I Waive My Health Insurance Every Semester
I'm first-generation, and my mom didn't go to college. The little education she has is grade school education. My dad came with her when we moved to America around twenty years ago. I was born here. My mom started a rice business; she sells rice from our back yard and also Islamic clothes. So when applying for the FAFSA, my mom didn't know how to do anything so I did it all myself, with the help of a counselor from my school, guiding her along the whole time. In the days right before choosing a college I still hadn't gotten my financial aid award letter, so I was trying to decide which college I would choose and I didn't have an award letter, so I didn't know what I was going to do. It was either Stanford or Yale and I was like, "I need this done," so my counselor pushed for them to waive my non-custodial parent requirement, and they waived it, and then I chose Yale.
I feel like I was very fortunate, in that I don't really have to pay much, since my mom's income is less than $40,000 per year, and I have six other siblings, so I think I've been fortunate, I don't have to work. The biggest thing for me is that I waive my health insurance every semester without my mom knowing so that it's way less and she doesn't have to pay as much because if she did it would be like $2000 and without it it's like $1000. So I waive that and I'm just careful about what I do so I don't get hurt so I don't have to go the hospital and have her pay for that. I've chosen not to work because I feel like it would be better for my mental state. I don't do well under stress or feeling unstable; I just feel like it would be too much for me to handle, especially in my first year.
Over the summer I worked a job with a friend of a friend -- I asked my teacher if he knew anyone he could put me into contact with, so I found this job with a woman who was paying me out of her home to organize her files and watch her kids, so I saved about $1000 over the summer and I've just been using it in little bursts to go out with friends, or if I need a pick-me-up, I'll go to Starbucks or something… so I've just been saving money there. And I decided to work this summer and do an internship so I can make that same amount of money and do that again next year. So I haven't been really affected much by the SIC because it's being paid for by Yale and my financial aid is basically covering about 98% of the tuition. But I still think it would be useful for them to eliminate that just to avoid the burden on people who can't afford to pay for things like that.
I think the way I feel least like everyone here is that I feel like I have to keep a lot of my life private just to avoid questions like, "how did you grow up with your family getting so little income?" and I think I was most fortunate in switching from my 9th grade HS, which was a really run-down public high school. While I was there I got placed there because it was in my district, but then while I was there I decided to apply to a charter school. I decided that that wasn't what I wanted for myself -- I wanted to do things with my life, so I looked online. I wanted to transfer, and the only way I would be able to do that would be if I went to a charter school, so I entered the lotto for like five different charter schools and I ended up getting into Democracy Prep. My mom didn't know about it until they called me about two days before school was starting in the 10th grade, and they told me I got in but I needed to take a placement test, so I told my mother I got in.
It was a very scary experience because I was going through all this alone. She didn't understand what was going on; she didn't understand that it would benefit me, she didn't understand what the difference between a public and a charter school was, so I had to guide her through that whole process. And it's been like that basically my whole life, my having to explain to her why things are useful, and I think it's made me very angry in a way that I don't like to admit, because I feel like I shouldn't be as angry, because she didn't have the opportunities to go to school and learn these things and I have to teach her that, but at the same time it feels like I have given up a lot of my childhood and a lot of my time that I could have been using to do other things like normal teenagers in trying to ready her for this process that I would have to go do in college, in high school. And I'm glad I did, because I have so many younger siblings who will have to go through this process, and now I know what it feels like to go through this process, and I can help them with that. And she, now, is more experienced in a way, I just wish she knew how to do a lot more things, but I understand that she can't help where she came from.
The reason I'm here is because in Mali there was a Tuareg war between the years of 1995 and 1997, I believe, so my family first emigrate to Paris, which was too expensive for us to live, and then to America. We were living in a shelter for about the first two years and then we finally found a place to rent in the Bronx, and we've been living there my whole life. Everything in my live has come out of coincidences. If I hadn't decided to apply to charter schools, I would not be here right now. If I hadn't decided to just want better for myself, I wouldn't be here. My family is very broken in many ways. Just by the extreme differences in our communities and of course we recognize that we're differences, obviously. We've had to go through my sister being in a shelter and a foster home, because she didn't feel like home was the place for her and so I feel like a lot of the time my siblings and I were put on the back-burner, but at the end of the day, that's just how our experience was, and we have to go from there. Two of my older sisters, both of them are in college now. We're also just trying to do the best we can so that our mother can live a good life when all of us have gone on to college. My mom doesn't know how any of the process works. It's me relaying information to her, with the help of my counselor.
In the beginning of the year, I realized that a lot of my things weren't submitted, because I needed to go to them to ask them… because they're paying for my books, and I wasn't going to be able to get that unless I submitted something called the IRS Transcript, and I was missing valuable class time because I did not have the books at my disposal. I went back to my counselor who sat on the phone with me and explained what everything was and helped me fill everything out. They haven't done anything that has made me feel alienated by the process; I think they've been very helpful.
I avoid things like the YPU even if I'm interested in them because I know most of the people will be white and of a higher class, and it's something I'm trying to overcome… like this is my situation and I can't help it, but at the same time, I feel very uncomfortable being in situations like that. It's very discouraging because I could be doing more, but I'm afraid to do that because I'm afraid of how I would be perceived in those situations, so I tend to stay with groups of people of color. I am in activities that are vehemently for people of color… the Yale African Students Association, the Black Women's Coalition, the Step Team which is heavily filled with minority students, DOWN magazine… I definitely am afraid to branch out because of what I would probably experience.
Money definitely plays into what I am going to do in the future. I thought about going to graduate school for a while, and then I was just like, "I am not going to be able to afford that." So I decided to go into econ and global affairs and get a job after college for a couple of years. I'm still thinking about graduate school but it's something I'll probably do 5 or 10 years later. It's definitely affected what I'm thinking about majoring in and just how my interests are going to have to coincide with something that is going to help me be self-sufficient.
This past summer I was looking for places that would help me fill out my FAFSA, and I found a program called Goddard Riverside, who will help me fill out my papers. I decided to wait until spring break to go there and fill it out, because I knew it would be stressful to do it before.
In my group that I hang out with, that we're on financial aid is just common knowledge, and we know that we're less privileged than a lot of people around us. A lot of my friends work; they said it's been helpful, but at the same time it's stressful.
I feel like I was very fortunate, in that I don't really have to pay much, since my mom's income is less than $40,000 per year, and I have six other siblings, so I think I've been fortunate, I don't have to work. The biggest thing for me is that I waive my health insurance every semester without my mom knowing so that it's way less and she doesn't have to pay as much because if she did it would be like $2000 and without it it's like $1000. So I waive that and I'm just careful about what I do so I don't get hurt so I don't have to go the hospital and have her pay for that. I've chosen not to work because I feel like it would be better for my mental state. I don't do well under stress or feeling unstable; I just feel like it would be too much for me to handle, especially in my first year.
Over the summer I worked a job with a friend of a friend -- I asked my teacher if he knew anyone he could put me into contact with, so I found this job with a woman who was paying me out of her home to organize her files and watch her kids, so I saved about $1000 over the summer and I've just been using it in little bursts to go out with friends, or if I need a pick-me-up, I'll go to Starbucks or something… so I've just been saving money there. And I decided to work this summer and do an internship so I can make that same amount of money and do that again next year. So I haven't been really affected much by the SIC because it's being paid for by Yale and my financial aid is basically covering about 98% of the tuition. But I still think it would be useful for them to eliminate that just to avoid the burden on people who can't afford to pay for things like that.
I think the way I feel least like everyone here is that I feel like I have to keep a lot of my life private just to avoid questions like, "how did you grow up with your family getting so little income?" and I think I was most fortunate in switching from my 9th grade HS, which was a really run-down public high school. While I was there I got placed there because it was in my district, but then while I was there I decided to apply to a charter school. I decided that that wasn't what I wanted for myself -- I wanted to do things with my life, so I looked online. I wanted to transfer, and the only way I would be able to do that would be if I went to a charter school, so I entered the lotto for like five different charter schools and I ended up getting into Democracy Prep. My mom didn't know about it until they called me about two days before school was starting in the 10th grade, and they told me I got in but I needed to take a placement test, so I told my mother I got in.
It was a very scary experience because I was going through all this alone. She didn't understand what was going on; she didn't understand that it would benefit me, she didn't understand what the difference between a public and a charter school was, so I had to guide her through that whole process. And it's been like that basically my whole life, my having to explain to her why things are useful, and I think it's made me very angry in a way that I don't like to admit, because I feel like I shouldn't be as angry, because she didn't have the opportunities to go to school and learn these things and I have to teach her that, but at the same time it feels like I have given up a lot of my childhood and a lot of my time that I could have been using to do other things like normal teenagers in trying to ready her for this process that I would have to go do in college, in high school. And I'm glad I did, because I have so many younger siblings who will have to go through this process, and now I know what it feels like to go through this process, and I can help them with that. And she, now, is more experienced in a way, I just wish she knew how to do a lot more things, but I understand that she can't help where she came from.
The reason I'm here is because in Mali there was a Tuareg war between the years of 1995 and 1997, I believe, so my family first emigrate to Paris, which was too expensive for us to live, and then to America. We were living in a shelter for about the first two years and then we finally found a place to rent in the Bronx, and we've been living there my whole life. Everything in my live has come out of coincidences. If I hadn't decided to apply to charter schools, I would not be here right now. If I hadn't decided to just want better for myself, I wouldn't be here. My family is very broken in many ways. Just by the extreme differences in our communities and of course we recognize that we're differences, obviously. We've had to go through my sister being in a shelter and a foster home, because she didn't feel like home was the place for her and so I feel like a lot of the time my siblings and I were put on the back-burner, but at the end of the day, that's just how our experience was, and we have to go from there. Two of my older sisters, both of them are in college now. We're also just trying to do the best we can so that our mother can live a good life when all of us have gone on to college. My mom doesn't know how any of the process works. It's me relaying information to her, with the help of my counselor.
In the beginning of the year, I realized that a lot of my things weren't submitted, because I needed to go to them to ask them… because they're paying for my books, and I wasn't going to be able to get that unless I submitted something called the IRS Transcript, and I was missing valuable class time because I did not have the books at my disposal. I went back to my counselor who sat on the phone with me and explained what everything was and helped me fill everything out. They haven't done anything that has made me feel alienated by the process; I think they've been very helpful.
I avoid things like the YPU even if I'm interested in them because I know most of the people will be white and of a higher class, and it's something I'm trying to overcome… like this is my situation and I can't help it, but at the same time, I feel very uncomfortable being in situations like that. It's very discouraging because I could be doing more, but I'm afraid to do that because I'm afraid of how I would be perceived in those situations, so I tend to stay with groups of people of color. I am in activities that are vehemently for people of color… the Yale African Students Association, the Black Women's Coalition, the Step Team which is heavily filled with minority students, DOWN magazine… I definitely am afraid to branch out because of what I would probably experience.
Money definitely plays into what I am going to do in the future. I thought about going to graduate school for a while, and then I was just like, "I am not going to be able to afford that." So I decided to go into econ and global affairs and get a job after college for a couple of years. I'm still thinking about graduate school but it's something I'll probably do 5 or 10 years later. It's definitely affected what I'm thinking about majoring in and just how my interests are going to have to coincide with something that is going to help me be self-sufficient.
This past summer I was looking for places that would help me fill out my FAFSA, and I found a program called Goddard Riverside, who will help me fill out my papers. I decided to wait until spring break to go there and fill it out, because I knew it would be stressful to do it before.
In my group that I hang out with, that we're on financial aid is just common knowledge, and we know that we're less privileged than a lot of people around us. A lot of my friends work; they said it's been helpful, but at the same time it's stressful.
