ONE DAY IN early August last year, 17-year-old Ishara stood in the US Embassy, her mother at her side, weeping softly.

She had been a bright student at Bishop Anstey High School, earning four distinctions at CXC. She'd won a hard-fought partial scholarship to a pre-college boarding school in New Mexico with a reputation for channeling students to Ivy Leagues.

Her mom, a respected writer, and a local NGO were prepared to cover the rest of the tuition. Her dad lives in Tennessee and would provide further material support.

Yet Ishara had just been a handed a slip of paper with the devastating news: Her application for a student visa had been turned down.

"I took it personally," said Ishara. The officer who'd interviewed her didn't expound on the explanation in the letter — that the applicant had "insufficient ties" to her "home country."

"I wanted to know what was wrong with me that he couldn't see that I just wanted to go to learn," said Ishara.  Pain and confusion were fueled by frustration.

"This was an amazing opportunity that I couldn't get," she said.

Between 20 and 30 percent of visa applications are turned down each year, said a U.S. Embassy official. The most frequent reason, says the U.S. Bureau of Consular Affairs on its website, is the applicants' lack of "ties abroad that would compel them to leave the U.S. at the end of the temporary stay."

But while most people accept a country's right to protect itself from visitors who would remain in the country illegally or even harm its citizens, applicants and observers find it hard to understand why promising young people such as Ishara are refused visas.

Sports Minister Anil Roberts last year had a tense exchange of words via the press with Matthew Cassetta, who at that time was the embassy's public affairs officer, when Roberts took up the cause of students unable to accept sports scholarships because they'd been denied visas.

A dean at COSTATT met with embassy officials when 12 of the college's radiography students, seeking to continue their programme in the U.S., were refused visas in 2009.

And Matthew Johnston, a medical student at St. George's University in Grenada who was required to take part of his training in the U.S., complained last year in letters to the editor and on Facebook about being denied a visa. Other SGU medical students were also being turned down, he said.

"There are currently no provisions for students in my position, and this is just not right or fair or just," he said in a note on Facebook. According to other posts on the site, Johnston eventually took up training in England.

Many people in Trinidad and Tobago think that the U.S. Embassy is making it harder for local students to get visas and that fewer are being given out than in previous years.

But while some conservative U.S. lawmakers have been making demands to this effect, there is no evidence that stricter policies have been implemented.

In fact, UNESCO statistics show that the U.S. is taking in more foreign students than ever. The increase is not surprising, considering foreign students add $20 billion per year to the U.S. economy, according to a BBC report on the issue.

In 2008, there were 2,643 students from Trinidad and Tobago studying in the U.S., according to UNESCO, an increase of more than 500 from a decade previously.

"The U.S. Embassy supports international education and exchange. We want Trinidadian students coming to the U.S.," said Marcie Friedman, the embassy's public affairs officer.

So why do good students sometimes get sidelined?

Often, says the Bureau of Consular Affairs, they haven't satisfied embassy officials that their "ties" to their country — "the various aspects of your life that bind you to your country of residence: your possessions, employment, social and family relationship" — are strong enough.

"In cases of younger applicants who may not have had an opportunity to form many ties," says the bureau's website, "consular officers may look at the applicant's specific intentions, family situations, and long-range plans and prospects within his or her country of residence."

Nicholas Vandeiheide, an international study consultant, believes the student's financial situation is very important.

"You have to prove that you are financially capable of maintaining yourself while in the U.S. That's the strength of an applicant," he said.

Discrepancies between what you say in the interview and what's in the documents you've presented may also affect your chances, said Vandeiheide.

He also advises his clients to maintain eye contact with the interviewer.

"That goes a long way, because then they know that you're serious," he said.

The process isn't arbitrary as some people claim, said Friedman. Embassy officials are trained to be fair and not discriminate. They use the same process of assessment with all individuals and at all embassies around the world. And a senior official reviews the decision of the interviewing officer before it's handed down to the applicant.

But Ishara's case is still "puzzling," said Bishop Anstey music teacher, Lorraine Granderson. The teen had won a scholarship through a rigorous screening process. She had a visitor's visa and in fact spent some months in the US with her dad after she was turned down.

"This child gets a scholarship, why would you turn her down?" said Granderson. "It makes absolutely no sense,"

Granderson bemoaned the delay the visa rejection caused in Ishara continuing her studies. She had been accepted into Bishop Anstey's Form Six class, but chose the opportunity to go to a school she'd only dreamt of going.

Often, your choice of school is closely attached to your goals and your personality.  It's wrenching when it's taken from your grasp after you've worked hard to get accepted.

The school Ishara had planned to attend — the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West — promised "a multitude of new ideas and opportunities" as well as proximity to her father and aunt.

She'll be attending the UWC in Canada instead and hasn't been hindered in her goal of studying psychiatry. But she speaks with regret about what might have been if she'd had the chance to attend her first choice of school.

"I'm open to new ideas," she said. "I was looking forward to the opportunity for someone to challenge my career path."

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