Advance Parole - Those who have returned to US - Page 2

Guys- I leave today to travel to Italy for work purposes on Advance Parole. Please wish me luck! I will write full details when I return for those of you who are curious on the process.

Congratulations!

I have applied for Advance Parole for educational purposes. So just curious, how long did the whole process take before they told you they had approved your parole? What processing center?

I'm wanting to apply for AP. I have an ailing grandmother in Mexico City. I would appreciate more anecdotes about AP experiences. Oh please please elaborate, don't just put I got AP. photos would be awesome!

what did you mean by educational purposes, what did you have to show some proof that you really need a AP for educational purposes.

Advance Parole for individuals who have received DACA can be granted for three reasons:
1. Humanitarian (family member outside of the US is really sick)
2. Work ( your job requires you to leave the country for certain reasons, training, conference, etc)
3. Education (Study abroad program, school sport match outside of US, etc)

I applied for AP under educational purposes. I have been accepted to study a master's program in the UK, and the university also offered me a scholarship that covered 100% tuition costs.

My argument is that I need to leave the US to do the MA program, which is a great experience for any student both on personal and academic level, and without access to FAFSA and student loans to pay for graduate school here, being allowed to leave to the UK for a year would solve this problem.

As proof I sent the acceptance letter from the university and the email that notified me about the scholarship.

What a great opportunity! May I ask what field you'll be studying and what the university is? How did you decide on the UK? What visa did you have to get? How will you afford the living and transportation costs?

I'm going to start exploring this study abroad option too for an MA too, so I welcome any tips you could give me regarding your process for looking for a school abroad and how you found/applied for a full ride scholarship!

I will be studying International Development (more specifically Globalisation, Business, and Sustainable Development is the name of the program) at the University of East Anglia.

As an undergrad I always wanted to study abroad, but for obvious reasons I wasn't able to do it. I chose the United Kingdom for various reasons:
- I feel very comfortable speaking, reading, and writing at college level in English more than any other language, so choosing a country where English is the main language was a must.
-The UK higher education system has a good reputation (as in a degree in the UK is recognized by other countries, such as the US)
- The MA program is only one year
- No GRE requirement
- Interested in learning more about the British culture, and mainland Europe is easy to travel to.

You need to apply for a Tier 4 Visa, which is given based on points. You need to score 40 points. I am still in the process of applying for this visa.
- You score 30 points if you are accepted by an accredited university in the UK
- The other 10 points you score by showing that you have enough money to pay the tuition costs (more or less $20,000 USD) and living expenses (more or less $11,000 USD)

As for affording the traveling and living costs that is what I am also working at the moment. The problem in my case was, that I was notified that I had received the scholarship in mid-May, which only gives me 3 months to come up with that amount since the program begins on September 23. I have two jobs as an administrative assistant at a community college and cleaning houses/offices in the night. I am asking family members and friend for loans to come up with the rest of the required living expenses, and will look into private loans as well.

As for tips on how to find a suitable MA program in the UK. I first used the various UK rankings of the universities:
UK University Rankings Tables

Then I searched what kind of Master Programs (Taught Degrees) they offered in the field that I was interested. Finally if I found a program that covered the area that was of my interest, I applied.

Once you have come up with the requirements for one university it is really easy to apply to other universities since they ask for more or less the same requirements:
-Undergraduate Transcripts
-Copy of you BA Degree
- 2 Letters of Recommendation from Previous Professors
- Personal Statement (Asking you why you chose that university and program, and how are you qualified for successfully completing the program)

My professors recommended me to apply to a bunch of universities which offered an MA program that I was interested in. I ended up applying to 10 of them (among them University College London, University of Bristol, University of Manchester, University of Sheffield, Queen Mary). With the exception of University College London, none of the ones that I applied to had an application fee .

In my experience finding funding was the hardest and most stressful part. All of the universities accepted me, but none of them offered me a scholarship or any kind of funding. I would send a bunch of emails asking about scholarship opportunities and all of them would reply along the lines with a link to their websites page that listed scholarships available to international students. And not to discourage you, but there were not many scholarships available for international students - as in some were partials scholarships, and for nationals of certain countries.

Some of the universities offered certain scholarships to international students, and the students do not have to apply for them. If you are given an offer of acceptance, your application is automatically considered for their scholarships. Scholarships are given based on your application for admission, personal statement, letters of recommendations, and GPA. And that is how I got mine. There was no separate application process.

I apologize for the long message, but I tried to be as detailed as possible.

If you have more specific questions, feel free to send me a private message.

Thanks a lot for that information! It should help a lot of people wanting to go through the process of studying abroad under DACA. I know I will certainly start looking at potential schools and will pass around this post to some people that I know might be interested.

I want to go and visit my family in Mexico too! My aunt has been sick (she's like my second mom) but not serious. What documentation do you need to show? I want to apply soon. I'm not scared of not being able to come back but I do want to come back.

Would this Advance Parole work if I want to go to a University in Mexico? I was considering this mainly because tuition would be way less than what I'm paying here currently.