But this...takes the cake.
In late February 2008 I was doing my annual 'find a college that will accept a 1998 GED Graduate with no forgin language classes (I requirement after I left school, but before I got my GED). Usually this turns up nothing and I'm left to another year of feeling like a failure.
This search was different, as I came upon America Public University, a fully accredited online collage.
Smashing! Just what a hermit like me needed. I fill out an application and send it off, getting accepted within a week (with an 80% acceptance rate, not that hard). They need copies of my GED (of course) so I quickly fax that off the next day and set about applying for Financial Aid.
After a bit of a scuffle with FinAid over my name, I get my application done and start moving through APU's own steps of FinAid...having problems at nearly every turn from technical to them not listening.
It takes two weeks to get through what should have taken half an hour *grumpy face*.
I finally get the package done and submitted and all is good. I go back to fighting with the documents department over my GED that they never marked as received and have to scan them a copy, do so, email it, it gets posted as received three weeks later (after yet another scuffle of them telling me that my 'military records are wrong'...as I've never been in the military, I find this amusing.
I check in to FinAid early/mid March to see the status of my packet...only to find out I was rejected ('squeeze me?). They need a copy of my driver's license, as apparently they don't like my name either. Whatever, fax it over. Then I call them (despite my fear of phone conversations) as early as is humanly possible, to find out what the other thing required of me is.
They want me to sign a promissory note to pay back loans. Loans I don't have, will never have and are against my personal religion to take in the first place (it's all about using what you have NOW and not taking what isn't yours...doesn't always work, but I try my best).
I explain this to the nice lay on the phone and she makes a note of the 'no loans' bit and everything is settled for a second review. So I wait....and wait..and oh look, wait some more.
Last week, I emailed the FinAid dept. again, poking at them to find out what was going on. Guy on the other end of the email has no idea why the review hasn't happened yet, and he makes more notes regarding my driver's license being faxed over and I don't want/have loans.
Three days ago I start mentally flipping out because on the 7th is the first day of classes and I's gots no books, no shiny monies and no idea what's going on. I poke around the site and find out that I'm still considered a student in good financial standing. I figure that they put that there since they know I'm working with them and they're giving me a bit of a pass till the mess is straightened out.
At 6am EST (4am my time) I get up bright and shiny to log into my classrooms, excited for my 'first day of school'...
...I can't enter my classrooms. There is a giant virtual bouncer standing there with a giant red 'waiting on FSA' badge on his chest.
GAAAAHHHH! So now I have to go (politely) scream at FinAid again and find out what's going on and can they PLEASE figure this out by Friday before I'm dropped from all my classes?
Other Fun Notes:
* My admissions adviser is named Natalie, not Barbra, not Kevin, not whomever else you keep trying to tell me it is. I'm an Undergrad, NOT a Graduate student. Please stop sending me 'introductory' emails when I'm not your student...seriously, figure out how to send those things out so I stop getting them every week.
* Speaking of, Natalie, update your damn records. Do not appreciate an 'URGENT' email while I'm attempting to study saying that if I don't send this paper in "OMG NOW" I'll be dropped. It was sent in five week ago.
* Loans = DO NOT WANT! Stop harping, there's a reason I'm taking the summer semester off, it's to (shockingly) earn money for next year, imagine that, someone who might know what they're doing.
*huffs* I just want to learn, dammit!
(Note: My major is history with a minor in archeology/anthropology...I should have predicted this)