Procedure

To qualify as a resident, an applicant must have established a permanent residence in North Carolina and maintained that permanent residence for at least 12 uninterrupted months immediately prior to the applicant’s classification as a resident.  The applicant must maintain residence for purposes of maintaining a bona fide domicile rather than maintaining a mere residence for purposes of enrollment in an institution of higher education.  All applicants for admission shall be required to make a statement as to the length of residence in the State.  An applicant shall not be classified as a resident until the applicant provides evidence related to his/her legal residence and its duration.  

To determine whether a student has established a domicile in North Carolina, as opposed to a mere temporary residence, one must first determine if the student has capacity to establish residency and then reach a conclusion about the intent of the student, as measured by objectively verifiable conduct of the student.  The conduct of the student, taken in total, must demonstrate an intention to make North Carolina the student’s permanent dwelling place.  The determination of domicile does not depend on one fact or a required combination of certain circumstances.  The determination is made based on all the facts and circumstances taken together and viewed as a whole showing by a preponderance of evidence (more likely than not) that some particular location is the student’s domicile.  Oftentimes, this evidence will include personal statements provided by the student regarding intention to make a residence the student’s domicile.  While such statements are appropriate evidence to consider, there is no requirement that they be accepted at face value.  Student’s personal statements should be considered carefully but also cautiously even if there is no concrete evidence that the student is being untruthful.  The student’s conduct and actions taken toward establishing a domicile are generally of greater evidentiary value than personal statements, especially when the student’s conduct and actions are inconsistent or in conflict with the student’s statements of intent.  Statements of a student’s intent to take actions towards establishing domicile at some time in the future generally are not considered sufficient.

For a student to be classified as a resident, the balancing of all the evidence must show that there is a preponderance of evidence supporting the student’s claim of domicile.  To satisfy this requirement, more of the evidence than not must consist of a cluster, focus or accumulation of favorable information that the student established a domicile in North Carolina at a point in time at least 12 months prior to the domiciliary classification.  Because there is almost always variation among cases and individuals, the domiciliary inquiry is more a function of reasonable review and balancing of the total circumstances of each individual case rather than a formulaic computation.

Each applicant for admission is required to complete the Residency Determination Service (RDS) application for initial consideration concerning residency before, during or after submitting an application for admission.  

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