jkroman, I wouldn't assume residency will be available to you by 2nd year. I applied to MFA @ VCU and after digging around on the financial aid pages (sorry, can't say exactly where), I found documents that made it appear that VCU makes it difficult for you to establish residency if you are not there for any reason except school. If there are obvious workarounds to this, great, but get the details from them since I'm sure it's a common issue.