<p>We live in State-1. I have a family member-in-law who is applying to colleges for next fall. They (mom, dad, kids) live in the same metropolitan area as us but in State-2. I just learned she’s applying to State-1 flagship using another family member’s State-1 address (with their consent). So these folks believe they can game the ad-com (with their out of state public HS transcript no less), think the aid application & verification process won’t catch this, and haven’t figured out that once it’s revealed her chances for aid / admission anywhere go south. Under no circumstances does she qualify as in state.</p>
<p>I think their naivete is going to cause a real train wreck for this kid - who is in on the plan but doesn't realize the implications. While the whole thing makes me mad as a State-1 taxpayer, I don’t have a really close relationship with them so I don’t know if I should point out all the flaws in the plan (that they don’t know that I know about) or let it play out to potentially a bad conclusion. Has anyone seen the outcome of a similar situation?</p>
<p>I have not seen the outcome of a similar situation. However, just as an example, the Charlotte metropolitan area includes some towns in South Carolina. The in-state residency Q&A page for UNC Charlotte is full of questions about people who live in SC and work in NC. The answers are, “no, no, and heck no!” UNC Chapel Hill follows similar guidelines.</p>
<p>My guess - and it is just a guess - is that your kid in law will almost certainly be denied in-state tuition. This finding will most likely not even result in a rejection (It is very easy for universities to deny instate tuition; they do it continuously. Much more difficult for them to accuse an applicant of lying and sanction them for that) and I seriously doubt there would be any further implications such as putting the student on a “blacklist” shared with other universities or even writing back to the kid’s hs complaining that the application was full of lies. This is just my opinion. Maybe I am naive.</p>
<p>Their youngest mentioned it to me last week – very matter of factly – but I’m sure it’s not something her parents want shared with the world. Who knows?</p>
<p>If the kid graduated from High school in the state that is NOT the one where the college is located, this will raise red flag number one. If they apply for financial aid and their address on the FAFSA doesn’t match the address on their tax returns and application, that will raise red flag number two.</p>
<p>As noted, if this is a town that abuts a nearby state, the public universities probably already have heard and seen it all. They will be very thorough in their Q and A regarding this.</p>
<p>In the meantime, this is one of those MYOB situations…unless the parents happen to ask, which seems unlikely. If it were me, I’d stay out of it.</p>
<p>Right, I’m kind of thinking I should stay out of it. The only concern is that this school is the only school to which she’s planning on applying! Suppose the best thing would be an early reject which would give her time to do some last minute apps.</p>
<p>I agree with the above posters. I recently took a professional development class at our flagship state university. I was amazed at the number of questions I had to answer regarding my residency, etc., to the point of being pretty annoying. Secondly, if the students applies for any kind of financial aid they will have to submit tax info and the parents’ actual address will be all over those.</p>
That’s almost never a good idea. Maybe you can at least explain the safety/match/reach concept to them make a suggestion they apply to more schools including in-state ones - especially if they want any finAid.</p>
<p>Our own state flagship doesn’t use the common ap. The application (not for aid, the application itself) asks very pointed residency questions, and asks the applicant to send verifying documentation to the answers given. I don’t know how anyone could apply for instate tuition in our state without explicitly proving they are state residents.</p>
<p>In our case, we are military. We own a home in this state. It is the only home we own. We do not, however pay state income taxes in this state. Because of that, when both of my sons applied for instate status, we had to send in the following documentation: </p>
<p>A copy of my husband’s orders.
A copy of the deed to our home.
A copy of my son’s driver’s license.
A copy of his voter registration card (one son wasn’t yet old enough to vote, but one was.)</p>
<p>We had to prove that we resided in the state, and that everything my son owned was registered in the state. (Did he own a car? Where is it registered? Was our son employed? Did HE file state income taxes?)</p>
<p>And our kids had attended schools in our state for 6 and 8 years, respectively, by the fall of their senior year when they applied to colleges.</p>
<p>I was thankful that we qualified for instate tuition as a military family. I can’t see how anyone could scam their way through the application process, when documentation is required.</p>
<p>@emerald – agree that those are good programs. Unfortunately their state doesn’t play in them</p>
<p>@eastcosst – This school doesn’t use Common Ap either. They have you provide your address and your stated residency status (yes/no) but you don’t have to supply documentation to get an admissions decision (but maybe for actual enrollment) My D was accepted there last year but didn’t enroll</p>
<p>Really bad idea. The school is bound to notice all the discrepancies - OOS high school, different address on tax returns. The problem is she could get accepted, think she is good to go and not apply elsewhere, and not discover she is going to be charged OOS tuition until sometime in the spring. When my daughter was accepted to our State U (Decemberish as far as I can recall), we never saw anything about fees or FA until her FA package was put together in the spring.</p>
<p>For both of our boys, at all in- and out- of state public universities they applied to, the question about whether or not they were applying for in-state status was a part of the original application. They answered “no” on all other applications, so we never saw any other questions for those universities. </p>
<p>The acceptance letters that came from every public university stated whether they had been accepted as in- or out-of state students.</p>
<p>Let her apply because she is free to apply where ever she wants. Plenty of people apply to public schools in states where they are not residents. She may even get accepted. </p>
<p>However, she must be prepared for the fact that she will not receive in-state tuition because she is not a resident. Perhaps they are willing to pay the OOS cost to attend.</p>
<p>I am not familiar with many states’ residency policies, but for a couple that I am familiar with, an in state tax return may be requested to substantiate residency for in state tuition. I suppose that someone may not have any income or it could be a state without state tax, but then there are other ways to substantiate residency such as driver’s license. Does the state you are concerned with not require more than a local address? That would surprise me; it was possible in some places 30 years ago, but I don’t think it is now.</p>
<p>My advice would be to stay far, far away from it. I would not mention it at all, let alone make suggestions, because when the chips fall, the parents may be embarrassed and feel like fools. You may have to deal with these relatives in the future, and you don’t want them to be reminded of their foolishness when they see you.</p>
<p>The problem with saying nothing is that this innocent kid may suffer due to the ignorance and antics of the parents. Since you even mentioned it here then it sounds as if you may have more than a casual connection with the person. You’ll know whether you have the type of relationship that warrants mentioning anything at all but I was just suggesting perhaps casually mentioning the merits of applying to more than a single college.</p>