The Business School offered him a spot in next year’s class, which he has accepted.

Meanwhile, Mather has scrambled to put a residential tutor into the suite reserved for Al-Ississ, and they don’t have an in-house business tutor.

As a College graduate who then worked at a major consulting group for two years, Al-Ississ was uniquely well-equipped for the job, said Mather House Master Leigh Hafrey, adding that Mather will try to make a spot for him next year.

In the meantime, Al-Ississ is looking for a job in Jordan and trying to get past his draining months.

“It is logistical, financial, and personal devastating experience,” Al-Ississ wrote.

Going ‘Down Under’

Hwei, whose education is being paid for by the Malaysian government, faces similarly distressing options.

He has received special permission from the Freshman Dean’s Office to arrive in four days, on Sept. 13—but only if his visa has arrived by then.

Meanwhile, his scholarship is at stake, he said—the government controls the funding, and the terms are not under his control.

The government has told him that it is considering placing him in a college in New Zealand or Australia along with other scholarship students who face delays in getting American visas, Hwei said.

“As one of my friends jocularly noted, ‘down under, and not just geographically,’” Hwei wrote in an e-mail.

But in the meantime, Hwei is “crossing his fingers”—and enlisting all the support he can muster.

“The Harvard Club of Malaysia offered the Embassy a guarantee of good behavior for me in order to procure a temporary visa,” Hwei wrote, but the State Department did not take them up on the offer.

His family is contacting newspapers and companies, senators and state department officials all in order to publicize his cause.

Meanwhile, his Harvard-assigned host family—a local family charged with easing his transition to life in Cambridge—have contacted Senator Edward M. Kennedy ’54-’56.