You asked a lot but since this goal means so much to me, I'll do my best to answer. I don't believe rejected students would learn just as much outside the school as in. If this were the case, there would be no value at all in attending one.

1- Did you take, and become certified on any of those MOOC courses?

Yes, I did. Maybe I could have spent that time finding one more piece of contract work that would have let me raise the quality of my living conditions/diet, but I took the Berkeley SAAS course and I did very well.

2- Have you created anything of significance like a website?
I'm not talking about plugging up a WordPress Site without even
customizing the CSS, but something where you had to understand
the technology you were using, like hand-coding PHP and MySQL.
Do you have anything in github?

Possibly. I'm not sure how you define "of significance", and obviously I don't already posses expert level skills of I wouldn't be so interested in training.

I've made several JS tools, three 80s style games in flash, and most my projects that have been keeping me going have been WP customizations (generally a child theme with some PHP and a lot of CSS work). Check my profile and I'm sure you'll find one. Some of the above is on github, but nobody is forking it or anything.

3- What programming languages do you use? Have you attempted to learn
anything more special, like Scala or Lisp, or are you still mucking
around with whatever you began learning with?

I've dabbled in tons, including lisp, but not scala. I worked through part of Land of Lisp, though I did end up getting stuck at a point.

Yes, it will probably take a tad more convincing if you are older,
have no experience, and don't have any recent tough filters to prove
your abilities to them.

I find your general tone towards me a bit disheartening, to be perfectly honest. If the result of sharing any kind of personal set on HN is to be implicitly blamed by commenters, it's a lot harder to be open with people here. I'm not exactly sure why you would assume I have no experience or haven't done anything tough.

I've learned to speak and read Chinese well, built and run a business in Taiwan from 2006-2010 and got a job at a tech start-up in China 18 months ago with fewer skills than I have now! Yes, it has been a very, very hard time since moving back to the US this past 6 months, but I haven't exactly been a slacker.

The bar is set very high for these schools or they will go out of business,
so set the bar very high for yourself first, then apply. Don't blame
them for your age or your gender, because it is not likely that is what
is happening here.

First of all, I am not and have not blamed anyone. Every individual I've dealt with related these schools and most hiring managers and recruiters have been very polite and in many cases helpful. And you could be right-- maybe a woman with my skill set and background would have encountered every bit as much rejection from interviewers and schools that I have... and received the same sort of comments if she shared her failure on HN. The reason I don't like articles like this is that they make it difficult not to wonder.

Can you elaborate a bit on "setting the bar very high for myself" or offer something constructive? I'm a lot more interested in the "how to get in" than the "why you didn't" kinds of answers.