How can I get the status code of a post to my web api

Question

So I have a URL on my box that when I post to it with a JSON object ("username, password, and applicationId") it will return the status code 200, 400, 505, etc... When I post to the url with Chromes Advanced Rest Client, everything works fine. So I decided to create a single page web app project that would have a login that would post to this url. Now my problem is that I can't figure out how to get the response status code. Everytime I send off the request it hits dispose so I can't get to the status code of the response.

I am losing my mind trying to figure out a way to get the response's status code. What exactly do I have to do in order to get a hold of the status code. So far I have tried using WebClient, HttpWebRequest, and HttpRequest. All of these ended up in the disposed and I couldn't get to the response. I am not really sure what to do at this point. If you can point me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated.

 public class ValidationController : ApiController
{
    // POST api/account
    /// <summary>
    /// This will return a 200 and a JWT token if successful
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="value">Json '{"Username":"[your_username]", "Password":"[your_password]","Application":"[your_application_name]"}'</param>
    /// <returns>OnSuccess 200 and JWT token, OnFailure 401 and nothing else</returns>
    public HttpResponseMessage Post([FromBody]Login login)
    //public HttpResponseMessage Post([FromBody]string value)
    {
        //var login = new Login();
        if (Request.RequestUri.Scheme != "https")
        {
            return Request.CreateResponse<string>(HttpStatusCode.HttpVersionNotSupported, "Authentication Failed.  Must use HTTPS.");
        }
        if (login == null)
        {
            return Request.CreateResponse<string>(HttpStatusCode.BadRequest, "The login piece is null");
        }
        if (Authenticate(login) == "-1")
        {
            return Request.CreateResponse<string>(HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized, "Authentication Failed");
        }
        return CreateToken(login);
    }

}

Answer 1

Here's how you can do it using HttpClient:

Web API

public HttpResponseMessage Get()
        {
            HttpResponseMessage response;

            var students = _starterKitUnitOfWork.StudentRepository.Get();

            if (students == null)
            {
                response = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.NotFound);
            }
            else
            {
                response = Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, students);
                response.Content.Headers.Expires = new DateTimeOffset(DateTime.Now.AddSeconds(300));
            }
            return response;
        }

MVC Client:

     public async Task<IEnumerable<Student>> GetStudents()
            {           
                using (var client = new HttpClient())
                {
                    client.BaseAddress = new Uri(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["BaseAddress"]);
                    client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Clear();
                    client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Add(new MediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue("application/json"));

                    var response = await client.GetAsync("student").ConfigureAwait(false);
                    var statusCode = response.StatusCode; //HERE IT IS
                    return response.Content.ReadAsAsync<IEnumerable<Student>>().Result;
                    }    
            }