<p>Let us know what happens! Good luck. I hope your hurdles will have someone sympathetic. Is your brother talking to ND about you, and is he doing well at ND?</p>
<p>BTW, I am Catholic, had a BIL that went to ND, so have seen is in some ways relaxed. There are some serious Catholics there. As people have said, you do not need to be Catholic to feel comfortable there. Catholics were disappointed about terrible speaker allowed to speak there a few years ago.</p>
<p>@MYOS1634 Thank you 
By the way, I’ve been longlisted for an award based on my certificate exam performance! Squeeeeeee!!!</p>
<p>@SOSConcern My brother’s in the engineering honors program at ND, and yes he’s been speaking with the international admissions counselor. And coming from the sort of Catholic school I attended, I don’t think there’s any college that would be too extreme for me.</p>
<p>WashU might release its decisions this Friday or next <em>fingers crossed</em></p>
<p>Send that information update to all colleges you applied to.</p>
<p>omigosh i canhardly type i’m shaking so bad i sent this weepy email to @MITChris and the office actually replied and ican send in my evaluationseventhoough they arent officialandtheyllstill consider my app oh gosh ohgosh theywouldnt bother if theyweregoingtorejectmewouldthey but whatiftheyarejustbeingnicepeopleandmyvirtualthinenvelopeisjustwaitingtobesent???</p>
<p>It’s not an either/or. They think your application has merit - it doesn’t mean you’ll get in, but it means they’re interested, definitely. Send them all the updates, too, and do this TODAY!!
Thanks for keeping us updated. You’re in our thoughts. :)</p>
<p>…six rejections.
Sigh.
Not sure what to do at this point.</p>
<p>There are many lesser known schools that may be interested in your story and be willing to help. They are not on par with those to which you applied, but it cannot hurt at this point.</p>
<p>University of Dallas (Catholic liberal arts school)
Ave Maria in Florida</p>
<p>I am sure other people know of some smaller schools that will take a broad look at what is there rather than using a a rote formula for admission. Once you have a year or two of success, you may be able to transfer to another school.</p>
<p>six rejections out of how many colleges?</p>
<p>If you need financial aid, you can
1° take a gap year, work on your SAT, score 1400CR+M and apply to the schools where that will get you automatic admission and merit aid
2° reapply to women’s colleges next year, explaining your situation clearly.
3° apply to Berea </p>
<p>It may well be that your transcripts won’t be necessary if you have your national exam certificates and that award for your certificate performance. Your retired physics teacher can still write a recommendation freely. So all you’ll need is ONE MORE teacher who’ll write for you. And since you won’t be going through your school for transcripts, no one has to know they’re writing that recommendation, which should ease the pressure on your teachers.
If you take a gap year, about about you volunteer at a place that works on women’s issues? :)</p>
<p>@Torveaux thanks for the suggestions, though I’m not particularly inclined towards Catholic schools at this point :/</p>
<p>@MYOS1634 Out of six. And in the end the school secretary uploaded my transcript, letterhead paper be damned (my English teacher wrote a recommendation as well, and so did my counselor, though I suspect it was much less than stellar). So as a last ditch effort I’m applying to Yale-NUS - it’s just eight bucks, and I intend to send everything sendable to them.</p>
<p>Interestingly, my high school is with my certificate.</p>
<p>WAIT, do SAT scores expire or something? I was planning on hanging on to my result for a while :(</p>
<p>Sorry, I’d forgotten how high you’d scored - scores are valid for 2 years. I was just saying to retake the SAT because many international applicants retake during their gap year.
Your application is stellar and now you’ve got that transcript uploaded so all should be fine. </p>
<p>The key factor in most admission decisions is whether you need financial aid - and then, how much. Can you say again how much your family can afford?</p>
<p>I don’t understand “Interestingly, my high school is with my certificate.”</p>
<p>Mumble mumble mumble something like three thousand bucks a year mumble.
My brothers might chip in, but I don’t know how much, and I guess I could pursue a government scholarship, but I don’t think we can fund more than ten to twenty in total.
It’s why all the schools I applied to were so high profile. Safeties aren’t safe for me at all.
And here, if you registered as a candidate under a school, the exam body sends your certificate to your principal (though you get an online notification of your result). I am not sure if the secretary could get his hands on it to scan it as well, but to get the physical copy I will have to meet the principal. Which I’m loath to do, seeing as he doesn’t even answer our calls anymore.
Do you think a rock remix of Bach would sway a decision in my favor? 
</p>
<p>Ummm
Does anyone know anything about Spring Hill College?</p>
<p>With that much financial need, I’d advise taking a gap year… unless you can attend HS in the US as an exchange student? Then you could have a transcript in addition to your Certificate.
Can your brother see if something could be arranged? Or can you look into AFS or YFU or other systems that arrange fr international student placement in American high schools? I know NACEL has a school in St PAul, for instance… and some tiny rural schools admit internationals who will pay a fee.
DO NOT go to your school yourself, have your father/uncle/brother while on summer holidays/benefactor (whoever will hold most sway for your headmaster) go and ask the secretary politely for your documents; if that’s not feasible, have him thunder to get your transcript, certificate, and exam results. At this point you don’t have much to lose. Short of threatening a lawsuit bringing bad publicity to the school, I don’t know what else you can do.</p>
<p>Quick update: I was accepted to the Minerva Schools at KGI. I’m still in shock.</p>
<p>It does not make your situation less easier for attending a school that you know little about and few months ago was not even in your radar.
Like other posters have suggested, try the high school in the States that will graduate you in one year with a Diploma, and will actually help you through your college application for the next year.
If that does not work, take a GAP YEAR, and take that time to gather all your docs and re-apply to your dream schools with some better safeties.
16/17 is still young and no need to rush over to a place you are going to spend the next 4 years of your life.
FYI, US medical schools rarely if at all admit students whose did not graduate from an accreditation US 4 year college or university.
There is also an American University in Nigeria, that might be a good option is all doors close next year.</p>
<p>@ccco2018 Thank you, but of course I did quite a bit of research and gathered several opinions before flinging myself at a school that was not even on my radar a few months ago, seeing as I did not even have a radar.</p>
<p>One does not simply move to the United States and enter high school. In fact, I cannot. I am too young (as you have pointed out) to be living on my own, and I would encounter the same problems I have with college apps with a boarding school. Sixteen/seventeen may be young for Americans, but most Nigerians are in their first year at that age. It’s not even an age thing. I finished high school a year ago, and the longer I stay out of school, the harder it will be to adjust when I do return. Besides, I’m not obligated to spend four years anywhere, I guess :/</p>
<p>Funny enough, this entire year has been a gap year.</p>
<p>And the United States is not the only place in the world to study medicine. Frankly, I think European and Far East Asian graduate schools are much better in that regard (as in turning out solid practitioners). I’m looking for the American undergraduate experience, which thankfully is now spreading to several other countries.</p>
<p>I understand that you’re trying to help, but really, I’ve had a year to consider my options.</p>
<p>jewelessien, there are lots of organizations that arrange for strong students from abroad to come as exchange students in American high schools (YFU, AFS, AISE, AIFS, ASSE, Nacel…). They stay with a family and take the classes they want. They are restricted in that they cannot drive and cannot travel except with the program or the host family, but other than that, they live just like American high school students with a family. it’s a great way to discover the culture (and become bilingual but you don’t need that part). I agree this may not be the best, but it may be another choice beside KGI, you would take classes you haven’t taken yet, and if you were an “exchange senior” you would get a transcript and would apply as a freshman to the schools that strongly considered you, such as MIT. In some cases, if the high school is accredited with the Dept of Homeland Security, they can directly issue the request for the J1 as long as a local family can take you in - if your brother has friends whose family is in South Bend who’d be willing to take you in, and if there’s a school that’s accredited there, it may be another solution.</p>
<p>Did you end up attending Minerva?</p>
How have you found Minerva? I was considering it along with Bowdoin, Barnard, Wesleyan, Vassar, etc