me that I'd likely need to call Financial Aid. The only problem was that I was scheduled to work all day at the front desk and then I had a three hour meeting that night. So, I found a substitute receptionist to fill in for me for a couple of hours. But, again, I had no success. Part of the problem was that no one would help me in Financial Aid until Penny gave me permission to speak on her behalf. Kind of hard to do when you have the flu! But, she tried to call them and gave up after being on hold for over 2 hours. Finally, towards the end of my work day, it got a little quieter at the front desk. So, I called Admissions and they said that it wouldn't do me any good to call Financial Aid. They said we must fill out the application online. So, I tried a Net ID# that the tech gave me, but not the password that he gave me. Instead, I tried using a password that I had managed to generate when I went online the night before, trying to maneuver the website. And this combination worked! So, I called Penny and told her the good news that we could now get on the site. I managed to begin filling in many of the details before I left work. Then I came home and asked Penny to try to do her best to answer a required essay question to complete the application while I went away to my meeting. When I returned she gave me what she managed to put together. I corrected it and we managed to submit her application at 10:05 pm, just in the nick of time, since the deadline was the next morning! I did have to cancel the transfer tour of the campus that I had signed us up to take this Friday. So, that'll have to come in a couple of weeks. For now, it's time to rest up as much as possible to try to conquer this flu bug.
