Transfer Advice + Financial Aid Appeal Advice

[HayleySarg]

Greetings! After collegeconfidential failed to answer my question, I decided to come here. Apparently no one should become a scientist ;)

First:

I'm transferring from a community college with strong EC's and an okay GPA (3.6). I've not taken many courses, just my math sequence which transfers and some artsy things to cover gen-ed requirements.

I'm transferring to UMCP, and being within state, I'm confident I'll get in for Fall of 2014.

When matriculating into a physics program, is it reasonable to assume 3 years to graduate assuming math pre-reqs are out of the way? I understand that due to the series nature of the courses, they can't generally be doubled up on. I've taken calc I-III as well as an intro linear.

Secondly:

How does the financial aid appeal process work?
Is it something they consider a real reason if you quit work to attend college full time?
Assuming loans (though perkins is going away possibly), I'll have 15k, plus maybe 2500 of the pell, meaning I'd be a few thousand short unless my appeal for need was approved.

I'm an independent student making about 15k a year which means the government expects about 3k out of me. However, I'll be re-locating to the area where college park is, and jobless at that. I know by the difficulty I had taking courses and working 50-60 hours a week, that working + school + research just wouldn't be a good idea for myself. Perhaps a part time, but not full time work + full time school.


Thank you for your time!

I've defending my want of career choice ad nauseam over at CC. If you're interested in mroe back story though, it can be found here:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com...issues-quitting-work-attending-full-time.html

 

[Choppy]

To answer your bold question what you need to do is look at the course calendar for the program at the school you're transferring into. Plan out your courses. You need so many units and depending on the program so many of those will be predetermined for you, the rest are electives. Pay attention as well to pre-requisites and co-requisites.

Then you make a decision in terms of whether you want to complete the coursework using a standard courseload or whether you want to take an extra year or so to spread things out, balancing a job etc.

I don't know anything about financial aid at the University of Marvellous and Current Physics.

 

[HayleySarg]

To answer your bold question what you need to do is look at the course calendar for the program at the school you're transferring into. Plan out your courses. You need so many units and depending on the program so many of those will be predetermined for you, the rest are electives. Pay attention as well to pre-requisites and co-requisites.

Then you make a decision in terms of whether you want to complete the coursework using a standard courseload or whether you want to take an extra year or so to spread things out, balancing a job etc.

I don't know anything about financial aid at the University of Marvellous and Current Physics.

That made me super happy. Clever.

Yeah, I've looked at it and it seems doable. I'd like to go for high honors, which requires not only research and thesis defense, but graduate courses. So that might make things a bit difficult.

Thank you for your time!