Sallie Mae vs FAFSA

[ritaxis]

I don't know what "Sallie Mae" stands for, but I think it has "Stafford" in it somewhere. I assume Stafford was a congressperson who authored the bill that brought Stafford loans into being. These are loans for graduate students, law students, medical students, like that. But they aren't cheap loans like student loans used to be. They're eight and a half percent, though you can bargain them down a point or so in various ways after you graduate. But for students they might be the only loans they can get.

So, U Karlovy 2nd Medical has an agreement with the US dept of Ed which allows US students at their school to partake of these loans. However, when Frank went to start an application there, he found out that his school code, which FAFSA (the central application service) gave him and verified, gets him kicked off the website to the beginning.

So I go on the phone. I speak to two different very nice, very helpful people, and two hours later I have the answer: the FAFSA school code is G33003, but the Sallie Mae school code is 033003. Meanwhile I have a bad hour in there where I can't find the copy of the letter which authorizes Karlovy students to participate, and a new search for 2nd medical faculty (after many iterations of the name of the school in both Czech and English) results in 1st medical and 3rd medical but not 2nd. But verifying the school code by the other route works. Surprisingly (or not?), these school codes are not sequential . . .

Anyway, that's my whole morning gone. However, I did work out some plotting kinks for The Conduit, and I did sweep the kitchen floor, and I did find out that the flat rate priority mail box is about the size of a ream of standard paper ($37 to send him a pair of longjohns and a pair of pants?), and I did print out what I have to read for tomorrow, and I found those longjohns.

late to work.

Comments

Mail to "other places"

[towse.livejournal.com]

His nibs discovered yesterday, when he made our annual trip to the P.O. to mail calendars with pretty California pictures to friends and family in England and France, that the P.O. no longer does cheap "slow boat" mail. Wah? We've always mailed the calendars in October, knowing it would take 6-8 wks to get where they were going and that was okay.

Well, not this year. This year our friends and family will get their calendars next week, if not sooner.

Weird. And expensive. The postage expense was almost double the cost of the calendars.

Don't like it. Don't like changes like this.

Re: Mail to "other places"

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it's a real memory and not just me being crazy about the used to be cheaper boxes. It's outrageous --$37 gets you the volume of a ream of thick typing paper. I'm experimenting with rolling the guy's clothes up tighter and tighter.

I just now discovered "priority mail" without the flat rate box, which is a little more expensive by weight but clothes aren't that heavy. Tomorrow we go down and find out what this really means.

Re: Mail to "other places"

[towse.livejournal.com]

FWIW, the youngest guy is starting a Peace Corps gig next spring. (Training starts in March. 2-year commitment starts in June.)

The information on his assignment (location won't be finalized until he's in training but he knows he'll be in Ukraine ... somewhere) comes with the suggestion that family/friends who want to send stuff to Ukraine for him should use padded mailing bags because "boxes" seem to == "something valuable" and are more likely to disappear in transit.

Re: Mail to "other places"

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

We're sending a box. No bag on earth can hold all those warm clothes!

Re: Mail to "other places"

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Actually, there are padded mailing bags that big that are made of, I've forgotten it again. The stuff that doesn't tear. I've gotten several outfits at a time in one of those.

You could consider another shipper than USPS. Most deliver to Europe.

Re: Mail to "other places"

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

UPS and Fed Ex both want hundreds of dollars to send boxes smaller than the one we ended up sending.

Re: Mail to "other places"

[towse.livejournal.com]

If you decide to go with USPS, it looks like (from their site: http://ircalc.usps.gov/) you can save a buck or two by signing up for an online account and arranging your postage/mailing label online. Don't know exactly how that works ...

Re: Mail to "other places"

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I saw that too. I'll probably get around to it, since I think, what with the rate of exchange, we'll probably be sending a few boxes a year. At least we'll probably send him his summer clothes in May or so. And a Christmas box and a birthday box (all of these much smaller than the box we sent),

Re: Mail to "other places"

[towse.livejournal.com]

We had dinner with a friend and his wife tonight. He's eighty and is clearing out his storage stashes and selling off his "stuff" -- the stuff his kids don't want -- on eBay. He says the USPS online postage is easy-peasy =and= after you attach the labels and stuff (including the customs form) to your package you can just drop it off at the post office counter without waiting in the long lines. (Well, I don't know about =your= long lines, but the ones at the North Beach station can get pretty long.)

Re: Mail to "other places"

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I'm still boggled about the move to North Beach. Not because the house you left was so nice -- it was, but it was also a big family-raising house, so I could see you moving once the guys grew up -- but because it's impossible to get a place in North Beach!

But, good, that's what we'll do. Our lines are up and down, but yeah.

Re: Mail to "other places"

[towse.livejournal.com]

B. was born in SF and spent his first few years over in Cow Hollow with his grandparents, while his dad was gone in WW2. He spent a lot of time here while he was growing up and always intended to find his way back.

We're on Telegraph Hill, but NB is our local PO. We can walk or take public transportation almost anywhere. B's two-day-a-week job in Campbell is moving to Sunnyvale soon. Happy day! He can take the train.

Took us eighteen months of Sunday open houses to find the place we did and another day or two to decide that we =could= live without a garage or even a parking space or a street and could walk our groceries down the steps and our recycle out.

I miss the dirt, the backyard. Boy, do I, but we're better off here.

Re: Mail to "other places"

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Living in the City is worth not having a car. If I lived in the City, I'd probably live in the Mission, but I'd still not have a car of my own. I'd rent a car when I felt like it. Cheaper in the long run!

I admit there are substantial benefits to your neighborhood -- Molinari, City Lights, Trieste, Hang Ah, Coit Tower (you do not have to be a tourist to love the murals), and really close bus lines.

Though remember that party at Bill Quick's? Frank was fifteen or sixteen. We ended up walking all the way back to my dad's place on the hill at the end of Church Street because the buses had stopped running . . .