December 15, 2014
After much mulling over the situation of how we would get Efrem’s college transcripts verified by any of those companies requiring they be sent directly from the school (which was really the issue given how uncooperative the officials at the school in Joburg had been in the past to students that weren’t South African), we decided to go check out Delgado to see what we could do there. We figured he’d have to enroll in Delgado regardless, because he hadn’t taken college-level English or Math in Johannesburg, which was a requirement to enroll at SUNO as a transfer student.
We got to there and were directed to the international office. The lady was rather dry, but at least she had some pretty good news for us. Efrem could enroll as a freshman and avoid the entire issue of the transfer student confusion, and with his Visa status, would be eligible for an in-state tuition waiver! We would still need to get his high school diploma and transcripts verified, but she told us about another company that would allow us to submit the copies we had ourselves, meaning we wouldn’t have to stress over trying to get someone to go to the Johannesburg high school and try and harass them into submitting the paperwork on Efrem’s behalf. Even better, was he could enroll and start classes the next semester provisionally (without having the verified transcripts) and we would have until the end of the semester to get them in and change his status to regular student, so there would be no delays on actually getting started.
Since we had brought most of the documentation he needed to get preliminary paperwork filled out, he was able to get scheduled to take placement tests over the next week, and soon after, he was enrolled in two classes to start in January with the new semester. Progress!
like black butterflies 