Classes, MORE financial aid and Visas

The past few weeks have been like any other week; BUSY! On may 24th at the glorious hour of 4am I register for my semester at sea classes, a few days before that, as you know, I received information about my non-existent financial aid. Lastly, on Tuesday this week I submitted my visa application.

Registering for classes was super easy. They had us register for our Global Studies course first. After that you went back into registration and selected the rest of your classes from one list of all the classes offered. I was able to register about 3 minutes before the majority of people. I honestly dont know why the site just showed that I could register so I did. Since I got in early I was able to get all of my classes and there was no lag from all the people doing the exact same thing as me. After I registered I received an e-mail from SAS confirming the classes I had registered for. Till about 4:45am everyone was posting their schedules to the facebook group to see who they would have classes with.
Most people were able to get all the classes that they needed. One girl, who I will have Science of Love with, almost didnt get all of her classes, but she was able to work it out with her home school and with SAS. She's a senior so it was even more important that she get to take classes that actually count!
In the end the following is my schedule for Semester at Sea Fall 2012:

A means that the class will meet on "A days" and B means the class will meet on "B days". Im kind of curious about how we will know which days are A and which are B.
I haven't seen anyone in the facebook group that I have Personality in Culture with. I really really hope it doesn't get cancelled!

Yesterday I got some decent news about financial aid. I received a need based grant. It's a lot less than what I was expecting, but I am going to go through the appeal process since there are financial circumstances of me and my family that are not reflected on my FAFSA. If I dont get an increase in the amount it's ok, but I dont see how it could hurt to explain to them that what the FAFSA says is not reality. I am grateful that I did received some aid.
I am still waiting on the consortium agreement to be made between my home school and SAS. I sent the agreement to them a month and a half ago!
Either way I know financial aid will not cover this trip. As a result I will be applying for a student loan from Sallie Mae for the full cost of this trip. I can always give them back money that I dont need, but the application process can take about a week and then it takes them a little time to send the funding to the school. I am absolutely not happy that I have to take out a loan for this experience but I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't go because of money. Life is about experiences and this trip is an experience many people won't dream of. I am okay with going into debt for this experience.

Finally, everyone and their dog spot has had trouble with VISA applications! I think the most difficult part of the application process is Travisa's global reservation form. Travisa has you basically place an order and pay for all of your visa's and their services all at once. They ask for basic information about you and information about your passport. They also ask when you are leaving the United States and when you will need your passport back. The next step is the confusing one. Travisa has several locations and where you send your visa USUALLY depends on where you're from. However if you are with Semester at Sea you send your completed application to WASHINGTON D.C. the Travisa processing location there will then do all the foot work of getting your visas. When I filled out my global reservation form I was asked to send my completed application to San Francisco, but after discussing this with other people from semester at sea we were able to find out that no matter where you're from you send your documents to Washington d.c., but you complete your application as if it was going straight to the other processing location. Each location has a difference policy for what needs to be included and yellow fever cards. I thought that I didn't need a yellow fever card till later, but Travisa called and told me I will need a yellow fever card now rather than later. As a result my visa application for Brazil is on hold till I get that done.
The process of filling out the visa applications wasn't very difficult because semester at sea gave us samples of what to fill out.
In all, the visa's are an expensive pain in the butt!