Is college for you in your home country an option? Frankly, you are not in a good position. Without a green card, you can’t get financial aid. Nor can you work in the US, except under the table, which comes with its own issues. And it appears that you can expect no financial support from your family towards attending college. You really needed a full ride, and clearly, that hasn’t happened, nor is it likely to at this point. You wouldn’t qualify for in-state tuition anywhere. I doubt you’d even qualify as a DC resident, for the DC 10K/yr subsidy towards tuition in any US state.
Here is an option of last resort. It’s a free, accredited online University, called U of the People, which articulates with several well-respected institutions. https://www.uopeople.edu/. Worst case scenario, assuming that you can still live at home with your family, you could start there online and hope to transfer to McGill, with a full scholarship, and then hope to obtain citizenship in Canada, which is much easier.
Otherwise, I really don’t know what you can do. Your family cannot contribute. You don’t qualify for in-state tuition anywhere. You cannot work legally in the US, which would make a difficult thing (working your way through college) pretty much impossible. Seems to me that your only options are college in your home country, if that’s an option, or that free online U, with the hopes of transferring to McGill, and eventual Canadian citizenship.
How would you even have managed to pay for Trinity Washington, Marymount, or Montgomery?
I can work in the US, I have a SSN. I lack a green card, but I am here legally. I also have a job right now, so saving money is an option for me. I am currently working to get my green card and my attorney told me that is likely to happen soon (I have been waiting for 9 years) it is only a matter of waiting. I qualify for the subsidy, but instead of 10k, I receive 8k. I received a full ride that consisted of merit aid at Trinity Washington and Marymount. I’ll look into the Uni of the People, I never heard of it before so thank you for that resource.
You have been offered a “full ride” at several universities. Montgomery community college is also a great option if you are able to afford UMD after you transfer. If you can’t afford UMD afterwards it’s probably not the best option for you. UMD most likely won’t provide money either.
I know they aren’t the top schools you were hoping to attend but can’t afford but you have to viable options in 4 year colleges with offers on the table. Many students would love to have this option. I think in your situation it makes the most sense to choose from these two options.
Students graduate every year from many different colleges and get good jobs. In most cases it’s less about the college you attend and more about the work you put into it. Yes, top colleges open doors but a college degree from other colleges, in a viable.msjor, also opens many floors.
I’m sorry you didn’t get the aid you need for your top colleges. It happens to many students unfortunately. I would take the Montgomery to UMD route if you can afford it or if not pick the better option of your other full ride choices. That’s going to be hard to beat economically.
Why did you apply to schools you did not want to attend? You have 3 options. 1) Go to one of your affordable schools now. I would agree with you that Trinity Washington is mediocre and I would not recommend it. Marymount is the better of the two, but definitely isn’t on par with SLU or American. 2) Take 1-2 gap years until your citizenship status clears up, work and save as much as you can during that time. That will give you much better options. And seems like you only applied mostly to Catholic schools. That was a mistake. You need close to full aid so you need to apply more broadly to more generous schools. 3) Go to cc now with a plan to transfer when your legal status changes. The problem with this option is that you need near full aid and are unlikely to get that as a transfer student. My recommendation would be option 2.
I agree #2 makes most sense. The issue with Montgomery (besides transfers get little aid) is that it’s expensive for OOS students…over $13K tuition. Is that affordable OP?
Having a social security number doesn’t mean you have the right to work in the US. People who are here without the right to work, but who do so anyway, are advised by immigration lawyers to apply for an obtain a social security number and pay social security taxes on their earnings, so that when the next amnesty comes around, they can prove that they have been here, working, and paying social security taxes, for the requisite period of time to qualify for the amnesty.
In any event, under the circumstances, I suggest that you choose to attend one of the colleges where you got a full ride, rather than community college. The reason I say so is that the full ride schools will be free, community college will be far from free for you, and that although your immigration lawyer is saying that you should get your green card within two years, you don’t know that is going to happen within that time frame, for sure. You don’t have a lot of options in-state as a DC resident, once you obtain a green card. Take the full ride, be a star at that school, volunteer for internships in DC government offices, and hope to go to Georgetown for grad school.
Trinity Washington University may have excellent diversity but it is not an HBCU. It was a Catholic women’s college and now allows men into their programs.
What visa do you have OP and where are you in the immigration process? Did Trinity Washington offer a full ride, or full tuition? If full tuition, will you live at home and commute? It is a predominantly black institution. What would your major be there?
What would your major be?
What are your stats (GPA unweighted, any test score, AP/IB classes taken)?
Are you H4 or similar (or child of an employee from an embassy) or what other type of visa?
Your parents won’t contribute because they’re low income or because they don’t want to?
Would Montgomery CC be free, too?
Because you mention becoming a citizen, my assumption is that you want to be a diplomat for the US. If that is correct, the main way of getting there is by joining the Foreign Service. There is a lot of information about that path here: Foreign Service Officer - Careers
You can absolutely get a job as an FSO with a degree from Marymount.
Be aware that getting any job at State is a pain in the neck- even for native born Americans, even for students who went to top colleges- mostly because it is a government bureaucracy. If that is the path you really want (and you are academically/intellectually able for it), the biggest success factors will be tenacity, patience and relentlessly following up on all of the threads and pathways that you can find. Online research is your friend- there are a lot of info sites / support groups if you look for them. The single biggest hoop you have to jump through is the FSE: FSO Selection Process - Careers
Moreover, if that is your goal my advice to you is the same as I give to students who are definite that they want to go to medical school and are wrestling between a big name but expensive college or a no-name but free(ish) college: keep your eyes on the prize and follow the money. It may mean letting go of some fantasies about what college will be like (though you may be happily surprised by the experience in the end) and working towards your bigger goal. That can be very hard to do, but from your post it sounds like you already know about doing hard things.
One final note about IA/IR careers: the dirty secret is that internships and entry level jobs are some of the worst paid + highest qualification positions going. It’s one of the rare fields where the government path (ie State Dept) is actually one of the best paths. Not too long ago I saw a post for an entry level IA job in which part of the job description specified “setting up chairs for meetings” -and required a Masters! Master’s programs are stupidly expensive, meaningful scholarships are few, and generally expect you to have worked for a couple of years. I may get @ed, but imo, for a go-getter, AU does not do that much more than Marymount for an UG interested in IA: their best asset career-wise is proximity to DC.
Considering your situation I think I’d be taking a year or two off, working, saving what I could, and reapplying. I’d also be checking into those non-citizen scholarships linked above.
But… have you checked to see where recent grads from your free colleges have gone? Seriously, if they’ve gone to FS and that’s what you want to do, you can do it too. This should be your first step. Some careers care where you went and others do not. If this is one that doesn’t, go with free/soon.
(The students from the “free college” overall mostly… don’t go anywhere once they graduate because most don’t graduate. It’s got 1,900 students, only 95 students graduated within 6 years in 2019; the typical range is 36-45% graduation rate after 8 years, due to 40% being part time students. Fewer than 20% got their degree in 4 years, with the main fields being psychology, general business, and criminal justice. So, in this case, I really think OP should take a gap year unless Montgomery county CC is a real possibility with realistic odds of being a citizen within 2 years in order to transfer to UMD, Towson, or another 4-year university.)