College Advice

Hey Guys I am recently a high school senior looking to apply for colleges. I was simply looking for some advice from those who can provide it. But let me tell you about myself so that you can give me that advice. I am undocumented but I am in the process to become a permanent resident through my mom, who is a permanent resident. We are currently waiting for our last appointment, but i have to apply to colleges as an international because i am sill not a permanent resident. But anyways,I am Mexican.I live in Florida. I am in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, which is a very rigorous program, at my school. I ,as of the end of my junior year, have a 5.6 weighted gpa, i got a 1600 on the sat, I participate in the marching and concert band, I am in the national honor society and IB Honor Council (one of the first three members, and first male to be inducted), I also tutor elementary school children at a local school, and I am also very involved in my church. Knowing this do you think that i have any chance of getting into a good college? Getting financial aid? I really want to go to the University of Notre Dame or Columbia university. Are there any scholarships that i can apply to? Please help and thanks for your time.

keep up the good work.

Quick question tho, 5.6 weighted GPA, on what scale?
1600 SAT. Out of 1600 or 2400?

Contact the university that interest you and let them know of your situation, they might be able to guide you through their application process. Sometimes they have a separate application process for undocumented students, one that may not involve claiming you are an international student, because you clearly are not an international student or need to meet the same requirements as an international student. You cannot provide a student visa, or need to prove your family's income exceed a certain limit to stay in the country for example, etc., etc. because you are already in the country and you got your education in a high school within this country.

There has been considerable changes made in a lot of universities over the years to be more inclusive of undocumented students interested in applying, they are often times more interested in the best candidates and if you want to use your status use it as the challenge you overcame to reach your dreams, now as a sob story (that is perhaps one of the most important advice I can give, I have seen many people make it a sob story, not realizing the overwhelming achievements that they have accomplished to get to their current stages in life).

Some universities are considering undocumented students as domestic students (of course, be careful with FAFSA, we cannot apply for that, but some schools may require it, just make sure that they understand they cannot submit, they use the information from the FAFSA application to determine your need and whether they can give you a need based scholarship, this is done within the university).

If you get accepted and do not feel that you can attend with the amount of money that you have received, talk to them, inquire about an appeals process, that is perhaps the best time for you to share why you cannot afford the tuition assistance that they have given you, and you can use your status in this case, again try to come in a strong position showing that you have overcome those challenges to become successful. Many times, they give you an award thinking that you will just cover the rest in loans, not realizing that you cannot apply for loans, they may come up with another way for you to pay or just reduce the money, this has worked really well for me.

In most cases, your best bet is a non-profit private institution since they are detached from federal funds, they are usually the most likely to give you more funding, but several public schools have been making some changes.

Stay far far away from for-profit private institutions, they would be unlikely to accept you either way, since they are for profit they usually try to get their students to apply for loans and most of their degrees are not accepted by any legitimate university anywhere.



Unfortunately there are still some universities that will try not to accept undocumented students and usually because they just do not understand or even care to understand, if that is the case, its your call if you really want to apply to such an institution.

That is the weighted GPA.

Florida has an unweighted GPA on a 4.0 scale, but additional credits are given when you take honors, AP, IB, duel enrollment and even internships beyond and above the requirements that allows someone to have such an awesome GPA.

Those extra credits are added onto the weighted GPA, which really does not have any limit.

It takes place in that manner because getting a B in an AP chemistry class that is considered to be college level should be more significant than getting a B in a regular class that probably covers maybe less than half the material and gives an incentive to challenge yourself.

Federal no private yes but you will put in the buttom and will be a least priority. Does your school offer any?

IB Honor Council huh? Never heard of that when I was in high school. I was also in IB back in hs when I tell most people that I was in the program they always go, "oh I never heard of that." So its a real bummer. BUT it did help me out. I worked my ass off and I was able to obtain the IB diploma. Reading what you put, Im sure there's no doubt that youll get the diploma too. Since most universities know about the program they can offer some type of scholarship. You just need to talk to them. My teachers would always tell me "make sure you tell the you're in IB/you got the IB diploma." and to push push. Unfortunately, due to a family tragedy, I wasn't able to start school until a year later. By that time all I wanted to do was start school.The scholarship I did get for one school I had to let go because my decision on what I wanted to do in life changed. All Im saying is maybe you should talk to the school you're applying to. Believe it or not, some will give help. I mean they have the money. Def don't give up hope.

In Florida weigthed gpas do not really have a scale. We get extra points added whenever we take AP, and IB classes. It's a 1600 out 2400, it is really low but i wasn't able to take again because i waited until the last minute to take it.

I know what you mean. Rarely anybody knows about the IB whenever I tell them about it. The Honor Council is pretty much a group of students that get chosen by the teacher to prevent cheating and breaking the honor code, etc. We help those who have been caught cheating, to prevent them from doing it again. Its mainly to protect the image of our school's IB program. Maybe only our school does it. We are a relatively new program, I will be in the first class to graduate from the program in my school.

Retake the SAT or just take the ACT, then apply to a top tier private school because the have the most money to give you

I did the same mistake, I always called it my attempt to sabotage my way into college because at the time I did not believe it was possible to get into college and I was attending the sort of school where people would turn their heads if I told them that I was not going to college (my high school boasted of a 100% college placement rate, I was terrified at the time thinking I would be the one that ruin that record). I got a very low 1100 out of 1600.... lower than the PSAT I took my freshman year of high school (far far lower).

With that low score, and it was probably one of the biggest mistakes it probably shut me from some scholarships, but I still had a very strong history and class record and involvement record and out of a dozen schools that I applied to, I only got denied from two schools with one going as far as offering me a sizeable scholarship. This was in a time where going to college was mostly unheard of for undocumented students and the media, at least in florida, highlighted the stories of impressive college students with impressive records that could not go to college due to their status (something that probably convinced me that college was not possible for me, and I have since become involved with organizations to not only refute that, but do something about it)

1600 out of 2400 seems low, but it should still be possible. Do try to find out if there are any counselors that are sympathetic to undocumented students within the schools you are applying and maybe have better knowledge of how things work at your school. If there are local organizations that focus on undocumented youth it might be worth contacting them, hopefully they have worked with the university, given a lecture there or something and know a staff member that would be willing to help navigate their process and advocate for you.

Unfortunately, there are many schools that will determine whether they accept you or even if they give you any assistance based on your score, and one of the saddest observations I am making is that many schools are moving money away from need based aid to merit based aid, which means more people that are need based will be competing for far fewer funds as they try to bring people that have higher scores and try to retain them with agreements that they must meet a certain grade point average to maintain their scholarships.

It is not impossible to get into college, but it will make it that much harder, I do not know you, but if you are as active as you make it seem and you are involved then your best bet to get into college is to highlight those other attributes as much as possible.

There are plenty of people that are horrible test takers, myself included the challenge is to not only show that, but demonstrate that we are actually very strong candidates that could be very valuable students to the institution.

Ultimately, an institutions of higher learning giving us any kind of money is them saying that we are worth the significant funds that they are putting on us to go to their schools and make their school competitive.