Appeal for Financial Aid.

[araujojr]

I have posted my letter of appeal to financial aid. What do you all think? what else should I add?

07/23/07

I'm writing in regards to my financial aid eligibility. I'm being denied financial aid due to the following:

1. Earned less than 67% of credit hours attempted.

2. Exceeded 150% of your published program length measured in attempted credit hours and was awarded an Associate Degree.

Last semester, I enrolled in BSC 2011, BSC 2011L, CHM2046, CHM2046L and Medical Terminology at SFCC. I withdrew from the Chemistry courses, (CHM2046 and Lab), because I needed to increase my hours at my work due to financial difficulties. Unfortunately, I did not know that withdrawing from a course would hurt me at the end; particularly that these courses were paid with no financial aid. Besides, I did not know this policy existed. Definitely, this will not happen again. I'm a very motivated person, and I finally realized that I want to become a nurse. It took me a while to realize it. This happened when I went to Honduras and was rushed to the hospital due to an allergic reaction from a scorpion sting. The lack of nurses, and the number of people that needed help was remarkable; and incredibly, this also happens in our own backyard. This experience and reality definitely convinced me to become a nurse.

Now, the reason why I have excessive amounts of credits is because my goal was to pursue a Bachelor's Degree in Nursing at UF. Hence, I was required to complete a lot of pre-requisite courses requested by UF. Simultaneously, many of those pre-requisites are actual courses of the Nursing Program Curriculum at SFCC. This means, out of the 72 credit hours required for the SFCC ASN degree, 36 credit hours are already completed due to those pre-requisites taken previously. Thus, I only need now 44 credit hours to receive my ASN.

Please take this in consideration. I have applied to a program where many students only dream of going. It is known statewide how difficult it is to be accepted at SFCC Nursing as they choose students by a competitive point system selection process. This was my second time applying and luckily I was accepted. The first time, I had just moved here from Miami and I had just decided I wanted to become a nurse. I was missing a few pre-requisites but still was allowed to apply. Amazingly, I was almost accepted on the first attempt. I was placed in an alternate list which was a big accomplishment as I was still missing a few courses that would have given me more points for the selection criteria (I had 76 points and the cut-off was 78).

Furthermore, the nursing program is a full time program from 9:00am-3:30pm, Monday through Friday. It will be very difficult to work and study with a schedule like this one. The department also states, it is not recommended to work as the curriculum is very vigorous. My husband will take a lot of the house chores and he'll be working part time as he is also a student (electrical engineering at UF) and can not work full time.

If I'm awarded the financial aid, it'll help relieve this stress off mine and my husband's shoulders. I understand this is federal government money and I will not burden FAFSA. Thank you for taking your time to read my appeal.

Thank You,

Future RN Nurse Jennifer Rodriguez

P.S.: I have attached my degree audit. Please note many classes were duplicated and the audit states I have 210 earned hours- all college cumulative and 195 AA College Cum. actually I have only earned 105 credit hours for my AA degree.

[SonicnurseRN]

I would advise you to talk to the Dean of the Financial Aid department in person. I did that in your situation & it was all fixed w/o the red tape!

[txspadequeenRN, BSN, RN]

i had to submit a appeal because i exceeded 99 hours while in a aas program. they approved it and i got my pell as long as i took only what i needed to take in order to graduate. in my case i was on my last semester.. good luck to you...