Saturday, I got the Big Envelope from UK Law. I am now a bona fide future law student at the University of Kentucky. I have 203 days until the start of classes, and 186 days until my last day of work. I even have little widgets on my dashboard counting down the days.
Also included in the Big Envelope were a lot of financial aid papers: FAFSA forms, UK Student Aid forms, etc. They graciously included a cost sheet for the current year, which told me that I'd need to get at least $14,898 in financial aid to attend the school, plus money to live on while I attend. You see, UK Law doesn't allow first-year students to hold jobs, so I will have to live on loans while I'm attending school (at least for the first year).
So all in all, my reaction was kind of mixed. I'm eager to go to law school, thrilled to be starting a new path in life, but for the first time in my adult life, I'll be living on the support of my family and the government. Granted, I'll be paying back the money in the long run, but the prospect of having $40K+ in loans per year is a bit daunting. Sure, with my rockin' LSAT score, I'm pretty competitive for scholarships, but the acceptance letter told me that scholarship winners wouldn't be announced until March, so I started gearing up to fill out all of those forms to get as much financial aid as I could.
So today, when I got the small envelope from UK Law, I didn't think a whole lot about it. I brought in the mail, and when I got to it, I joked to Lori that I was glad they sent the Big Envelope first, because I'd have gotten really depressed if the first communication back from UK was the small envelope. I wasn't prepared for what was inside.
The letter in the small envelope told me about the scholarship I'd been awarded.
UK Law is giving me a three-year scholarship, which pays for almost the whole of tuition the first year, and half of tuition the second and third years! I started reading the letter to myself, and I started reading it out load and dancing when I got to the words "has selected you to receive". I got louder with each paragraph, Lori got excited, and even Veronica started bopping in her chair (she was eating a snack at the time) to my crazy white-man happy dance.
Do you remember the movie Forrest Gump? When Forrest gets the letter from Dan about the money they made from selling the shrimp company, and investing it into Apple stock (sidebar: which I hope they sold before the keynote), and Forrest's monologue says:
Lieutenant Dan got me invested in some kind of fruit company. So then I got a call from him, saying we don't have to worry about money no more. And I said, that's good! One less thing.
So for me, that's one less thing. Now I can be elated.
Nick | February 5, 2008 12:20 PM
Even though you got a lot of your college paid with this scholarship, if you want an easy close by, part-time job that'll fit into your schedule of school, let me know. Come August I am probably leaving my night job at TU. It's good money for doing very little and with the short distance between where you live and where it's located, you'd be making bank. Plus, you still have Fri and Sat. nights free.
Dan | February 5, 2008 1:30 PM
Ah, yes, but I'm not allowed to work at all, so it's a no go. But like I said before, if you're looking for something, I know of a position that'll be opening up around August or so.