Happy very belated birthday to my blog! This little guy, who's changed names more than I can count, and who's changed his face even more times than that, turned four this past June, but I was in too much of a tizzy to really notice. Oops. Seriously, it's a huge accomplishment for me to have stuck to writing in this thing after four years. Not only that, but writing in it at least once a month consistently for four years is also impressive by my standards; usually I start a blog and give up on it a couple weeks later. But this thing has seen me through my entire career at Truman, study abroad, applying for grad school, the horrid waiting on responses, the other horrid waiting on news about my visa, and now it will see me through grad school itself! Pretty nifty, I think.
Speaking of horrid waiting, that finally came to an end the other day. I was actually more open about the process of applying for my CAQ and Canadian Study Permit than I usually am about such things, posting about it a couple months ago when my head was about ready to explode. However, things have shifted since then, I was mistaken about some things, etc. So let's explain the whole process!
I applied to the different grad schools in January. Because I submitted my applications very late, it was natural that I didn't receive responses for quite a while. Truman gave a timeframe of three weeks when I applied, but neither Concordia, McGill, or Laval had one. TAPIF was the only one who said when they would be sending responses: the first week of April. By the time that first week of April arrived, I hadn't received any response from any of the three schools. I was, however, accepted for TAPIF, and I managed to convince myself that, even if I was accepted to one of the schools, I would defer my admission and go to France for seven months. My rejection from McGill solidified this idea. By this point, I realized that something had gone wrong in my application for Laval and that it had never been properly submitted. This really solidified the plan to forgo any grad school admission since Concordia was my only option left and, even though it was my top choice in schools, I really did not expect to be admitted. So I began telling people when they asked that I planned on going to France, specifically to the Lille area in the north.
Then it happened. On April 28, I received my acceptance letter from Concordia. As I wrote earlier, I had a big decision to make, and most of you knew that I would always choose Concordia. Living and studying in Québec has been my dream for nearly seven years. I've never felt more at home anywhere than I do there. As much as I would love to visit France one day, I couldn't postpone my dream of living in Québec any longer.
Unfortunately, it was as easy as saying yes to the dress. (What?) The first step was applying for my CAQ, which stands for "Certificat d'acceptation du Québec," which is, essentially, a visa to allow me to study in Québec specifically. Once I had that, I needed to apply for, basically, the same thing except it was to study in Canada as a whole. I couldn't apply for the latter without having the former.
Now, you all know I'm poor. Obviously I need financial aid of some sort. And luckily for me, the U.S. government does provide financial aid to American grad students who want to attend an international school. However, the system isn't as automatic when it's an international school; while the FAFSA automatically sent my info to Truman every year, I had to do this myself. I had to apply for the FAFSA and then send a boat load of paperwork to Concordia for them to process. This process, I was told, would take about three to four weeks. This was in early June.
Simultaneously, my application for a CAQ (which also required a boat load of paperwork) was halted because I had not provided an official letter from Concordia saying how much financial aid I would receive, not just an estimate. They gave me until August 3 to send it to them which, I thought, was plenty of time.
However, I was worried because even if the financial aid office at Concordia took a minimal amount of time to process my application, I wasn't entirely sure how long it would take to have my CAQ awarded. If that took too long, I wasn't sure how I was going to apply for my Canadian Study Permit right after since that process, apparently, takes a lot longer. In a panic, I emailed the International Student Office at Concordia, who has been extremely helpful throughout this whole process, and it was explained to me that, as an American citizen I was able to bypass the entire application process for the Canadian Study Permit, that I was able to apply for it upon arriving in the Montréal airport. This was a huge lift from my shoulders, as that was one less monumental thing for me to do. Now I just had to wait for my financial aid to be processed.
Heh.
After the four weeks passed, I emailed the woman at the financial aid office, with whom I'd been corresponding. I asked what the deal was. I had to send the email twice because she didn't respond after a week. She said that, due to technical difficulties, they'd been unable to process it yet but that they were hoping to have the issues resolved soon.
So I waited.
By the end of July, I still hadn't received anything. Remember: I was told to have this information sent by August 3. So, now panicking, I called the office and spoke directly to the woman I had been emailing. She told me that she was planning on processing my file that day and would then express mail it to me. I explained about my deadline, adding that absolutely none of this was my fault, that I had been waiting on them, and that if I didn't get the paperwork in by the deadline, then I wouldn't be able to go to Concordia. (This was all with the utmost politeness, I must add.) She then agreed to get the paper stamped by all these official offices and scan it, allowing me to print it and mail it to the Ministère while waiting for the official copy in the mail. I agreed and thanked her.
From what I understand, though both letters to the Ministère were postmarked by the end of July, they didn't arrive there until August 4. Hence my terror that they wouldn't be accepted. So even though I had gotten them in, I was still befret with worry that they were either too late or that the application would simply be rejected. It had been over two months since I began the process and I was terrified that it would all be for naught.
Then, finally, finally, I received the email saying that I had awarded a CAQ. On August 11, over two months after I started the process, it was finally over. I could at last say officially that I would be studying in Montréal, that I was preparing to go there in two weeks.
Which I am! This will most likely be the last blog post I write in the U.S. for a while. As of August 28, I'll be in Québec! EEEEE!!!
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