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You're on mute. Oh – good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us to learn more about financial aid and the admissions process here at UNC Greensboro. My name
is Yubisela Aranda Sandoval. I work in the Office of Alumni Engagement as an Assistant Director and
it is my pleasure to serve as your moderator for tonight's panel discussion. As many of you have
noticed, UNCG CHANCE has gone virtual this year. For the past three years, UNCG CHANCE has been
providing an immersive, six day summer experience for Latinx rising high school juniors and seniors.
During their time on campus students were able to participate in a variety of experiences
that gave them a glimpse of life as a UNCG student. They engaged with a host of university professors, current students, alumni, and staff to forge a network of meaningful connections, focus on academic success, and personal growth.
The program – the program was created to encourage
Latinx students to attend college by increasing their awareness of higher education and
showing that it is well within their reach. Unfortunately COVID-19 has caused us to pause our face-to-face camp experience and find a safe way to engage the students who
are seeking information about how they can too reach their goal of attending and completing
college. Through technology and dedication we have brought together our faculty, staff, students,
and alumni to share with students across our state and beyond. Every student can find
their CHANCE here at UNC Greensboro. Again, welcome. Let's begin our presentations with
introductions, shall we? Let's begin with our panelists. Please tell us your name, position, and a
fun fact about yourself. Let's begin with Jazmin. Hey everyone my name is Jazmin
Velazquez, I work in the Admissions Office as an Admissions Counselor and a fun fact
is that I actually ran track in college.
Hello everyone, my name is Dr. Chris
Ratliff. I work in the Financial Aid Office. A fun fact about me is that I still play baseball. Awesome, thank you, Chris. Kattya? Hello everyone,
my name is Kattya Castellon and I'm an Associate Director of Undergraduate Admissions and,
you know, when you talk about fun facts it's hard for me to come up with one.
You know, I like to work in the garden a lot. I don't know if that's fun
or not, you know, it's more like just to decompress a little.
That's a fun fact.
That is very much a decompressing activity so I would agree with you there. Margarita?
Hi everybody I'm Margarita. Oh, by the way, Kattya has the most beautiful garden that I have ever seen. Believe me, she is awesome. My name is Margarita Kerkado and I work with the
Admissions Office. I'm an Assistant Director and also a Counselor, Admissions Counselor a fun fact about me is…
I have a lot but one is that I love to put, no, that is not. it's dangerous – I love to dance. I dance Mexican folklore and tango. That's awesome. Let's see – Gemma. Hey everyone my
name is Gemma Herrera and I am currently a graduate student at UNC Greensboro under
the Student Affairs program. And the fun fact – I guess mine will be more so interesting slash unique – I don't like bacon, so… Yep, that is interesting because a lot of people like bacon.
I mean, it's all right. Well unfortunately we have lost a couple of our
panelists – there's a storm coming through and we've had some technical difficulties
with power shortages so bear with us as they are going to join us here shortly. But we want to go ahead and um start with with our presentation um we
will begin shortly with a video as we get that going i want to let you uh
know that we are doing a question and answer and you can post your questions and comments and
and they will be answered towards the end of the presentation so um please put your comments in uh
in the post or in the in the chat box and we will get to them as soon as the presentation
is over let's go ahead and get started this this is a remarkable place a place steeped
in history where trails have been blazed discoveries have been made and
lives have been changed forever this is a place that holds questions
and answers problems and solutions it's a place to tap into your creativity curiosity
and ambition this is a place to pursue what makes you you here you'll be challenged and cheered
and you'll join a tradition of change makers this is a place you'll miss when you leave look around and picture yourself here at
this unique time in this remarkable place you'll be amazed at what you find
welcome to unc greensboro find your way here that was an awesome presentation
i love that video because it shows a true spirit of what our alma mater i am
an alumna so it shows our beautiful campus so i i just love to see that video every time
they play it um jasmine let's begin with you yes hello everyone again i am a freshman
admissions counselor um it's currently storming outside so i really hope the internet
stays right now so hopefully we'll be good but as you saw in the video unique uncg is very
unique it's a very special place here and our main thing our main tagline is that we hope you
find your way here and we hope you find your place here it's something that's very important
to us and if you can go to the next slide so as you can see we hope you
find your place here at uncg it's very special and we have a lot of
things that are available to you at uncg and next slide so as you can see we have a lot
of clubs on campus so one of our main goals for everyone who comes to uncg is to really get
involved and a really great way to get involved is getting involved in a club on campus so we
have over 250 clubs on campus so as you can see there's different types of clubs as well and
if say you found didn't find something that you are interested in you can even make your own club
which is really awesome if you found three friends and a faculty member you can create your own club
so there's anything from sports intramural clubs to religious based clubs to napping clubs um so
there's all sorts of different things that you can do here at uncg and this is just a really
great way to meet people that are interested in the same thing as you so here at uncg we really
hope you can get involved in something like this and if you go to the next slide we also have a lot
of different ways for you to just enjoy yourself outside of the classroom so as you can see
this is the kaplan wellness center this is our gym on campus it is absolutely beautiful
it was built in 2016 so it's very very new everything is super new you can even connect
um your netflix account to a treadmill which is really fun and if you actually stopped
running it stops playing the netflix show so it kind of is an incentive but there's
all sorts of things that they offer outside of just the kaplan center you can even sign up
for outdoor activities like backpacking hiking kayaking so there's a lot of different things
that you can do they even have movie nights in the pool so everyone sits in the pool and watches
a movie on this big screen so there's all sorts of things that you can get involved and this is just
a way for you to enjoy yourself outside of school of course academics is the most important but
there are other things that you can do on campus and another huge thing uncg is very diverse and
that's something that we pride ourselves on here at uncg as you can see we have students that come
from over 43 different states and 62 countries so there are people from all over and i think that's
something that's really important is that there is a place for everyone one of our tour guides one
of our spartan guides actually he always explained that when he was coming to uncg that he felt like
he was already from a pretty diverse high school but he really didn't realize until he came
to uncg that when he was in his classrooms and he was meeting students from spain and
from other countries he was like wow you know here it's really diverse i'm meeting all these
people from all over the world so that's just a good example to show you that in your classes
you'll see people and you'll meet people not just from the united states but from outside of
the united states which is a really awesome thing and if you go to the next slide and here is
just a picture we do have what's called our international festival we have so many different
events that we hold during the school year through the multicultural center here on
campus so the office of multicultural leadership has so many different events that they
hold they have the mlk celebration the tunnel of oppression they have all sorts of things and of
course the international festival which i think is a lot of people's favorites so there's all sorts
of booths over campus you can play different games you can try different food and just learn about
other cultures that you might not be familiar with which i think is really awesome people even dress
in their cultural attire so it's a really fun day and i mean look at those smiling faces you can't
tell me that doesn't look fun so there's a lot of ways to get involved here at uncg and that's a
huge reason of why we hope you come and experience uncg in the future because we here at uncg think
it is a very special place and in the next slide and of course we know the reason that you're here
is for academics that is the most important thing we know there are a lot of majors to choose from which can be daunting but don't worry we have a
lot of ways that you can look into each of the majors look at summaries and jobs that you can go
into so actually on our website we have all of the different majors with summaries of each of them
um so i definitely recommend that you take time after this to go look at those we also have what's
called major maps that are on the website as well and those are really really helpful um just to
look in to see what sort of jobs you can go into after you graduate and it's a really
helpful guide if you're just not sure what you want to study which is completely
normal we even have an undecided major and it's called exploratory so you get to take courses your
freshman year and in different aspects so you can take different classes to kind of see what is
what you're interested in and it's a really great way for students who just really aren't
sure yet and that's perfectly fine and a lot of students end up finding what they want to go into
by their sophomore year so it's a really great way also something that i like to point out is that
we do have an average class size of 25 students so this makes it really easy to connect with
your professors as you can see here professors really take time to meet with their students they
actually have what are called office hours so they take time they're actually required to have office
hours so you can go into their office ask them questions which is really helpful and you can even
make really great connections with your professors so there's a lot of different ways that you can
get involved not just at the school but in your specific majors and with faculty members that
if we didn't have that average class size of 25 you might not be able to do so it makes
it really great that having those smaller class sizes that you can get involved and
then of course admissions on the next slide so just some different steps on the admissions
process which of course the most important thing before you come to school so our application is
available on our website as you can see at the bottom that's the link on how you can apply it's
very very easy once you get to our website but there's also a few different places that you can
apply so if you are familiar with the common app the common app is a place where you can go and
apply for multiple schools at one time so maybe you're interested in a few other schools it might
have the application on there too it kind of makes it easier to go through all your applications
rather than going to schools different websites so that's another place that you can apply and then
you can also apply on cfnc so three different ways that you can apply but no matter how you apply
we have what's called a spartan link account and that's created and even if you aren't applying
this year maybe you're a freshman sophomore maybe you're a junior you can actually create what's
called a prospect account and in doing that you just get different emails from us about
different events going on maybe you want to do a virtual tour you can sign up to do that and that's
all through spartan link so then maybe you're a sophomore you create a prospect account by the
time you're a senior you already have that account created and once you submit your application you
can see that in there so it's a really great way to see everything in front of you if you have to
send in certain transcripts if you have to send in you know certain documents that you need it will
all pop up in there in your to-do list so it's a really great way to see everything in front of you
as well as if you have to pay an application fee it is a 65 application fee but we do accept
fee waivers so we accept the knack act nac ac fee waiver the sat fee waiver and the act
fee waiver so don't feel like if that's you know you look at that and it does seem expensive you
can send in one of those waivers to waive that application fee so just keep that in mind for
the future and for spring 2021 and fall 2021 it is test optional we have a one year free
waiver so you don't have to send in test scores so this is a really good opportunity to work on
other parts of your tran excuse me other parts of your application so as you can see at the
bottom we do have an essay portion for our fall freshman students i highly highly recommend that
you do the essay it will really help you out it will really help your application out because
when you apply the only thing i'll be able to see is your gpa and you know sometimes your gpa
just doesn't show who you are as a person as an applicant so it's really important that you get
that essay out there we also have a section on the application that talks about activities
so if you you know work outside of school even if you take care of family members if you
are in sports if you're in clubs at school put that on there because it will really help us make
a decision and show who you are as a person so those are just some extra things when you
apply that you can keep in mind we're here to help you so if you ever have any questions
feel free to reach out to the admissions office no matter what grade you're in we'll be here
to help and assist you throughout your process thank you jasmine that was
a very helpful information you mentioned student orgs yes
you know students can create their own organization if they'd like to
if nothing fits their needs that's already available and ifas yes it's got to be one of the
most well attended events in our whole campus and even people from our outside community know about
it and come and join so i really love that event and the experience that it brings to not just the
campus community but also the greater greensboro community as well and you are also right about
professors professors are so very reachable you can connect with them and you can ask them
questions i remember uh my professors were always you know an email away so that is something
that i do i did enjoy as a student uh being able to contact my professor in them responding
back in a timely manner so you hit on great um experiences that you would have here as a
uncg student chris tell us about financial aid yeah it's not a very fun subject to talk about
but a very necessary subject to talk about and i do want to say thank you very much all for
joining us tonight and we will open up here at the end for some questions and answers um so
if you have a question definitely ask it in the in the facebook live there and we'll get to it in
just a little bit so i want to go over a couple of pointers um about financial aid and how to pay
your bill as i said my name is dr chris ratliff my assistant director for the financial aid
office here if you can go the next slide please um how do you pay for college about 80 percent
of our students complete a free application for federal student aid or you hear us call it
a fafsa for you seniors you will file your fafsa here pretty soon for the 2021 2022 year
which will be fall next year your fafsa becomes available on october 1st of 2020.
That's right
that's this october that's just right around the corner here so get your information together
some advice for any of this is earlier is always better so our priority deadline meaning we have
the most money between october and december 1st so if you can get your information together
then and get it submitted between october 1st and december 1st we can make sure we can have
you ready to go for the fall that upcoming august so what you'll need to to do is it's a federal
website and you can find this in various different places on how to get to fafsa please remember the
first f and fafsa is free there's no need to pay anybody to do this application okay it's a free
application it'll walk you step by step through it what you'll need to know is your parents 2019
tax income information if they filed and if they didn't file your 2019 tax information if you
filed or not or you didn't file and then who is in your household or your parents married living
together who's living in your household and who also attends college the fafsa is based on your
u.s residency and not your parents so if your parents do not have a a citizenship status here
in the united states that doesn't matter you still complete the fafsa it'll ask them for their
social security number and if they do not have a social security number you will type all
zeroes for that social security number that's the way you tell fafsa that that they don't have
a social don't put your tax id number in there only use the zeros if they don't have a social and
remember that the financial aid to receive federal financial aid is based on the student's residence
u.s residency status or our citizenship here as i said before it's 100 free so make
sure you don't pay anybody to do this you can walk your steps through it a lot of
times high schools will have fafsa night where you can bring your information and different
people will be there to help you complete your fafsa and complete it accurately and for uncg
in most schools you have to be admitted into the school to know how much financial aid we can offer
for the upcoming semesters okay next slide please i want to go over some things that financial aid
does offer number one thing everyone who fills out a fafsa is going to be offered loans if your
parents make zero money or if they make a million dollars you're going to be offered loans so that's
that's part of the application there that you can use to help pay your bill these loans will be in
the student's name meaning you the student will be responsible for these loans there's also parent
loans but that's a separate thing other than the fafsa remember loan is anytime you see loan
attached to any anything on your financial aid awards it means you have to pay it back and if you
as i said if you complete the fafsa you also will be offered these loans and if you have to pay it
back it would if you have to pay it back there's stipulations that where you know you start to
go in repayment six months after graduation and then you can set up payments arrangement
through your loan provider okay next slide what everybody wants are grants and scholarships
that's the free aid this is what you don't have to pay back so this is also offered through the
fafsa this is also offered on outside of the the university which would be things like sometimes
people's jobs offer scholarships sometimes organizations churches offer scholarships
all of that can be used to help pay your bill i'll put down here at the bullet point at the
bottom is you must stay eligible for financial aid and why i put that in there is is financial
aid is based also off you passing your classes so if you come to school get your
financial aid fail all your classes there's a chance you can lose your financial
aid and have to appeal for it to get back i don't want that to be a shock once it comes
in i understand that you do have to pass your classes and stay on a good track of graduation
to keep this financial aid next slide please um question you're you're going to have to have with
your parent or guardian or whoever is helping you you go to college or pay for college
is how you're going to pay this balance there is a price estimator here at uncg that you
can use to kind of estimate what it's going to cost and you can go through and change the
different statuses meaning tuition and fees you can't you can't change those tuition and
fees are going to stay the same for everybody if you take three hours it's one cost if you
take six hours it's one cost if you take 12 or more hours there's a separate cost for that more
hours you take the more expensive it's going to be but what you can control is your housing whether
you're living on campus or off campus or with a parent you can control your meal plan which is
are you going to eat meals on campus and you can also control your textbooks you don't have to buy
the most expensive textbooks and if you speak to most students who have attended college before
they have some secrets on how to get textbooks a little bit cheaper and buying them used
but you have to pay the difference out of pocket and most schools have a payment
plan meaning your financial aid comes in pays most of your bill you have a little
bit left over let's say you have a thousand two thousand left over you can set a payment plan
up with the cashier's office at most universities and make payments at those so you don't have to
take out a loan you don't have to parents don't have to take out a loan to pay that sum up front
you can make payments on that highly recommend it because it's no interest attached to it that's
a better way to pay for school because you are juniors and seniors coming in and starting
next august you're going to have to have this conversation with your parents or guardians
i know it's not the fun conversation to have but you're going to have to decide now how
you're going to pay for school in august of 2021. the bill is going to come there's going to be a
deadline for it you want to start saving you want to start formulating a plan now to make those
payments you don't want to wait till august and now you have to make a bill or payment that's
two or three thousand dollars i doubt most of us could come out of pocket two or three thousand
dollars next month if we had to but if you gave us six months if you gave us a year we definitely
could next slide please oh that's it for me i do want to say that early bird gets the worm so make
sure you do things early make sure you communicate with all the offices all of our offices have
somebody that you can talk to you have experts year-round in these offices to ask for advice use
them thank you very much for your time tonight thank you dr ratliff i we appreciate
the information that is very helpful and you are right you know they you can
make payment plans and the um cashier's office will make that arrangement with
you so it may look like that for you um for first student needs to make a payment plan and
that is absolutely fine and you have time so um great information here um we i do want to
mention that we will get to your questions we are going to answer these questions towards the end i
see them coming in um i i do want you to know that we are not ignoring ignoring them so uh be patient
maybe along the way you'll get some answers i see a couple of things um that are popping
up that may be answered along the way as our presentation continues so um be patient with
us and uh margarita take it away hello again my name is katya castellon as i said before
and i'm an associate director at undergraduate missions and i have been working with uncg for
15 years you know and pretty much with the latinx hispanic community my whole life i'm originally
from nicaragua and i want to share a little bit about daca and undocumented students and i
know that um you know our daca and undocumented students they have a lot of obstacles they have a
lot of limitations you know sometimes is a it's a very hard road you know to get to graduate from
a higher education institution and a lot of our students you know uh they get discouraged and
they give up and i'm always encouraging that kind of documented students do not give up you
know ask seek for help you know do not give up your dreams um even though as i said there
is limited resources and a lot of obstacles there are also some opportunities and that's what
i want to talk to you about i want to share those opportunities so you can take advantage of them
on my next slide you know we're gonna be talking about those things that you can do uh to get ahead
one of the things that i always recommend you know high school students is uh to start earning
college credits while they're still in high school the reason is because when you're in high school
and you earn credits through an ap courses or early middle college you know you're earning those
college credits and they're free of charge so you don't have to pay for those credits that you're
earning so if uh you're still on ninth grade 10th grade 11th grade you know or even if you're
gonna start your senior year you know do your best to see if if you can get some college credits
under your belt you know a lot of our daca and undocumented students um they apply to early
college because it's it gives them the opportunity to finish their high school with an associate's
degree you know so that saves them two years of money and two years of time and the other
opportunity that i want to share with you i don't know if all of the all of you are aware but daca
students not undocumented this would not apply for undocumented students because it requires you
know for the student to have a social security and to have a job but if you have an employer
who is willing to sponsor you as a student you know and uh there is some type of paperwork
you know sometimes a letter that they have to send to the community college uh this only applies
to community college and it is the business sponsorship so if your employer agrees to help
you you know and sponsor you um what it means is that your employer is going to pay your bill
from the community college and even though you as a daca student you're considered as an out of
state the employer who is a business established in north carolina the business is considered
in state so they will be billing your employer as an in-state now when we talk about business
sponsorship you know we're not talking about huge businesses or corporations you know we we
know that a lot of our daca students their parents they have their own business you know landscaping
construction you know any type of business that is um registered in the state of north carolina
it is considered a resident so even though the parents might be undocumented if they have
a registered business the business itself is considered a resident of north carolina so your
parents business or your uncle's business of your friend's business can sponsor you uh to pay your
tuition at the community college and they will be billed as in-state so that's an opportunity
that i always encourage our daca student to take advantage of it's a benefit that the uh state of
north carolina provide to the businesses to help their employees now there's no requirement as
far as how many hours the student has to work you know the student can work as little as four
hours a week you know the community colleges they don't care as long as you can prove that you are
employed that you are in the payroll you know and uh you have a job and that business is paying for
your tuition uh also there's a lot of scholarships you know that are exclusively for daca and
undocumented students you know it's a matter of searching and sometimes it might become a
full-time job for you to find that a scholarship and i always recommend that the student start
early you know not the last minute because usually a lot of our students come to us maybe a month
or two you know when they get the bill from the university or the community college and they said
i don't know how to pay for it you know is there a scholarship and by the time you know they try to
apply all these scholarships have been already uh given out and the deadline has passed so if you're
considering attending um higher education you know community college you know uh four-year university
if you're planning on applying to uncg uh start start doing your applications to the scholarship
as soon as possible you know start doing it like in this month or next month you
know because the deadlines varies and uh if you need help with those lists you
know send us an email and i'll be happy to provide you with a list of the scholarships
that you might apply to as i said that are exclusively for daca and undocumented students
now there is a a tuition plan that has been um established by some of our sisters uh universities
you know like unc pembroke western carolina university and elizabeth city state university
and uh what they have implemented or the state has implemented through these three universities
is a plan that is called nc promise tuition plan and what it is is it's a flat fee for in-state or
for out-of-state uh students so if you're a daca student and if you're an undocumented student you
know you will be considered out of state but under this nc north carolina promise tuition plan the
out-of-state tuition will be a flat fee of 2500. so and some of the programs you can finish them
online so let's say you start an associate's degree at the local community college you know
under business sponsorship and you can attend two years and then the other two years you can
go to any of those three institutions you know and apply for the nc promise tuition plan so
your out-of-state tuition will be 2500 which is actually less than any in-state tuition rate
at any other public university so that is a good opportunity uh the only downside is that uh i
would say the programs are very limited in a way that if you're not planning on uh planning on
living in campus then you're gonna have to look for a program that they offer online because if
you live in campus of course the costs are gonna uh are gonna be higher because you're gonna have
to pay for your dorm and your meals you know on your insurance plan so you know if you really
want to save on the cost i would recommend going to community college first and then you know apply
for any of the programs they have or also you know go to community college and that will give you a
two-year window hopefully to see if at some point north carolina approves the in-state tuition
for our daca and undocumented students another thing that i want to share is that um some visas
like the u visa tps you know refugee assailey status those are considered in state for tuition
purposes you know so if you have any of those visa types you know you can be considered in-state
either at a community college or at a four-year university um now for community colleges
you know if you are if you have a pending residency petition and this is really
important because a lot of our families you know they have a relative you know a brother
or a sister parents you know uh specifically brothers and sisters you know siblings that have
applied or have petitioned your parents you know and there is a pending residency and we know
that those petitions that are taken sometimes depending on the country like if the country's
mexico you know those petition might take up to 20 years you know uh for it for you to get a a
green card but um the thing and this is something that not a lot of people knows are aware of and
is that if you have a pending residency if uh you know one of your parents siblings have
petitioned them for a green card and they're just waiting and waiting years of waiting while
they're waiting and even though they do not have an immigration status you know if there is a
i-130 or an i-140 receipt notice which means that they have just filed a petition and immigration
has received the petition it might not be approved but they just received it you know then you will
be considered in state and a community college if you have the petition received and
approved and you have the i-485 receipt notice then you will be considered in-state at a
four-year institution as well or if you only have the i-4 485 approval notice which is the last
stage of the petition of the green card then you will also be considered you know as an in-state
at a four-year community four-year institution as well as a community college but um the bottom
line is please please do not give up i know it is hard i know there's a lot of obstacles you know
but there are options even if there are limited resources you have to keep fighting for your
dreams you know ask seek help you know and uh just take every opportunity that you can get to advance
and your higher education and if you need any help if you have any questions feel free to contact us
that we're here to help you uh you know we do want our community we do want our latinx and
our hispanic students you know to succeed to achieve their dreams to pursue
that degree that they're dreaming of so we're here to help you in any way we can and um
by saying that i'm going to go ahead and hand it off to margarita and she's going to be sharing
with you some tips about rds and about fafsa okay about rds um let me um residency
determination is an application okay when you apply to college you
will need to fill this application the application is the residency determination
okay and this application um is um just to um to determine um that you live in north carolina
for the purposes that you pay in-state tuition it's similar to fafsa application some of
the question that you will um uh answer for fafsa that's the same kind of question that you
will um answer for the residency determination most of the of the students do not have all
the detailed family information when they fill the application that's why we as a admission
counselor in the residency determination services too we recommend completely completing the online
application with parents or legal guardians again because the student don't have all the
detailed family information for example that date when their parents arrive to live in north
carolina or the month and year in which the parents married and a lot of other questions
the student if they don't have information you you as a student will close the
application and you will never try to finish that is a mistake ask for for help and finish this
application is very very important and remember the goal uh the goal of the application
is no is to identify acts we demonstrate north carolina is the true home of of
you and your parents or your family and because each family situation is different
the the application will ask different information about a student now north carolina residency refer
to the length uh of time living in north carolina and not an immigration status the question
in the application um says what's that date of the parent when your parents came to to live
in no was that i'm sorry was the day of parents in north carolina residency something like that
and don't be confused um most of the time the student mistake it for the u.s resident status and
sometimes closed application and never finished and also you will see one question that is about the patterns social
security number when the parent um doesn't have a social security number um the student can use
the pattern id that is the individual taxpayer information number and if the student enter
the parent's id number the system will allow the student to proceed without problems during
the rest of the process and then again the student need to be with the parents or the guardian in
having all the information that students need the student must not please not write their
parents id number in the space that is assigned for the social security number the itin number
has another space a as a assign for that um when the student just choose the option that
say say says sorry your parent legal guardian does not have a social security or will need to
provide a different identification number you click that and you can see the itin individual tax
pay identification um uh um space for that okay and what is uh all about daca daca and
non-documented students are not considered north carolina resident for tuition purposes for
now and when but you need to fill the residential determination application just select no to the
first question that said do you claim residency just answered no in the application assign you
the assign the student a residency certification number and the student can complete college
admission application when they decide to go okay and don't try to fill all the application um
but like katya says a non-us citizen with certain visa and immigration statuses um are eligible
for in-state tuition and stay financial aid now call rds local number always and you can
ask or send us an email if you have questions that's it for me thank you margarita those were very
helpful tips and information um in conclusion i think that with your piece um
ask questions do not leave a a pending question to the air always seek for someone to you know
answer these questions for you experts call them so in our last session we talked about how you
know our alumni and our students created this family at uncg because of these
two ladies margarita and katya they were mentioned a lot in our conversation they
have created a community with our students that is so tight-knit um they go to them for all
of their questions and if they don't know be sure that they will and they will go and find
the question uh or the answer for you um so they are very well connected with our campus partners
and um are always willing to extend that hand whether you are a uncg student or whether you
are you know a community college student that is wanting to attend or just you know someone
who is interested in attending college they are very helpful so i can't even express how
much value they are to our campus they're a big part of our fa media so thank you um again
no question is dumb reach out to anyone that is able to answer these questions and please
reach out to katya or margarita who um may be able to answer them hema you're going to tell us
about these uh the senior guidance um what is this yeah hey everyone so like i mentioned before my
name is hema herrera um so i'll just be going over briefly on kind of the suggested timeline
that would be ideal for your senior year um so i'll touch base on a few of those but again if you
do have any specific questions feel free to drop those in and we will answer them accordingly um
so we'll go ahead and get started so perfect um so as we're moving into we're already in august
which is crazy because it feels like march was like yesterday um so between august and september
i would say definitely trying to create like your last like final list of the schools that you're
wanting to apply um would be ideal so let's say if you have um your top five if you have your
top eight depending on how you want to navigate that if you want to apply to a lot of schools
you're more than welcome to do so but ideally having a good solid list is going to be helpful
for you because there are many materials um needed for your application so um some of those will
be your letters of recommendations your transc transcript sorry um fee waivers if you need to
ask for them and then also just making sure that you're able to see what deadlines you need to take
note of so a good thing would be if you have that list already go ahead and mark it in your calendar
and your planner anything of that nature that way you can keep track of those deadlines because they
are definitely very important um for september and until um you can go ahead and start applying
you can even feel free to start applying earlier on i know certain schools do give kind of like
their essay prompts or things of that nature um already and so you can go ahead and
get started on that as well but ideally um around this time is when you see students
applying to their school of choice so during this time things that you should take note of are
like the application deadlines and also seeing if there's early action versus early decision
depending on which schools you're applying to so reminder on that early action is non-binding
and early decision is binding so that's just the distinction there um the other thing that
margarita touched based on was completing your rds application so for any application they are
going to ask you for your rcn which is your rds number so once you complete the application
itself you will have access to that number and on most applications they will tell you to put in
that number regardless if it classifies you as in state student or out of state it is needed and if
for some reason the application lets you submit it and you miss um adding that information in
there what you would have to do is just contact admissions and let them know um that you have that
number available that way they can update your status because that is very important to do so
um the next um piece would be just requesting um any type of fee waivers that you may feel
that are needed and if you are eligible for those um you can ask for them so the way
that you could do that is through your counselor counselors i'm sorry or also through
your um college advisor if your school has one so that's where you can request for those um the last
kind of big part i would say is just requesting your letters of recommendation so taking note of
what schools are asking for you in those letters of recommendation is it a personal one is it a
professional one um is it a teacher recommendation and so forth and so with thinking of letters of
recommendation in general it would be ideal for you to just ask in advance um just for courtesy
and so the ideal time frame for that would probably be like two and a half weeks to three
weeks i know um students have asked a little bit later than that and teachers are still able to do
them but the more time the better and so then when we are moving forward into october we would just
really want to make sure that you're reviewing and submitting all of your required materials for your
application um so like i mentioned before this can include your transcript so this can include high
school and also the community college that you're dually enrolled at if that applies to you um
the application fees your test scores letters of recommendation um your essay revisions or edits
anything of that nature just trying to make sure that that's all squared away um so i did put until
like as far as the time frame because i understand that not everyone is going to apply around the
same time some people need a little bit more time and or um some applications their deadlines aren't
necessarily until the spring it just varies by institution so keep that in mind as well um i did
want to make note that all of these items should be submitted prior to the application deadline
because i know for example like myself like when i was in the application process um they happened
to miss one thing and it set me back from early accident decision to regular decision um so it
pushed me back so many months and so it was just one minor thing that just slipped through the
cracks and so just um be aware of that because institutions are um do stick to those deadlines
and the last thing too is during october um there is an emphasis on college application month and
a few of you may or may not have heard of that and so this does take place in october this does
not mean that you're not able to apply before or after um but during that month in october certain
schools are waived as far as their fees and their specific dates for that and where you can find
access to that would be on the cfnc.org page and you'll be able to see the list of those schools
that are participating for this upcoming year so the next part two would be applying for
financial aid and so we touch base on this already and like we mentioned
before it opens up october 1st and it is something that is to be completed each
year so each year that you're in school if you are needing and wanting financial aid assistance this
would be application that you do need to submit and i know we also touch base on the whole
application itself too so i'm not going to go too into it but one of the big parts of it is creating
an fsa id and that is for the parent and the student um so a social security number is needed
and if you're kind of wondering what um what that looks like depending on your documentation status
whether for you or your parent there is a link in this presentation as well that we can um send for
you all in order for y'all to kind of look over that priority deadlines do vary by institutions
so kind of what dr radelet ratliff said um the earlier the better so just keep that in mind and
i know for example uncgs um it's in the first week in december so the sooner you get it in the better
and again if you need any assistance with that your guidance counselor or your college advisor
if you have one can help you with that as well or also feel free to just contact financial
aid as well if you have a specific question and so moving forward for november into the
spring what you would want to continue doing is um finishing your fafsa if you haven't done so
already submitting any remaining applications by their deadlines and then from there one big thing
is also scholarship opportunities just researching and seeing if there are any that you're able to
apply for and so forth one big question that i used to get was when do local scholarships become
available and so if your school has a specific one typically those tend to open around december
january but the deadline is pretty quick on the turnaround for that um so given that we
have coveted um right now though that may look a little bit different but as of my knowledge
that's kind of um where that has remained true and so this is just translated uh key
terminology so if you just want to if you're wanting to share this with your parent
if your parent is watching watching this these are some um just some words that we touched base and i
wanted to translate that or how we wanted to have that translated for you so y'all could um be aware
of what that meant so the first one was just nc rds or the application the residence
of the style so for the state um sierra the fsa id would be a number of usario
and contrast so again if that applies to you um scholarships just beccas and and again
scholarships if you're trying to describe that to your parents rebecca's you do not pay back um and
then counselor just consejo con sejera del escuela and so we have additional resources as i mentioned
before so i know we've touched base a little bit on this already but some college application
websites or ctos um is set cfnc.org and this is where you're able to apply um to certain schools
and that same username and password is the same one that you will use to complete your residency
application so do take note of that the other website would be commonapp.org and again some of
these will actually refer you specifically to the school if they have a personal application
so do keep that in mind but also know that it's completely normal if it redirects you to a
different um site we have the fafsa website or cto so fafsa.ed.gov and again to dr ratliff's
point fafsa is free so um be very very careful on the website that you end up selecting that
you will never be asked to pay to complete this application the next one would be your fsa id
website slash and that is just fsaid.ed.gov this is to be only created once if you're able to do
so um so the first time that you complete it and you have your username and your password for that
go ahead and jot that down because you're going to be needing it for the next um upcoming year
and if you want to keep track of your parents or vice versa it's great to do so because if not
the process of it you will have to either answer security questions to get it to get access to
it again or you will have to actually call for assistance some other additional resources that
i included on here were just scholarship websites through cfnc we have so much potential.org
which is daca and undocumented undocu-friendly colleague planning resource website we have
fastweb.com which is also another scholarship website then we also have studentaid.gov
um and so forth and that is actually the pdf that i was mentioning where
you can see the distinction of where um you stand as far as your documentation status
and what that looks like when applying for fafsa and then i added uh the uncg also grants and
scholarships website if you're interested in that we added the rds um application website as
well and then also the local number at the bottom as well and um this will still remain
accessible to y'all and it'll remain on i'm pretty sure on our page too so you'll be able
to access this as well if you're not able to um yeah if you're not able to access that right
now but i think that's all i have i'm not sure i haven't looked to see if there's any questions
specifically but i think that's all for me thank you emma this is very helpful information
so seniors if you would like to have access to something to this presentation email us contact
us and we are happy to share this with you um and send it your way so there are several
questions in our chat from our audience and one of our first questions was um when is
the best time to apply i am interested to uh in applying or taking early action but
i'm taking the sat at the end of the month so do i wait until i get the
score or apply as soon as possible um yeah so it's up to you when you would like to
apply december first is our early action deadline um so for example if you wanted to take the sat
at the end of the month um keep in mind if you were to submit your application now and if say
you completed it had everything in that would turn that into review status so we would
be able to make a decision off of that so if you wanted to send your test scores in
i would say you probably would want to wait until you take the test that way you can
add your test scores to your application and when we review your completed application it
will have those test scores on it so just keep that in mind if it's complete then it will go
into review status i just want to add um just to keep in mind that for this coming year you know
for spring 2021 and fall 2021 test scores are not required they're optional so if you send them and
they're low they will not hinder your application but if you got good test scores you know they
will be taken in consideration in your favor so you know but it is not necessary
for you to send the test scores you know in order to complete your application
and um you know be admissible and our current motto in the admissions office is that
they can help you but they won't hurt you thank you katya thank you jasmine
um how is uncg taking test scores you guys answer that um and i'm sorry i
should have probably read this beforehand but um so i think we answered this question for her
with with your last comment thank you katya um diana is asking um can a green
card holder apply for a fafsa absolutely uh the fafsa is going to ask
your citizenship status and you would put eligible non-citizen and then it's going to ask
for your a number that's listed there on your green card and you put that information in there
so yes you are eligible for federal financial aid um one of our audience members asked about a um
how long does an appeal take um not really sure if you were able to give us uh the type of appeal
that you were referring to um that question is to our audience um the appeal that i mentioned
in my comments was for satisfactory academic progress appeals so let's say you have a really
tough semester or two semesters and don't pass all your classes you do have to appeal to get
your financial aid back if you have a really good excuse i got mono i got really sick i broke
my leg so i had to sit out of classes that's an easy appeal because it's easily documented and
shown if you just said you know what i had too much fun and didn't pass my classes well then it
may be a little bit longer appeal to get done but you can appeal to get it back it just may take
up to one semester for that appeal to go through thank you um so there was a talk about financial aid being
taken away if you felt too many classes is that correct yep that is true you are financial
aid is locked in a certain amount of hours and you have to pass 67 of those locked hours
if you fail those classes or withdraw from those classes there's potentially you can lose your
financial aid so before you ever start getting in trouble and failing a class or before you ever
decide to drop a class i would communicate with the student's first office and then also
communicate with the financial aid office thank you chris um a person who's acquired a green card but is a north carolina resident
is considered as an in-state or out-of-state um it will be required for the person to have
uh the green card for a year to be considered in state so you need to take a look and see
when the green card was issued and 12 months after that that's when you will be considered as a
resident of north carolina for uh tuition purposes thank you katya um our next questions what
about asylum seekers are they eligible for in-state tuition um you'll be uh going
back to the uh previous question too you know i have to mention that uh sometimes we
have the students that are acquiring or acquire their permanent residency card because they had
a previous status like a refugee or asylee status or sometimes they have had a u visa you know
and they're transitioning from that visa or that immigration status into a green card so if that is
the case you know then their previous status like some type of visas um are still eligible you
know or are still considered for instant tuition so which means that if the previous visa they had you know uh before they got their residency
card if that previous status was eligible for in-state then they don't have that waiting
period of 12 months you know for their green card for them to be eligible for in-state they will
continue having you know the in-state eligibility because we will take in consideration rds will
take in consideration that the previous status was eligible for in-state and now they have their card
their green card so they will still be considered as in-state now for asylum you know asylee and the
refugee seekers um it all depends you know at what stage uh for four years institution you know it
is required that they have their status approved you know nowadays there are so many petitions that
uh there's a backload so uh it is a little bit different than before before you know a couple
of years ago when the refugee rasa lee used to file their petition you know they would get that
status uh pretty much right away you know nowadays since there are so many applications you know
and there's so many restrictions and limitations so there is that waiting period you know for
their application to be approved and while they're waiting you know if the application has not been
approved it has been our experience that uh in a four-year institution they will not be considered
as in-state but they might in community colleges you know it all depends how community
college will you know see their petition sometimes as i said the green card
pending applications are considered in-state a community college so um i don't know if community
college are also considering them as in-state and margarita you have a little bit more experience
in that respect you know because you have been talking to students that are asylee seekers
and i know that when they try to come to uncg you know they're classified
as out of state but i don't okay so is this just for the residents for the
i-130 and the i-140 pending applications that are the uh exception okay so i guess it will be out of
state if you know until uh the petition has been actually approved thank you ladies so if in doubt
reach out if you have questions regarding the type of visa that you have um reach out to us margarita
and katya would be able to answer these questions for you um if you have any you know questions as
to the type of visa that you have um or any other of the rds questions um our next question what
uh was about our slides will they be available um yes they will be available if you uh would like
to have a copy of this presentation please email us um or i'm sorry type in your email and we would
be happy to share that uh presentation with you let's see and our question here if uh if the
child lives with her mother and her stepfather does the stepfather ha uh
have to submit a fafsa as well or just mom that was a big thunder the fasfa looks at
the biological parent and spouse information so all of that means is the fafsa says is your
parent married or not married they're going to say yes they're married and they're going to include
both the mother and stepfather's information on the fafsa that's not a uncg rule that's just the
way the federal policies are written so yes you would include the stepfather and any children
in the household on the fafsa and you would include their combined income for 2019 on the
upcoming fafsa so yes do include your step parent a lot of times what happens with parents is
you know it's not their child so he's not going to help pay for school you complete
your fafsa and put that you're married or unmarried and then you do your tax status as
married or unmarried and if those don't match your fafsa is most likely going to be selected
for verification where you're going to have to turn this information into the school the tax
information the household information which will delay your your your fafsa and your
financial aid for about two to three weeks all right our final question here is do i do
rds uh before applying first to the school emma you are the specialist yeah um for ideally
yes but there has been cases where some apple some schools do accept the application without
the rds number so if you already completed the application and you forgot to add it on there or
if you actually completed the application later then what you can do is just call admissions
typically and you're able to update that number in there but if you fail to do so if i'm not
mistaken and someone correct me if i'm wrong i think you're still classified i think as of
out of state i don't know if that's true or not but essentially you would want to have that
number in there um just because if you're in state student you would really want to make sure
but regardless everyone has to have that on there um so to the question yes and no depends on
the institution when in doubt just call and have that information submitted but katya says i'm
sorry the best time to apply i will read your uh answer katya the best time to apply is um
as early as possible for uncg uh it will be better to apply and be admitted by december
1st to be considered for married scholarship rds is done uh as part of the admission
application once you get your uh residency certification number uh from the application
you enter this number every time you apply for admission and missions at any college or community
college and also um it has been our experience that um you know some of our students um they're
classified out of state and they just leave it like that and it does not necessarily mean
that they will be out of state sometimes if rds consider that they need additional documents or
they have other questions for the student you know the system will automatically classify them as out
of state but if the student believes remember that um the the residency is for you know the family
the time they have been in north carolina not necessarily the immigration status of the
parents so if the student is a permanent resident you know if it's a u.s citizen regardless of the
immigration status of the family you know they would more likely be eligible for in-state tuition
so sometimes um this system will automatically classify them as out-of-state you know but if you
believe that you're in state then you know make sure that you appeal you know that decision and
uh you know you can submit additional documents that will prove that you know you are eligible
for in-state and that you know your family has been leaving north carolina for longer than 12
months so don't be afraid you know to appeal to um do a reconsideration to pick up the phone
and call at the ask and always ask you know why am i being classified out of state you know
and they will tell you you know they are pretty friendly we have learned that you know uh rds
uh office and the people that works for the rds you know they're trying to help the student you
know and just when you're classified out of state you know don't just take the answer always
ask why so you'll have a clear reason why you're being classified out of a state and if that
reason is wrong then you can go ahead and submit you know the documentation that will prove
that you are indeed a north carolina resident one thing another thing i want to ask you
know that i did not mention and this goes to all our students you know margarita and i were
always encouraging these students you know to um just not just pick one major with double major
and if possible triple major okay because it costs the same so you can get you know double
major you can study you know uh different um topics you know different fields and it's gonna
cost the same you know at uncg if you take more than you know four classes or more it costs
the same you know so you take four courses you're a full-time student you take you know
five you know any any credit hours between 12 and 18 it costs the same so we're always
encouraging our student to take advantage you know those things that will help them
you know get the most out of the institution thank you katya thank you margarita um as they
mentioned before this is our conclusion would be prepare plan ahead ask those questions by reaching
out connect with those people that are experts um daca undocumented students don't give
up there are loops out there just you know ask ask questions um i can't express that like
but so much um there are ways to get around um so just don't give up um and as dr ratliff had
mentioned um the early bird eats the worm so be prepared apply early any other question or any
other comments from our panelists that you have very rarely you have this many experts on the
screen to ask questions so that's true that's true well i thank you guys so much for your time um
and for sticking with us our panelists thank you our audience thank you um we hope that you
know this may have eased some of your questions um if there are more concerns reach out we
are happy to help and um answer these for you we will have our contact information
you can find it on our uncg chance page and if you are wanting this information please
message us your email and we would be happy to send you this presentation
thank you again buenas noches
