College Tuition

Hello,    My name is Shannon Sess and I am writing to you today because the economy and finances way a heavy burden on my family, as with over half of Americans today. As we all know, one of the many steps to success is a good education. A luxury that has been provided "freely" throughout the nation's public school systems. I, without a doubt have received a very good education by my school Dutchtown High School in Hampton, Georgia. One thing my high school was very adamant about what stressing that we achieve the HOPE scholarship. This scholarship is a statewide scholarship awarded to students who maintained a 3.0 GPA throughout the course of their high school education. With that being said, I was under the impression that I was going to be awarded the HOPE scholarship seeing that I have enrolled and passed nothing but Honors and AP level courses.  Throughout my high school career I attended a total of 9 AP classes and 10 Honors classes. In the Georgia school system, when a student is enrolled in an Honors level course, the student is automatically awarded an extra 5 points to their grade. ( an 80 becomes an 85). As for AP it is only slightly different, the student is awarded 10 extra points. (A 90 becomes a 100). These scores are very helpful when it comes to your class rank, but as far as qualifying for anything else, they are worthless. HOPE scholarship does not award students any extra points for their hard work in these classes, they take your raw( unweighted/no points added i.e 100 becomes a 90) score and they award the scholarship based off of your core classes ( English, math, science, social studies) and they cumulate your GPA from that.  Having had graduated from high school with a cumulative weighted GPA of 3.63, I was overly confident that I had been awarded the HOPE scholarship, even when I received a letter from my future college Valdosta State University, they had notified me that I was awarded $4,000 a semester for HOPE scholarship, so I was convinced that I was set. I had also won a $3,000 scholarship through the James Michael Everett scholarship fund and was also awarded a  $5,645 federal grant through my FAFSA application. Even with all of these awards my college tuition still was not covered.  On July 10th, 2014, I was awaken by my mother with a disturbing phone call notifying me that I was not awarded the HOPE scholarship. She discovered this upon paying our first fee for the fall semester at Valdosta State University. HOPE scholarship did not even notify us that I was not awarded the scholarship, even when I check my school financial aid I'm still listed as having it. In an effort to better my understanding of why I was not awarded this scholarship, i called my high school and I was informed that even though I graduated with a 3.63 took 9 AP classes and 10 Honors classes, my GPA for HOPE was a 2.96. I was only .04 points off from achieving this scholarship. I was very disappointed that I had not met the requirement.  Fury ran through my veins as I recollected countless hours of lost sleep, endless amounts of assignments, and relentless stress, and what for? All of my hard work left me with scholarships that were awarded because of my family's financial hardships and because of my talent as an artist. Not even my own college was able to offer me any money based off of my academics, and I graduated 41 out of 319 students.  Like I mentioned before, economic and financial hardships play a major role in my family's  lives. Things started going downhill when my parents split up back in 2010. I decided to live with my father. My dad works 2 jobs and still lives paycheck to paycheck struggling each day to save any money.  During my sophomore year, my grades began to reflect my struggles with adjusting to my parents divorce. Not necessarily on an emotional level, but because of finances. When my mom moved out, she taught me how to pay bills online. My father was never really good with technology so he asked me to help him pay the bills. I did not know what I was getting myself into. I was constantly on edge wondering if we had enough money to pay the house payment or the electric bill, this caused my mind to wander in class therefore leaving me behind in class. Taking a look at my transcript this is very noticeable.  Paying my father's bills not only took a toll on my education but it also affected my social life and my home life. Overall I just was not happy. Many suggested that I live with my mother but her situation was not too different. She remarried to a disabled man, so she was the only one working in her household. Not to mention that she had my brother at her house who had dropped out of my high school to attend an alternative home schooling program called Faith Academy. This program cost my mom 40$ a week. Needless to say, this is just one of those thousands of stories that you receive daily, but I do not want to be this story, I want, more than anything in this world, to make a story that I am proud to call my own, and to say that it was truly MY story, not my parents, not my high school's, MINE. And I with your help and support I would like to make my story come to life.   If you have any questions please contact me by the following. *Cell Phone: 678-538-8842 *College Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]   *Best modes of contact   Thank you for your time and consideration,  Shannon Sess