u/Existing-Albatross63

HFS website says:

Pre-Payment deferment

Students who are approved for a Pell Grant or State Need Grant do not have to pay a pre-payment to submit an application or accept a family housing apartment.

However, that is not true. You cannot in fact submit the application without paying the $500. The system literally won't allow it. HFS is not responding to emails (from last week). Priority housing deadline is coming up.

We do not have $500 and relied on the information from the HFS website, which I'm finding out may have been a mistake. Kid is on full Pell Grant and State Grant, and also the Husky Promise thing. There is no money to be had in this household to pay this. Without a deferment or waiver, they won't be able to attend UW.

How can we get help on this?

We are going ot miss this deadline waiting on HFS to respond. Kid is not going to be available via phone during HFS open hours. I'm at a loss here.

I understand the priority application for housing doesn't begin for incoming freshmen until May 4th. We have a timer set and are ready.

My child would be comfortable in any housing situation, but prefers the gender-inclusive option. I understand that demand for housing is high, so you can't always get what you want.

We live about 2 hours from UW Seattle, so commuting is not going to happen. There are several acceptances from other Washington colleges, with similar financial aid packages, but the big deadline is May 1st. Kid is on full financial aid that covers nearly everything, with local scholarships covering everything else.

I guess my concern is that if housing at UW just isn't available at all, and kid has rejected the other offers (which will obviously happen by the May 4th UW housing application date), then they are ultimately screwed out of going to any of those colleges.

Does this type of scenario happen often? Does the gender-inclusive preference hurt or help chances? Does the financial need (we are low-low income) play a part? Does major have anything to do with it?

Thank you for reading this far and helping out this nervous mom.