They are not relevant.
They are in.
Your success is going to come at a school that doesn’t require it.
You’re not getting into the need blind schools - and changing an LOR would simply eliminate you - because when you raise an issue, it stands out.
Stop - your focus is in the wrong place.
You’ve finished America. Now find plan B.
As it is, you didn’t account for summer expense - that’s a big expense - likely 6-8K minium.
You need to seek a professional mental health counselor because your constant self-loathing is a serious issue.
To be a successful student, you have to keep looking forward, regardless of where you study. The mental pressures of attending university are even worse than being 18.
No one cares about age at our US universities. It doesn’t matter. Get used to it.
A large number of elementary schools in the US, don’t admit younger kindergarten children, who may be of age, but are physically younger.
These are children who will always be 1 year older, but because of that extra time, tend to perform better throughout their academic and athletic lives. The universities care about your drive/enthusiasm to become successful. Age is a number; it doesn’t matter.
What will happen when you get a weak grade? Will you walk the campus for 8 hours belittling yourself? It is very common, at US universities, for students to initially get weaker grades. You’re there to learn. No one’s going be checking your ID to check your age. You do have to be 21 to enter a bar.
Develop a plan B with some mental health counseling and support, because attending a university is stressful in itself. A foreign university will be even tougher.
I admire your persistence. I don’t know anyone who could be like you. But agreed, slow down, walking is good, but talk to someone. Getting into a college is useless if your health goes down the drain….mental and physical.
OP –
Here’s something to think about regarding the letters of recommendation (LOR). Students are not supposed to see them – they are supposed to be private between the teacher and the colleges. So in the normal course of events, you wouldn’t even know what was written and would not be able to stress about this now. So please, try to just put this out of your mind. The colleges will understand that these teachers don’t have experiences with these types of letters and will just move on to the other parts of your application.
Also, many colleges don’t look at LORs as part of their evaluation. And even if there are LORs in your common app for the colleges that do, those that do not use them are very likely not going to look at them. They a) don’t have the time b) don’t have the interest and c) need to be equitable so they can’t look at them for some students and not for others.
Third, you have already said that you have had mostly rejections and that the acceptances are not affordable. It is very, very likely that you are not going to get an affordable acceptance. You MUST make some other plans. I still think that if your main goal is college in the US, that Minot State is very likely to work for you. Tuition, room and board are about 18k. Their estimated incidental costs are about 5k, but most of those are estimate and are under your control and you can limit your personal expenditures to small amounts for books and whatever you need to travel back home for summer break (you can probably stay in the dorms for winter and spring breaks. Best to ask Minot about that). So a budget for travel and a budget for health insurance and hopefully you are only a few thousand dollars more than your current budgeted amount. If you get a job in your hometown now, you can hopefully earn that amount.
So, please try to stop stressing and email Minot and ask them a) if international students can stay on campus over winter and spring breaks (and even summer breaks if you want) – and how much that will cost. Also ask them how much mandatory health insurance will cost. And then work to make that happen. And I know there is a charge for them to evaluate your international credentials –but I think that is a charge that you are going to have to pay at some point, whether it is now so that you can get closure or later in 2026 after you have all your final answers from the other colleges.
Concurrently, work towards options outside of the US. I am very optimistic that you will get into Minot, but you should have a backup plan in place. And just ignore the tumult over the LORs – you were never supposed to have seen the content, so try to put it out of mind.
We all admire your persistence. Now is the time to also cultivate flexibility and fortitude.
Good luck.
I will do something…
yeah, I think my stats will really not work there…
I acknowledge
thank you
Should I be applying early to get the css waivers? or is it fine near the deadlines? I have contacted many colleges they said they would send it after applying.
Thank you so much for such a detailed response, I cannot appreciate the time and effort you have put into this, I shall take note. I think the 23k budget far offs my father’s reach, I’ll ask him to consider our budget.
It is 18k for tuition and room and board and then a few hundred for books and maybe a few hundred for miscellaneous things and then about 2100 for mandatory health insurance (from minot’s website) and then travel to and from home.
Can you work this school year and summer in India to help your parents with the budget?
Sorry, which school is this?
Also it looks like apartments are very inexpensive near minot. About $500-$600 a month for a bedroom in a 2-bedroom apartment. And if you can find someone to share the bedroom with then it’s half that. So staying near campus in the summers may not be too expensive, as long as you can get summer work on campus to pay your rent and food.
Minot state. It’s the closest I have found that is very likely to admit OP and come close to his budget. Plus they take a lot of international students.
@tsbna44 please let me know if my numbers are off. I don’t want to give bad information to the OP.
Is Texas A&M International in Laredo still in the running.
Minot shows 3 figures for International:
$9341 Tuition & Fees (that’s today, we don’t know next year)
$8770 housing and food - wow, that’s half of most schools
$2190 Health Insurance
$20,301 direct cost
i’m not sure if there’s merit aid. The auto merit ($2500) is only for US and Canadian.
I forgot to mention this, I had a disturbance during my SAT examination, Laptop given by Collegeboard was so small that I barely was able to see it, I had emailed them about it, asking for a makeup test. They gave me two options either get scores or retake another sat test date.
It feels really unjust..
I chose get scores as it was no use taking it in march.
I think I can, I hope I would be getting a top-notch education experience there.
Wow, you are taking so many steps for me, Thank you so much. I cannot appreciate it enough!
Minot State would be a heck of a bargain if you could make it work financially. But make sure they offer what you’d like to study:
Minot says that you can stay on campus over the summer if you are taking a class or working on campus. So that will help with travel costs because when I looked, flights to and from India were very expensive. They also say that undergrads can live on campus all four years, although some non-freshmen choose to live off campus. (Not all colleges have enough housing for this and some require non-freshmen to live off campus so it’s good to know).
Of course, you should always contact admissions and confirm this for yourself.
