In Fall 2006, I began a masters degree program at Boston University in the Graduate College of Arts and Sciences in general psychology. Less than half-way through the semester, my mother passed away from a long battle with cancer. I immediately emailed my advisor and withdrew from classes. I started classes that Spring hoping that returning to school would help me focus on something productive and distract me from my overwhelming grief. Unfortunately, I was not mentally prepared to return to school as I had hoped, and I withdrew from classes that semester as well.
At the time, when I withdrew from classes each semester through my advisor, I was not focused on obtaining a refund for my courses. Now that I have returned to grad school, I see that I incurred over $12000 in student loan debt for these courses, even though I never earned any credits. I recently contacted the Office of Financial Assistance at B.U. and they told me that nothing could be done because I had not completed the process correctly to officially withdraw from the university following my mother's death, and now too much time had passed. Apparently, I needed to fill out some forms to 'officially withdraw' from the university, rather than drop classes through my advisor; though I was never notified of this at the time.
Help me persuade Boston University to refund these course fees rather than penalizing me for not completing proper paperwork during a time of extreme emotional distress.

As an additional note, my mom was a B.U. alum.