Welcome to Gaia! ::

Since April of last year, I've been trying to get into community college. I did all the steps I needed to in order to get my application in on time. I attended summer courses last year as a non-matriculated student. Throughout, I kept calling them, even going to the campus to talk to admissions and the registrar a few times, to ask about the status of my application. I called at least twice per week as my busy schedule allowed during the times their offices were open. I kept getting the run-around "let me connect you to the fafsa office, let me connect you to the registrar". A couple of times I was told that my former college and high school transcripts were not in, so I got double official copies and handed those in two times throughout the fall. Still, no word on if I was accepted or not.

Finally in January I was told that my application was complete by somebody in the registrar's office. I was overjoyed after so many months trying to get answers about just what exactly was going on.

Imagine my dismay when I was told by a bewildered somebody in the registrar's office TODAY that I have been a MATRICULATED student since the fall, and could have attended in the Spring (right now) or indeed the PREVIOUS FALL SEMESTER. "What do you mean nobody told you? What do you mean you never got a letter in the mail saying you were accepted? How could this have happened?" the bewildered registrar person asked, clearly upset just like me. She asked me what my online account for the college as a matriculated student is and I said, "I don't know what this is...what are you talking about?" and she goes, "You didn't even get that?? That was supposed to be sent out with your acceptance letter!" And I'm like, "but I didn't get an acceptance letter!"

So she sent me to admissions about what the next step is, because you have to get your student online account, secure immunization records and send them in, and talk to your assigned adviser about what you want to do in college, get assigned your program, etc according to their website. Keep in mind, I haven't gotten any info about what it is exactly I need to do next and what the proper process is (the proper process is really what I want to know because apparently there is something gravely wrong here going on), have no idea who my adviser could be, indeed may not have even been assigned one even though apparently I've been a student since the fall.

So I said to the admissions person: "what is the next step? What do I need to do?" And the admissions person just said "you'll be getting your letter in the mail in a few weeks. Just, you'll be getting your letter in the mail. You'll be getting it. Good-bye." And this here is a prime example of how this could have happened, nobody telling me a goddamn thing about what the ******** is going on, just shove me away when I'm trying to get answers.

I still don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. I've never attended college on my own before, my parents were the ones who took care of these things when I attended before. Now I'm an adult and am trying to attend college, its all I want to do, but they are making it so monumentally difficult. I don't believe I am an idiot, and they are the ones who dropped the ball here by never even letting me know previously that I've been a student since the fall...


What the hell is going on? Can anybody explain to me what I am supposed to do in this situation?

Welcome to college...and welcome to your first taste of the college bureaucracy!

This is how colleges (at least the ones I've been to) work. They want to help you, I'm sure they really do. But everyone is so compartmentalized into their specific jobs that nobody can help you. They're getting paid to stay in their lanes. They are following scripts when they speak to you over the phone.

Keep showing up on campus. Smile, give the worker a compliment, then explain your issues as briefly as possible. Get the name, number, and email of every person you talk to. Then you proceed to annoy each one personally. Use email, phone, and showing up at their offices asking for them until somebody tells you what you need to know (or points you to someone who can, at which point you add them to the list of people you're required to politely pester).