How Undocumented College Applicants Can Find a Welcoming School

Applying to college can be a complicated process for any teen, but it can be a bureaucratic headache for undocumented applicants.

Their many challenges revolve around laws that vary from state to state.

"One is obviously the financing of higher education which is more complex for undocumented students," says Martha Kanter, a visiting professor at New York University and a member of the board of directors for Excelencia in Education, a nonprofit organization which supports Latinos in higher education.

In some states -- such as Maryland, Texas and Washington -- undocumented college students can get in-state tuition. Others -- such as Alabama or South Carolina -- bar undocumented students from attending college locally or receiving financial aid, according to a July report from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

[Learn how undocumented students can pay for college.]

Many undocumented teens are also the first in their families to attend college. Their parents often don't have the means to pay for school or the knowledge to guide them through the murkiness of admissions.

Schools, too, struggle with how to serve to this community. Last month the U.S. Department of Education released a 63-page guide for high schools and colleges on how they can support students who don't have legal status.

Prospective students who know they need that support can research a few key points before submitting applications.

When Paola Mora Paredes was ready to apply for college, she approached schools directly with her questions.

"I remember emailing colleges from outside of the state and asking them if they had support for AB 540 students," says Mora Paredes, who grew up in California. But the state's Assembly Bill 540 only allows undocumented students to pay in-state tuition in California.

"It was just really challenging knowing who to contact and where to get the resources," says Mora Paredes, who is 20 years old and undocumented.

She applied to University of California--Berkeley at the urging of a school counselor and decided to enroll after attending the university's workshop "Undocumented at Cal." The workshop, she says, covered a variety of topics, such as housing options and paying for school.

[Understand how immigrants without legal status benefited in the first year of Deferred Action.]

"Just the title itself, it struck me," says Mora Paredes, a third-year at the university. She's now a member of the student group that hosted the workshop, Rising Immigrant Scholars through Education, and works with the school's Undocumented Students Program.

She encourages undocumented applicants to ask schools about options for financial aid and if they have a center for students without legal status.

"All the resources tend to be centralized in centers for undocumented students," she says.

Going online and searching within a college's website can also help applicants gather information.

Applicants should specifically search for "dreamers," a common term for undocumented youth, or "undocumented students," and see what comes up, says Candy Marshall, president of TheDream.US.

[Consider scholarships for immigrant students.]

"Those colleges where there is a lot of activity, you almost always get hits on that," she says. Applicants may discover, for example, that the school has a club for dreamers, Marshall says. Her organization partners with community colleges and four-year schools to give scholarships to undocumented immigrants with a federal status of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

Admissions officers are also a great source for applicants who are curious about a school's resources for undocumented students. Applicants can ask them if a school has trained allies on campus for working with undocumented students, Marshall says.

Applicants should also "talk to other dreamers," she says. Organizations such as United We Dream, she says, is one way to find them.

But applicants shouldn't just focus on what happens once they're in college. It's worth inquiring about what happens after graduation, experts say.

Meng So, director of the undocumented student program at UC--Berkeley recommends asking what kind of support is available for students interested in graduate school or needing career-related help.

"If you're going to a college that has no awareness of immigration status, of DACA, the career center is going to be completely oblivious to guiding you to postgraduate opportunities," he says.

Not every institution can pave a way for undocumented students, but many have. Tufts University, for example, announced in the spring that it would actively recruit undocumented students and provide financial aid to them.

College presidents, says Marshall, often love undocumented students. "Just by the fact that they have been immigrants, they've shown grit and persistence, and that simply carries right over into their college education," she says.

Searching for a college? Get our complete rankings of Best Colleges.

Delece Smith-Barrow is an education reporter at U.S. News, covering graduate schools. You can follow her on Twitter or email her at dsmithbarrow@usnews.com.