Can you fill out college applications and/or financial aid forms with your non-primary..

S

Sweet Voltaire

New member
...residence? My friend is an amazing artist. I mean AMAZING. She wants to go to RISD and I (as well as her art teachers) have no doubt that she could get in. But her parents are divorced and her primary residence is her dad's house. Her dad has enough money for her to not get any financial aid, but he won't allow her go to an art school or major in art. She's entering her senior year and hasn't yet visited a single college because her father won't let her. Her secondary residence is her mom's house. Her mom wants her to go to art school and has very little money. If she were to apply to college via her mom's residence, she would get almost a free ride to art school. Is that possible (and legal) to do?
Her mom lives in a different town than her father, so she attends the public high school in her father's town.
RoaringMice: Thank you, your answer yesterday was very helpful as well. I'm going to suggest those schools to her as well as the idea of a double major.
 
Most art schools - and RISD is famous for this - don't provide very good financial aid. They also tend to be quite expensive. She may get some grants, but she'd fund many art schools primarily via loans.

However, if she were to go to an art school that's housed within a broader university, she may be eligible for better aid. I know you'd asked about art programs within broader unis, and I still feel that may be a fit for her.

If her father is providing her with financial support, and if she's actually living with him *and going to school in his town*, then she can't put her mom's address as her own.

Worse, when financial aid calculations happen, they are going to look at both of her parents' incomes. Yes, the fact that she lives with one or the other does matter somewhat, if they are divorced does matter somewhat, but they do look at both parents' incomes, and take that into consideration. In other words, even if she lived with her mom, they'd expect her dad to contribute to her education.

If her dad won't let her major in art, then she does have some choices:
- She could go to a broad uni with a good art program, and go in as a major other than art. She could change once she gets there, but that'd cause family problems, of course.
- She could go to a broad uni with a good art program, again, not as an art major. She could double major once she gets there - major in something her dad approves of, and in art.
- She could major in something related to art, but that isn't art. For example: advertising, marketing, "creative computing" (computer science but with a concentration that is more focused on computers as used in the arts), computer science with a concentration in interface design, computer science with a concentration in game design, communications, architecture, landscape architecture, product design. She would minor in art.
 
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