Eve was referred to MiCLU about 2 months before she turned 18. The situation was urgent as a discretionary application for citizenship needed to be submitted before her 18th birthday. She had been in the UK from a very young age — around 7 years old — and had no idea she wasn’t British until she was due to sit her GCSEs.
Eve discovered that she wouldn’t be able to go to university as planned after her A-Levels because she didn’t qualify as a home student due to her not having sufficient lawful residence. The family were destitute and could not afford the international student fees, and she would not have been able to qualify for a student loan. She was extremely upset by this. She had planned to do medicine or biomedical science.
MiCLU applied for exceptional case funding and then prepared an application for citizenship. The application was submitted in time and in just over four months the Home Office made a positive decision and she attended a Citizenship Ceremony confirming that she was now British.
Eve has worked really hard for her A-Levels and got very high predicted grades. Due to the citizenship application being made so quickly, she was able to apply for university after all. She has applied for biomedical science at six universities and been accepted by all of them. Her life has dramatically changed for the better and she says that she is very happy.