Reading Rome, Writing Rome:
Creative Writing Workshop in Italy 2008
May 22-June 14, 2008
Financial Aid
If you expect to apply for financial aid, you should identify yourself as a prospective financial-aid student and include your student ID number when making initial contact with either instructor.
Because you must list the cost of your airfare in your financial-aid application, you must reserve your airline tickets as soon as you are provisionally accepted into the program. (See Air Travel and Passports for booking information.) If you are a financial-aid student who is accepted into the program and decides not to go, please notify Professor Vaughn and Baker Travel immediately.
Your air tickets must be booked round trip from your city of departure (normally your home city or Ithaca) to Rome, and must cover only the period of the program. Financial-aid funds awarded for travel to and from the Rome summer program cannot be used to finance other kinds of travel.
In order to begin the financial-aid application process, you must first contact Professor Vaughn or Michael Koch to discuss your courses and their availability. Once you are provisionally accepted into the program, Professor Vaughn will send your Cornell student ID to the financial aid office, so that the aid office can begin to research your qualifications even before you fill out the application forms.
Important: You will receive e-mail notification to 1) enroll for courses in B20 Day Hall, and to 2) complete aid application forms in 203 Day Hall. You must act immediately or you will lose your seat in the program.
Also important: You will need to visit both B20 Day Hall and 203 Day Hall more than once in order to complete the paperwork for your aid. Please be alert for e-mails, and please save all copies of e-mail communications relevant to your aid application and funding.
Enrollment versus Registration: Your enrollment for particular courses is not the same thing as registration for the program. You will not be able to register for the program until your aid has been approved and funds for your tuition and program fee can be electronically transferred to your Bursar account. In other words, filling out one set of forms in B20 Day Hall is not the end of the enrollment and registration process. Your registration will not be completed until late in Spring Term.
If you do not receive enough aid to cover 100% of the program, you may wish to inquire about an additional loan that the financial aid office can help you apply for. Normally, a loan that can be used to cover the "family contribution" portion of your Rome costs can be processed quickly, but you must apply for it in a timely fashion.
No later than February 14, you must make a $750 tuition deposit in B20 Day Hall. If you wish to defer payment of a portion of the tuiton and program fee deposit, you may do so by writing to Professor Vaughn, who will work out with you an alternative schedule for making your deposit payment. You will have received information about your funding from the aid office by the deposit deadline. If you decide not to proceed with your aid application(s) and wish to relinquish your seat in the program, please contact both the aid office and Professor Vaughn immediately.
Deposits are nonrefundable. If it happens that your aid package covers 100% of your costs for the Rome summer program, then you will be reimbursed in May for the cost of your tuition deposit—that is, you will be making the payment in February but will receive it back from the aid office once your funds are processed.
In mid-April, you must pay the full amount for your air tickets. If your aid covers all or part of your air transportation cost, you may apply for either an advance or a reimbursement from the financial aid office. Your application for the advance will be for the exact amount of your ticket costs.
Very, very important: If you have not cleared the balances of your Bursar and Cornell card accounts at the time you apply for an advance to cover the amount of your air fare for the Rome summer program, then you will have to use alternative means (check or credit card) to pay for the fare. In that case, you would apply to the aid office for a reimbursement of your airfare costs.
Your tuition, program fees, and housing fees, if they are covered by your aid (and usually they are), will be paid on your behalf by electronic transfer from the financial aid office in May. Any cash you have coming to you for out-of-pocket expenses in Rome will be paid to you by the financial aid office before you leave for Rome.
Please remember: In order to receive your financial aid funds in May for the Rome summer program, your bursar and Cornell Card account balances must be zero.