Good things come to those who wait...

Similar to the place I was with Ross a few months ago, I am waiting to hear back from LECOM.  I have called to find out how much of any of the costs sunk so far into Ross are recoverable.

• The $700 deposit is not. 
• The $2,800 housing deposit can come back to me if they rent out the unit in the next ten days.
• With each day that passes and I do not get an answer back from them, the less likely I think this will be.  I find it unlikely that there is a student out there still who will be going to MERP in August who does not yet have housing nailed down.  I have not mentioned it on the MERP Facebook group yet because if I do end up going to MERP I don't want to be labeled as the person who was on the fence about the program. 

• The $700 plane ticket can be canceled but the airline will give me a credit and I will have to use the credit within one year of the original purchase date, and there will be a $160 rescheduling fee for this.   
• The $350 I paid to a current April MERPER for a bike, color printer, fan, and some electronic books - I think I will have to sell these items to a current MERPER which I do not think will be difficult.

Ultimately LECOM is about ~$100k cheaper than Ross, so loosing ~$5k now (while hard), is not that bad in the long term.

I did talk to Kevin who is the new student coordinator for MERP and he said that I could defer admission until November.  I do not want to do that as I would be gone through all of the holidays.  If I don't hear a positive response from LECOM I will still go to Ross.  This is scary to me because I am set to leave Aug.1 which is about a week and a half from now.  If I am to ship any packages to myself I would need to do it Friday or Saturday.

I have tried to communicate this dilemma with the LECOM admissions personnel, JM.

• I called him Wed Afternoon, and he said that the application would go to the committee.  
• I called him Friday morning and he said that the committee had made a decision but he could not tell me which way it was until the dean signed and approved of all the files.  
• I called back Friday afternoon to see if the dean had done so and he said no; and also communicated to me that the notifications would not come out via phone or email but rather by snail mail.  
• I emailed several current and former LECOM folk and they confirmed that this is so.  I anticipate that if they mailed the notice yesterday, Monday, then I will get it Wed. (I hope).
• A former LECOM person told me of another person to call for and I called and asked for this person Monday morning, only to learn that he no longer worked there and was replaced by JM. 
• I called Monday (yesterday) afternoon to see if the signing of letters had gone on, but got JM's voicemail; his voicemail stated that email is a better means of communication for him and so 
• I sent this email

Hi JM,

As you know, I am in somewhat of a unique situation in that I am due to leave out in two weeks for another academic program on August 1.  I have contacted this program and they would like for me to notify them as soon as possible if I choose not to attend their program.  I would prefer the LECOM program to this other one; and so time is of the essence for me at this point.  When we spoke before on the phone, you said that you could not notify anyone of their admission status until the dean of the college had certified the admission committee's decision. 

Has the dean signed these decisions?  If so, are you able to tell me via email or phone which way my application was decided? 

I apologize again for the multiple follow-ups in this matter and understand that you have a busy schedule, however as the time for me to leave is quickly approaching each day sooner where I can get confirmation is critical at this point.

Thanks in advance,



I feel that this email was polite and explains the situation and why I am requesting to be told sooner than is their policy.  I hope that I seemed respectful and polite.  I am starting to worry that my trying to get this information may be jeopardizing my chances, so I decided to just cool it and wait.  I don't want to get a reputation of being too Type A already.  I have yet to get an answer to this email.

If I do not get notice soon, I will still go to MERP and to Ross, and it will be even harder because I will be scrambling at the last minute to get things ready.  I think I can do it, but it will not be the easiest.

So, I'm just waiting and trying to be cool....