I got a refugee status and moved to USA a little more than a year ago. I’ve applied for greencard in November and I will get it, I just have to wait some time. I will definitely get it by Fall 2018. I am currently enrolled in community college, I’m paying in-state tuition and I’m also receiving my state grant, federal pell grant, and student loans. I have I-94 form that allows me to live in USA permanently.
I applied to 2 colleges for Spring Semester. One was my state college-they gave me in-state tuition. Second was out of state and way more selective college. They didn’t accept me because they are need-aware and basically told me that if I’m willing to pay for my education, they would take me in. They also told me that I dont count as permanent resident because I’m a refugee applying for greencard.
I want to transfer to 4year university next Fall. I’m kinda lost. I have good grades, good ECs and I really wanted to try my best and apply for a lot of need-aware colleges. Will they all count me as an international student? Does my refugee status grant me permament residency even without greencard? Can I just write that I have greencard because I’ll have it by the time semester begins? Please tell me what to do. All my plans are honestly just falling apart.
Colleges have different ways to treat refugee students, so you would have to directly contact the school admission offices individually. Do you HAVE to be in school to stay legally in the US(I doubt it, but I want to make sure)?
And no, you HAVE to have a green card to be treated as a perm resident. Some schools(I don’t know which ones), however, MIGHT look at you a bit more favorably. No, you CAN"T say you are a green card holder when you don’t have one yet.
Your other thread shows that you already attended college in your country, that would mean you are a transfer applicant. There aren’t much aids for transfer students, domestic or not, unless you somehow manage to be considered as a freshman applicant(which I doubt is possible)
At this point, almost every college’s deadlines are closing in. You may have to find jobs to support yourself while prepping for Fall 2019. I am sorry that you are having difficulties.
Cheer up! Nothing you have written so far suggests that your immigration status is holding you back the slightest bit. You are paying in-state tuition, receive federal financial aid, and your transfer application was accepted. Congratulations!
I suspect the out-of-state university told you that you’d have to pay your own way because that’s the main reason why public universities admit out-of-state students at all: they pay higher tuition, subsidizing the in-state students. That has nothing to do with your immigration status. Everyone who is not an in-state applicant is treated like a cash cow, unless they benefit the university in some other way (e.g. recruited athletes).
“Lawful Permanent Resident” is the official term for a green card holder. They are used interchangeably. You are a resident alien, but not yet an LPR until your adjustment of status application has been approved.
Please don’t get bogged down by labels. The term “international student” has more than one meaning. In different contexts, it refers to:
applicants whose prior education happened outside of the US (regardless of citizenship or immigration status)
applicants who don’t qualify for federal financial aid (you do)
students who are barred by US immigration law from establishing a domicile in the US (does not apply to you)
students who get taxed as non-resident aliens by the IRS (you’d be a resident alien)
students who are not US citizens, US nationals or lawful permanent residents (you’d be international in that sense)
… and probably a bunch of others.
Occasionally, you may come across a scholarship that you don’t qualify for on the basis of your immigration status, but that’s the only disadvantage I foresee. Please don’t lie. It will cause more problems down the road.
I am currently a student at US community college and no, I don’t need to be in the school to stay in US. That’s the thing. I’m allowed to stay here permanently. Most college transfer deadlines are in March and I have a list of schools that meet full financial need so I was hoping for it.
Can I qualify for full-need-met financial aid at these schools or not? I know I would be able to qualify if I was a US resident. Can I qualify for this because of my refugee status or because I’ll have greencard/be US resident by Fall 2018(the time I will start attending new college)? You are saying that this is the “only disadvantage” but I won’t be able to attend these schools without their financial aid. It was crucial for me and I was really counting on it. I didn’t think that my absence of greencard can influence it in any way cause I received all financial aid benefits at my community college and will receive in my state 4 year university.
There are several things that you don’t seem to understand:
Your immigration status doesn’t have much to do with your applications.
You are a transfer student. Most transfer students get really poor, limited aid. It has nothing to do with your refugee status. The schools just don’t have money for transfers.
If you are not a resident of a state for public universities, where you don’t currently live there, those universities will fund their tax paying residents first. They will have you pay non-resident fees. It has NOTHING to do with your immigration status. If it is a private university, they generally don’t fund transfer students.
Demonstrated need is what the university wants you to pay. It’s usually NOT a full ride. It is not what you think you need. It doesn’t work that way. The universities have very limited funding and fund transfers with mostly loans. That’s how they meet your need.
What do you do?
Apply to public universities in your state.
The state, that you live in now, will be your best bet for your funding.
So all the schools from above list only promise to meet full financial need for freshmen? Not for transfers? I know that most public out-of-state colleges wont offer me good financial aid. I was talking about private colleges that meet full financial need for all US residents.
It varies by college: you have to do the legwork to see if the colleges on your list meet demonstrated need for transfer students. You also have to run the Net Price Calculator (NPC) for each of those colleges to see what they think your ‘full financial need’ is- which frequently is not what you think it is.
It is perfectly OK for you to ask a college about their aid policies for transfers. They will tell you.
You also should talk with the Transfer Advisor at your community college. Some of them are very good at helping their students find places with good financial aid.
I’ve already talked to multiple advisors at my community college. None of them knew about colleges that meet full financial need at all. They told me that 90%+ of students in my CC go to instate colleges.
Thanks for the link! My advisors told me that most of them stay instate simply because they don’t want to move/don’t know that colleges that meet full need exist or just have too high income. My state school isn’t the best and I was really hoping to apply to like 7-8 other reach-colleges so these recent news are very disturbing and completely ruined my plans.
So, if you don’t want to go to your instate school, then you need to fill out the NPC for each school and find out if you can afford any of those schools. Then, you will have to come up with the money to attend, like the rest of us have.
Google for Montgomery College Maryland Transfer, and you should hit the transfer information at my local community college. I’m not at my computer or I would find the link for you. That page has links to different kinds of transfer information, so poke around in it and see if anything is useful for you.