rose711 wrote:I hope your friend is smart enough to ignore the obviously wrong advice given in this thread.
He should not leave the US and he should not get married to a USC thinking it will help him - he is EWI which is a major, major issue. He can easily find good legal advice about his situation, but no one can solve it for him- there is no answer.
I think I mentioned this before that instead of blindly applying he or you or someone should call or email all the schools he is interested in attending and asking the people in admisssions and financial aid. As he plans on explaining his life situation honestly anyway, what harm will he get from asking ahead of time.
I understand that the reality of his situation is terrible and unfair to him - but he should get the facts before he spends all his money and energy applying.
I wish I knew more about the specifics of school aid and undocumented residents - but I don't and I don't know how to find it other than just asking the schools directly.
I wish him well. I wouldn't advise him going to school with no future but I suppose it is really his call.
PS. For what it is worth, if an undocumented student has graduated from high school in NYC (or maybe even taken the GED here) that student can attend college. I don't know about other states, but it is possible to go to college as an undocumented student.
Thanks for your advice. We've been trying to determine how to approach law schools that he plans to apply to about the issue. Should he e-mail or call them? What exactly should he say? It's a touchy subject. However, since he plans on dealing with it honestly in his personal statement, there probably isn't much of a risk to personally contacting admissions offices. We're sort of afraid of mixed responses that may deter him from applying, especially if they haven't seen many cases like this one.
By the way, you're definitely right about New York. My friend was able to attend a private university in another state because of a similar policy. It isn't too difficult to find information about which states have such policies for public high schools and undergraduate institutions, but the information isn't readily available online for law schools. That's where we thought consulting this website may help.
So far, we definitely have more direction, so thank you to all those who have provided advice so far. We sincerely appreciate it. Keep it coming! Any new information or insight is helpful.