​Contributor: Erin Podvin
Affiliation: Hispanic Scholarship Foundation
Topic: Resources for domestic and international students
 
Hispanic students are one of the largest growing student populations in colleges today; many Higher Ed. Institutions throughout Georgia have seen a growth in their Hispanic student populations of over 200% in the last 10 years.  While this growth and diversification of students is encouraging, many Latino/Latina students face numerous hurdles that prevent them from being able to Study Abroad or even attending College in the first place.
 
An amazing resource that these students and their advisors can take advantage of is the Hispanic Scholarship Fund. This organization provides support services and funding for US citizens, permanent residents, DACA students, and documented refugee and asylum students. Often times, students are unaware that they can use their funds to study abroad during the fall or spring terms, however HSF has provided this opportunity to students who have then gone on to work in esteemed places such the Department of State because of their impactful experiences.
 
For those advisors that work with international students, HSF has compiled a helpful resource page on scholarships: many of which international students are eligible to apply for. This link has now been added to the Advocacy drop down menu and is titled: “Scholarship Resource List”
http://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/hsf-public-assets-new/dreamers_Scholarship_Resource_List_2015-2016.pdf
 
In addition, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund can be found on Facebook where they daily post opportunities for students to find a mentor, read other student’s success stories, events, and new scholarship opportunities.
 
The Georgia contact for HSF is Erin Podvin who can be contacted at epodvin@hsf.net.

​Contributor: Jennifer Beasley
Affiliation: University of Georgia
Years in the field: 13
Topic: Challenging International Case
 
Challenge:
F-1 student entered 3 weeks prior to program start date and she was correctly stamped in her passport as F-1 D/S. After being in the US for one week, the student decided to take a trip to Niagara Falls before classes began.  During this small side trip, she crossed into Canada for a few hours.  Upon reentering the US and presenting her I-20, her visa was incorrectly stamped as B-1 with a very short expiration date.  The B-1 was also noted on the students I-94 record.
 
Resolution:
The advisor emailed the Deferred Inspection Office regarding this error and provided the students previous entry stamp, visa, passport, and I-20.  We requested that the students record be corrected to show the F-1 status, not the B-1 status from a previous visit.  The students record was corrected within a week by the Deferred Inspection Office.