If the second passport is an EU passport the Schengen requirements do not apply. EU citizens can roam and work in the EU without length of stay restrictions.

I have no advice for you but I do find it a little interesting with the timing of the class. Since the school told her she doesn't require a visa but the class is for 89 days I'm assuming that is not 89 class days but actually 89 consecutive days. So no weekends off. This also means a student either has to fly into the country and start the class on the day of arrival or else must depart the country on the day the class ends. I find it a little bizarre that there is no time to get settled in before the class starts or else no time to pack up and settle your affairs before you have to leave the country.

Did I misunderstand?

I love the way people have automatically decided that the rules are personal rather than national, just to stress the fact that it is "illegal."

There may be a specific rule that says that, but actually everybody here is just proclaiming what they think the rule should be, using their imagination.

Somebody needs to look up whether the rules overlap or not. This would imply that if you have a passport with a visa exemption and another passport that requires a visa, then you automatically require a visa to be in Schengen; otherwise, you are "cheating" because you have a nationality that requires a visa.

But surely if your ingenious (if disingenuous) idea were to be acceptable, that would mean someone coulod use passport A for 90 days, then pop out and in again with passport B for aniother 90, then back to passport B and stay forever, because they had two citizenships of foreign countries, neither of which individually permitted a longer stay. I honestly cannot imagine the immigration officers of any country agreeing with you.

Your analogy really doesn't work, imo. Of course it makes sense to use the more favourable passport if you have that option; that's rather different from using both to try to get around the rules.

If the OP's daughter does try this I must admit I'd like to know what happens.

One additional complicating factor: would a student visa not be issued only for the period of the course (thus still not allowing the few weeks of post-study travel the OP's daughter perfectly understandably wishes to undertake)? So that might not help anyway.

I have not had my US passport stamped every time I enter a European country for many years now. In fact, I hardly ever have it stamped when flying, taking the train, or whatever.

I also have a passport from an EU country. I use it when I land in Europe to get through the immigration lines more quickly. No one's ever said boo to me. I use my US passport to fly home and my EU country passport while on the ground in Europe.

I have never stayed longer than 90 days.

But I do think the OP is trying to bend the rules, and whether it's LIKELY or not that an immigration officer would care or even notice, I wouldn't send my daughter off to Europe without 100% assurances that she WASN'T bending the rules.

The program is 89 days long, and includes some traveling in Italy (on weekends), and classes start actually some 4-5 days after the group's landing in Rome. But that is not solving any of our issues.

I resent ANY innuendo as to my or my daughter's morality. Especially in light of my daughter trying to call the Italian consulate in Chicago again last week, to be told by the receptionist to "leave a message" which she did, never to be responded, and then sending an email to the consulate ---- again never to be responded by the consulate. She needs to wait till her mid December appointment to bring her application to the consulate, having no idea even what kind of a visa to ask for (the guy who charged her $10 would not advise her) -- but the school needs to issue her tickets by the end of this week, or the fare starts climbing....

But even if we decided to use her 2nd passport, since she was planning to travel in Europe with a couple other students (that she will meet and befriend there at Cortona), they would probably face the same problem, and probably won't have the "luxury" of owning 2 passport.... I am sure some of those students will just ignore the rules and will casually head out of Italy for their European trip. As it looks now, my daughter refuses to take that chance.

So as of now, our thought are -- she will return home at the end of her semester without traveling in Europe.

Again, thanks to all who contributed to this thread (not the ones who lectured me about my morals). And, BTW, whoever was wondering why I'm complaining about the Italian consulate charging my daughter $10 for a simple phone call which also provided her NO information whatsoever --- please, take a deep breath to get some oxygen to your brain, before you hit the keyboard....

"<i>If the second passport is an EU passport the Schengen requirements do not apply. EU citizens can roam and work in the EU without length of stay restrictions.</i>"

Oh, come on!! IF the other passport was Schengen whay are we having this discussion. The OP never would have posted in the first place since there would be no issue/question. Either it is a non-Schengen/non-EU passport -- or the OP is dumber than a post (which I doubt) . . .

Especially in light of my daughter trying to call the Italian consulate in Chicago again last week, to be told by the receptionist to "leave a message" which she did, never to be responded, and then sending an email to the consulate ---- again never to be responded by the consulate.

Sounds very Italian to me I'm afriad....it's a funny old country. Someone who had lived there once said to me, if you described the way Italy works and got someone to guess the country, they'd probably think it was Mexico.

I hope she enjoys her time in Italy, anyway.

Yes, alihutch. I just finished a long conversation with my daughter, who was utterly frustrated with the Italians. She says she actually called several OTHER Italian consulates in other cities, and in most of them NOBODY EVEN PICKED UP THE PHONE....

Oh well, Italy is a WONDERFUL place (at least Northern Italy where we traveled 10 years ago), so rich in culture, so beautifully created, and the people are absolutely lovely. But their bureaucracy is the pits.

"their bureaucracy is the pits." - sounds like you've never dealt with the US immigration department!

<i>sounds like you've never dealt with the US immigration department!</i>
Hmmm..... You may be right.....

Yes, the Italian bureaucracy is the pits. All the more reason to be cautious. They're much more proactive on the sanctions end than they are on the helping you get through the system end, because it's easier. Beware.

Once I even went to the Italian Consulate in San Francisco to get some clarification on a question that had no answers online.

After standing in line for over an hour, the consular guy could hardly give me two minutes of his time and just kept saying, "No, it can't be done" without even waiting for me to describe my problem.

So, it doesn't help to appear in person. You'll get the same treatment as on the phone - if someone answers. Consular officers are not there to make life easy for you. That situation was current years ago, nowadays the euro is worth more than the dollar and Europe doesn't need American tourists as much as before.

Which is all the more reason not to do something illegal. Being American these days just doesn't carry the same weight it did in years past.

You know, it's interesting that this question of how to avoid visa/entry rules only seems to show up on the Europe board. You don't see people posting on the Asia board about how awful it is that you can only stay xx days in a given country and asking how to get round that. (Well, not travelers - expats are a different matter.) Do [some] Americans think they have some kind of God-given right to stay in Europe as long as they want, or is it just that the Schengen rules are fairly new?

<i>Lots of people drive over the speed limit and don't get caught - doesn't mean it's legal, tho.</i>

But, consider speeding on an empty road. You pose no risk to anyone but yourself. Is it wrong to speed? I'd say no, since you won't harm anyone else. At that point, you simply have to judge whether you are willing to bear the risks of getting caught. To my mind, this is the same situation here. If you are not working, not using public services, and not committing other crimes, then I don't see how your conscience really comes into play.

I commit 'crimes' all the time. I sometimes jaywalk. I sometimes speed. I'm pretty sure that I forgot to mail in my FBAR this year. My conscience doesn't bother me much.

It all comes down to how risk averse you are. The issue is that you have a relatively low risk activity, since I think people are grossly exaggerating the competence and interest-level of your average border guard. Unfortunately, the potential penalties of getting caught are very, very high. I think it difficult to weigh your options when you are in a low-risk/high-penalty environment.

But their bureaucracy is the pits.

And so is the way that they run businesses.....bizarre

<i>You don't see people posting on the Asia board about how awful it is that you can only stay xx days in a given country and asking how to get round that.</i>

But you can move on to the next country. You can spend 90 days in Thailand. 30 days in Cambodia. 90 days in Singapore. 90 days in Malaysia. With the rise of Schengen, you are more limited for time for a trip to a similarly-sized geographic area.

<i>Do [some] Americans think they have some kind of God-given right to stay in Europe as long as they want</i>

No, but again, it is doubtful that the laws are intended to prevent American college students from traveling around Europe for 115 days, rather than 90. Such people are being caught up in a law that simply isn't that applicable to them and get annoyed. I mean, people get annoyed by the security rules at airports for the same reason, so I don't see why this should surprise anyone.

<i>And so is the way that they run businesses.....bizarre</i>

I find the Northern Italians to be pretty competent business people. Southern Italians are another story entirely.

>>Do [some] Americans think they have some kind of God-given right to stay in Europe as long as they want<<

Re-read the OP's and travelgourmet's posts and decide for yourself . . . .