W
aiting for a financial aid offer is a lot like
waiting for a medical diagnosis. The un-
known creates a fear so piercing, so all-
consuming, that when the anticipated phone call or email
finally comes through, holding your fate in a short string
of sentences, your life halts for a second. And then, the
shock: Maybe it’s a temporary loss of hearing. Maybe
your heart begins to race so much you forget to breathe.
Maybe you grow limp, wilting under the weight of life-
altering information. And you can’t quite decide what’s
worse: The anticipatory dread that precedes the news or
the physiological, traumatic reaction that the news elicits.
I’ve experienced this kind of reaction only a few times
in my life before one night at the end of July, when a hand-
ful of large numbers on a financial aid document told me I
might not be able to return to the University of Michigan
in the fall. The earliest time I can remember was when I
first got my period. I had just returned home from going
sledding with a couple of friends, and I pulled down my
snow pants to find my baby-blue underwear stained with
a small streak of beet-red blood. I clumsily redressed my-
self and hysterically reported my cherry-colored discov-
ery to my mom. I remember feeling like I was speaking
inside a fishbowl, the words muffled and distant.
Then there was the time I came home from sixth grade
to find my house had been robbed. Neither the driveway
littered with my mom’s jewelry nor the front door that
had been left swung open and battered on the perimeter
registered in my brain as red flags. It was the gaping space
left next to our fireplace, where a TV had been the day
prior, that finally triggered my primal fight-or-flight re-
sponse. Panicked, I incorrectly dialed 911 a couple times
before finally collecting myself and dialing the correct
digits.
And then there was the night I got rejected from
Northwestern University’s prestigious Medill School of
Journalism. The purple text on my application portal
seemed to distort in front of me until I finally found the
words: “We regret to inform you ...” The place I had spent
months researching and fantasizing about and pining for
had closed its doors to me; I felt like I had lost a future I
hadn’t been able to live yet.
Shifting my sights from the fiercely capable version
of myself I dreamed I would be at Northwestern to some
other, unknown person that would excel at a different
school felt impossible. This, compounded by a brutal
flare-up of my generalized anxiety disorder, meant that I
would need to navigate a life-changing college decision
process inside the headspace of someone I didn’t recog-
nize.
Like most of my peers, I was tackling countless ad-
missions essays and scholarship applications, but found
myself trying to navigate anti-anxiety medications and
intensive therapy, too. In a moment of panic, I told my
mom I didn’t want to live like this anymore, constantly
adjusting my dosages and undergoing therapy to counter-
act my worsened symptoms only to be back at the same
place: Anxious and uncertain and unsure about where in
the world I wanted to go to college. A couple weeks be-
fore college decisions were due, my mom sat me down on
our brown leather couch and told me college might not be
the right choice for me. Her eyes, big and blue and brim-
ming with tears, looked into mine with intense worry. She
knew that the version of me sitting in front of her was not
ready for any sort of undergraduate education come Au-
gust.
Then I was accepted into the University of Michigan. A
younger version of myself in a better frame of mind might
have seen my acceptance letter that spring and cried with
joy. She might have then seen my official financial aid of-
fer a few weeks later and be overcome with pride looking
at the considerable amount of aid I had received in grants
and awards. That single offer, that single document told
me where I needed to be. But my anxiety told me other-
wise — that I was incapable, damaged, too mentally un-
stable to go to college.
And when I was at my senior prom, dateless and se-
verely bummed out, I looked around at my classmates, all
of whom I’d known since first grade, and knew in my gut
that I owed it to myself to start over, outside of Indiana
and at the University.
So, after a few more months of therapy, leaning into
friends and family and allowing myself to regain the kind
of confidence I carried before my Northwestern rejec-
tion, I found myself in Ann Arbor in the fall of 2019. I was
anxiety-free and confident in my ability to excel in my
classes, constantly riding a high of meeting new people
and going to new places. Even when I would experience
a wave of anxiety, a quick trip to a buzzing and happening
Shapiro Undergraduate Library would remind me that
this place and all the people in it are so much bigger than
my anxieties will ever be.
Come Halloween, I found a group of people I loved
to be around, I had two work-study jobs and I was writ-
ing for an online magazine. Even throughout quarantine
and the transition to online classes, I was talking with my
U-M friends every day, naively hopeful for a fall semester
back in Ann Arbor, where I would be a sophomore once
again living off of over-priced lattes and the thrill of short-
lived eye contact with a pretty stranger.
When the isolation grew to be disheartening, I would
picture myself in the places I thought would be waiting
for me in the fall: An East Quad Dining Hall bustling with
professors and students speaking different languages;
a crisp, leaf-covered lane leading me to Tappan Hall; a
bright window seat in the Literati Coffee shop. One year
as a Wolverine meant that I had this bountiful stash of
memories and experiences to store away and return to,
pockets of joy and contentment to relive when life grew
dull.
This made it all the more devastating when my parents
delivered the crushing diagnosis this past July, a month
before my sophomore year was supposed to begin: You
cannot afford the University this year. My heart sank in
disbelief and that odd, fishbowl-type of sensation came
over me as my parents’ voices warped into muffled noises.
After a few moments, the news found its place in the
logical part of my brain and I started panicking. Was I
supposed to bail on my roommate? What would happen
to my credits? What would I tell my friends with whom I
was supposed to live junior year? Where would I transfer?
The morning after I received Michigan’s diagnosis, I
sent in my transfer application to an in-state institution
with tears streaming down my face. I was overcome with
panic — how could one document usher so much change
into my life? I couldn’t eat or sleep for two days. Every
waking moment was spent attempting to grieve the loss
of the life I created for myself at U-M, while frantically
trying to secure admission and housing somewhere in In-
diana.
My family and I called the financial aid office to in-
quire about the reasoning behind the significant reduc-
tion in my aid package. The officers spoke of formulas
and the FAFSA, essentially attributing the entire reduc-
tion in my aid to a shift in our household as shown on the
FAFSA. “Michigan” or “no Michigan” was determined by
one highly-intricate financial aid formula calculated in
just the right way. During this award cycle, the office ex-
plained, a faulty number was plugged into my application.
So, it seemed, the answer was “no Michigan.”
But nevertheless, I am here, writing this article as a
U-M student, as a sophomore gearing up for the begin-
ning of a year marked by social distance guidelines and
other COVID-19 precautions. While my original diagno-
sis seemed to be completely inalterable, extensive com-
munication with the financial aid office helped me undo
the faulty digit that led me to the blunt, cold end of a “no
Michigan” equation.
And so, I along with all of my peers are met with the
sour taste of a different diagnosis: One that marks this en-
tire academic year with “cautious optimism” toward de-
livering a “health-informed semester.” One that involves
a Michigan Union meticulously reconfigured so students
study from a safe social distance, dining hall lines stretch-
ing for blocks and a campus-wide animosity that allows
us to berate freshmen for partying. And we’re paying full,
even increased, tuition for all of this.
Campus does not look like the University I remem-
bered while straining for first-year memories during an
isolating quarantine or sitting across from my parents,
crying at the thought of not being able to afford returning
this fall. We’re struggling, endlessly irritated with our ad-
ministration and with each other as we clumsily navigate
a “culture of care.” Nevertheless, all we can do with the re-
ality of this school year is conduct ourselves in a way that
ensures no one else has to grapple with a similar fate. The
diagnosis is seemingly crushing, but we’ve got to make do
with it somehow.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
14 — Wednesday, September 2, 2020
statement
A faulty diagnosis
and a dream deferred
BY GRACE TUCKER, STATEMENT COLUMNIST
ILLUSTRATION BY TAYLOR SCNOTT