Page 14-The Michigan Daily, Thursday, September 10, 1987 0 .k.Fn "..................!:lmm w.AO M M NM ..S Academic counselors help sort out the U' By LISA POLLAK Remember your high school counselors? Those people in the principal's office whose primary importance in your life was most likely to staple your S.A.T. scores to your transcripts and tell you that, no, they wouldn't call Harvard and put in a good word for you? Well, counselors, like grades and exams, will again be a part of your life at the University. But unlike high school, Orientation was probably the only time in college that your counseling was structured, assigned, and arranged by somebody else. When and where to get your academic advice at the University is largely something that you choose for yourself. And in the next four years counselors will become much more important in leading you through the maze of courses, requirements, and university proto - students who request counseling will be provided with a full time counselor. Often students will see a different counselor each time they enter the counseling office. "Of course, a student can request 'When and where to get your academic advice at the University is largely something that you choose for yourself. consult, with a counselor before their first-term of registration. Students are expected to make any additional appointments as their individual needs warrant and as questions arise as to what fields of study to pursue. So students are not expected to have a close relationship with any one counselor - a situation some officials say would be impossible because of size of the university. LSA counselors also hold regular office hours in the majority of residence halls on a weekly basis. Here students can develop closer ties with their counselors because the same counselors come to the each week. An alternative to making appointments or dealing with staff counselors is offered by the Student Counseling Office, a student-run group that provides counseling on a walk-in basis to LSA students. Billing themselves as peer counselors "in an informal and relaxed atmosphere," the SCO in U Haven Hall is most popular for its file of old exams. SCO counselors can also inform students about more than just the content and credit of a class. Students who have actually sat through the classes will candidly relate such facts as how hard, how boring, or how worthwhile a class may be. col than every before. Academic advising is provided by all the schools and colleges at the university. While sometimes this advice will come from faculty members or graduate students, most a specific counselor, but sometimes he will be available and sometimes he won't" said an employee in the LSA counseling office. But LSA, like many other schools, only requires students to '/R,'.............!..............1..........! '. ,./ C MAKING ENDS MEET Students seek financial aid By BRIAN BONET Due partly to increasing tuition rates and the high cost of living in Ann Arbor, nearly half of the University's student body turns to the the Office of Financial Aid to help make ends meet. "Our packages are among the best of any schools, public or private, in the state," said Harvey Grotrian, financial aid director. According to Grotrian, the primary goal of the office is to aid students who, without financial assistance, would be unable to attend The University, whose tuition is the most expensive among public universities in the country. The office tries to meet the financial needs of all in-state students, he said, but non-residents have no such guarantee. Last year, the University awarded nearly $40 million to under- graduates, and currently an estim- ated 12,000 undergraduate and graduate students, excluding medical and law students, receive aid. The formula the University uses to determine who is eligible for financial aid is derived by sub- tracting the estimated family contribution to tuition from the total cost of attending the University for a year. In figuring the family con- tribution, the University determines how much the applicant is expected to contribute to their education and how much their parents are expected to contribute. Student contribution is calcu- lated by the amount of money the applicant earns from summer jobs and part-time jobs during the school year. In addition, if the applicant has a checking or savings account, the University expects part of the balance to go towards the appli- cant's education. Some students, though, have found the financial expectations the University places on them unrea- sonable. Last winter the Daily reported that one student, Laura, a fifth year senior who didn't want to use her real name, said the amount of money she was required to earn during the summer jumped drastically during her junior and senior years. The amount of parental contribution is determined by the parents' financial status. The University requires the parents of each applicant to fill out a financial statement. The form asks questions about family size, the number of dependents attending college, parents' income, and the value of parents' assets. The estimated amount of parental contribution for each student is determined by how much the applicant's parents appear to be able to pay toward their child's expenses and where they stand financially compared to the rest of the applicants. Many students, however, say their parents are expected to give more money then they can afford. The University has an appeal process which considers unusual circumstances surrounding financial aid, but there has rarely been a case when parents would be exempted from contributing to the tuition. The recenE change in the federal government's student assistance programs from offering grants to private loans may have an affect on the University's financial aid process, said Bob Holmes, the assistant vice president for academic affairs. "The federal government is less generous than we would like, so the University must find alternative ways to help students," he said. 14 q The bestlDaily Photo by SCOTT TUCH Daily readers voted last spring that South Quad had the best dorm food iin the Weekend Magazine's Best of Ann Arbor poll. The two SQ food service. workers pictured said they were surprised to hear the news. (Maybe they know something we don't.) FROM ONE NEWCOMER... Clubs can be rewarding .(Continued from Page 12) T O a e W ea e a d Ope ne st- ionth oa ess been b usy rs for We haVe -jth ir e thenur shelves eed to get fft at AN OTHER! I'-G I. " / the most practical and feasible extra-curricular choices. SIX. Do explore. Just because,4 you were a student government leader, a newspaper editor, or an actor in high school doesn't mean you have to fall into the same catagories once in college. While the University does offer the traditional clubs, it also offers activities as obscure, controversial,. varied, and unusual as life itself. And isn't that what they've said college is all about in the first place? 11 I r-A II PA 4 14 Read and Use Daily Classifieds ~~burlty yothe best. embr o bly isbks Rem blle pP yght boos early, aran tethe We .gur classes' forYuC I book & supply Three Floors of Almost Everything! 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