American reapplying... to a Canadian school

Applying to College
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<p>I may have posted here once or twice many years back, and I found the information and feedback to be helpful, so I'm hoping that I can get something similar for my current situation.</p>

<p>I am currently a junior undergraduate engineering student at Northwestern. I was accepted here on an ROTC scholarship. As it turns out, I despise engineering and the school, but had no luck with transferring or changing majors because of my scholarship. Now I find myself being medically disenrolled from my binding scholarship (disqualifying, permanent damage imparted to my right leg), with absolutely no debt to my name after three years.</p>

<p>I've been looking at good political science/international relations schools (with engineering so I can complete my current degree) to transfer to, but I've found none with an acceptable price range (Berkeley and Michigan are way overpriced, imo).</p>

<p>To the point: A friend of mine suggested that I look at McGill... Why are most Canadian schools exponentially cheaper than their American counterparts? AFAIK, McGill is comparable to Northwestern in rankings but is less than half the cost.</p>

<p>When I apply to McGill or some other school, can I avoid matriculation and only use my high school grades and stats? A combination of mental and physical illness has crashed and burned my GPA for the past year and a half, and I'm hoping for a possibility to start anew, or at least use transfer credits that don't apply to my new GPA. Is any of this possible?</p>

<p>Thanks if you read this. Yeah, I know. tl;dr</p>

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<p>Canadian universities are heavily subsidized by the Canadian government. My Canadian friend pays only about $2k a semester at Simon Fraser, which is pretty crazy.</p>

<p>As for not submitting your college transcript and starting anew? No, you have to submit everything you’ve ever done at Northwestern.</p>

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<p>I know this sounds disingenuous, but what if I just pretended as if my time at Northwestern never existed? My current GPA would pretty much annihilate my chances of going to any decent school, but my high school/standardized test stats are phenomenal.</p>

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<p>In theory, it’s possible, but if McGill or any other college found out, they would immediately kick you out. It’s a huge liability, and I think you’d be foolish to attempt it. I know in the States there’s a national registry that colleges can check to see if you’ve been enrolled in anywhere else. I have no idea if Canadian colleges can/do check that, but it’s really not worth the gamble anyway.</p>

<p>Also, don’t you think it’d seem suspicious to them if you applied several years out of high school with apparently no reason (i.e., no work, travel, etc.)?</p>