[DEACTIVATED] Help Bart Go To Lamar University

Thank you in advance for taking the time out of your day to read my story. My name is Bart Brand, I'm 18 years old and I am currently enrolled in the University of Applied Sciences in Utrecht, the Netherlands, majoring in International Business. Though I love the Netherlands, I am hoping to further my education at an American university. Last year (2018-2019) I did an exchange year in Orangefield, Texas. In the course of that exchange year, I gained many amazing friendships, learned all about a different culture, and was able to experience the life I thought only existed in movies. This incredible experience taught me many life lessons and allowed me to find an entirely new perspective on life. I fell in love with America and I have dreamed about returning there ever since I left.   Ever since I arrived in America I was presented with amazing new experiences. The people in America made me feel happy and welcome. I was able to experience the Friday night lights of an American football game, I developed school pride, I even became involved in extracurricular activities like Robotics club and UIL One-Act Play. I never realized how astounding these American normalities would be to me until I was able to experience them for myself. Now that I am back in the Netherlands I’ve started to miss these aspects of life in America, so much so that I want to move back to America to go to college; therefore, I applied to a few colleges and I recently got accepted by Lamar University (Beaumont, TX) to start in the Fall of 2020 semester. However, there is such a big price-gap between Dutch- and American college tuition, that the chances of making this dream a reality seem very slim. International transfer students are required to provide TOEFL test scores ($255) for which I made a 110/120, SAT scores($100) for which I made a 1310/1600, and professionally evaluated/translated transcripts from high school($238) and college($175). Since these are not common things in the Netherlands it is quite expensive to meet these requirements.  In addition to these admission costs, there are out-of-state tuition costs($18.5K), living/housing expenses($9.5k) and additional/insurance fees($2k) per year, altogether it will be an estimated $30,750 to cover my first year. I have been working and saving all my money for a while now and I have applied for countless scholarships and grants. With my savings, the support of my parents, and student loans from the Dutch government, I am almost able to afford my first year at Lamar. Nevertheless, I am still approximately  $4.500 short (equal to €4.000), Therefore I started this campaign, to hopefully raise the additional money to cover my first year. I really hate asking for money, but this is my dream, and I would be beyond grateful if you or anyone you know would be able to help me out. Please help me to resume my American dream, feel free to share this campaign with your friends and family.  Thank you for reading my story. ((If I don't end up going, for whichever reason that might be, I will make sure to send everyone their money back.))