College Help

Hi well my residency has been in process since 2001. I was filed under my father's petition an I-130 for Alien Relative for a married son older than 21, which includes my dad, my mom, and I.

This September I will start the whole college odyssey. I want to study Aerospace engineering which narrow my college choices down to like 20 and the college that I am dying to apply is M.I.T but if they accept me is there any way that I could receive financial aid (they have a need blind admission and my family qualifies under their taxes standards but were are not residents). I've also hear that I could apply as an international student but does that requires for me to go back to my country (Peru) and get a student visa? How does that work? and what if they deny me the visa? and what would be the financial aid that i would receive?

The other thing that I've heard is the instate tuition that way i would have to attend an NY college does it has to be a state university or it could be a Private college like Cornell?

Lastly I want to apply early decision but can I do that with my status? and will my pending residency help me in any way? I mean after all I am going to be come a resident just that the bureau of Immigration has taken 8 years to process my paper and I don't know when will they finish.

I feel you bro. Do your research tho, I think you might be failing or missing something that you might later regret (Early decision = none, to maybe little financial help)

To answer some of your questions,

1. Private colleges don't have in state or out of state tuition. They just have tuition. Since they're private and not supported by the government, all students pay the same amount of tuition. The problem is they're really expensive.

2. You're best course of action is to contact the college(s) you want to go to and explain your situation. Whatever you do, don't leave the country because that will disqualify you from Dream and you won't be allowed into the country for 10 years.

Hope that helps.

if you are starting your undergrad, i would recommend going to a cheap 2 year community college and then transfer to a university later.

it'll save you and your family whole lotta money. and hopefully dream passes by the end of your 2nd year! then you would have no problem transferring to MIT. gluck.

THe best you can do is go to a community college and wait out until the dream passes thats what i did. I went for a year but could not continue because i had to many credits and only 60 are transferable with AP classes. As soon as the dream passes you can apply and pay in state. However if you do not want to follow this path then you should i apply as an international. I dont know about MIT I applied to college as an International student becuase the application online would not let me apply any other way without providing an alien number. But i'll be attending a prestigious university that I am really excited for so in the end is about your financial situation. Also, if you do well in the community college you can apply as a transfer to the honors programs at MIT and likely get scholarships from them too.

Berttran92, please PM me/send me a message...I can give you some info and maybe help you out with your current college situation...

Since 2001? Check the tentative processing dates here: https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/jsps/index.jsp

I believe for an I-130 with 21 and over, they are actually finishing up late 2001 applications, at least in the Cali processing center. You might be pretty close.

How did you do academically? As CIR_DREAM2009 said, private colleges might be more lenient with admission, but the tuition might kill you unless you're an exceptional student. Supposedly private colleges give out more grants/scholarships to offset their higher charges.


If I were you, I would check up on your petition process and then go from there.

Ok so I started my college application but I need help with the FAFSA application because they ask for my non existent SSN do I have to apply a CSS profile instead???

According to another memeber in this site they were able to apply for the FAFSA but you have to get the paper format and send it in. They mentioned that you have to be careful to check the portion where you would disqualify yourself from any federal aid. The online format you need an SSN number, so it will not let you complete the application.

here is the thread where this was discussed:
http://dreamact.info/forum/showthread.php?t=12312

Following up on my college process these are the schools that I am applying to so far.
MIT (hard)
DARTMOUTH (hard)
PRINCETON (hard)
STANDFORD (hard)
Boston University (mild)
Trinity College (mild)
WPI (mild)
and if all goes wrong SUNY BUFFALO (easy)