Hi, I have some questions about attending BS as an international student.
In the long breaks (summer, winter, thanksgiving) where do international students stay at?
Are there people who discriminate by race?
Any other experiences with being an international student?
Thank you in advance for anyone who answers these!
I would assume they go home and if they can’t they’re probably put with host families. Though I don’t think it’s possible to be with a family for all three long breaks. I assume at one point you’ll have to travel back home.
There will always be people who discriminate by race. Some schools are doing a good job of making it less apparent in their bs communities. If you would like I suggest looking at the black@ Instagram pages (black@andover, black@exeter, Black@choate) and more.
You are expected to go home for summer. Winter breaks tend to be long at boarding schools. Depending on the length, you may be expected to go home. Thanksgiving breaks are relatively short. You can probably stay on campus. These policies will vary by school, so it’s something to ask each school.
Students are expected to go home for long breaks.
Yes, there are racist people. Generally not the majority and there is certainly a matter of degree. If you are asking are there people who march with torches shouting racial slurs I would say few to none. The racism trends more towards “there is no race problem in America and people who say there is are just playing identity politics.”
Generally international students are celebrated at BS but it can be lonely if you are the only one from your country. It can also be hard if you are used to being in a homogenous population that looks just like you to go someplace where you are distinctly a minority at a PWI.
Thanks!
So I may stay with a host family during the long breaks if I can’t really afford to go back home?
Thank you:)
Thank you so much for the candor and sensitivity in picking this one out. The racism I am concerned is not the overt type but something insidious like the one you mentioned, such as the “polite indifference” variety. When something is visiblely obnoxious, we can at least fight it. But when nobody sits next to me calling it a “matter of personal taste,” I am left with my own taste to fight.
Most US boarding schools have in the past expected all students to leave campus during long breaks. Where students went was largely a matter of the student’s family’s choosing, based on their situation (some would go home, some had domestic relatives/guardians to stay with, some would stay with a school friend’s family).
COVID has resulted in all sorts of changes. The changes vary by school - and the chosen solutions vary. At my child’s school, when boarding reopened last August, they decided to have the option for boarders to remain on campus during breaks. There were other boarding schools that went the opposite extreme of opening none of the dorms when reopening in the fall, and offering to place borders with day student families if they wanted to attend in person. (I think all the schools that started with no boarding have reopened their dorms at some time this year - one school I know waited until late March!) No one knows what will happen next year.
What families should look at when looking at a BS is: will we feel like our student is safe in the care of the people running this school? Look over updates to a school’s response to COVID this year, read what the head of school says, look at the faculty/staff running residential life. Felling comfortable trusting that the school will do their best to take care of students in a way that you will be comfortable with is vital. (There are international students at my child’s school who have not been able to return to their home country since August 2019.)
Reputable schools do not tolerate overt racism any more. However, as others observed, there are less overt forms of racism. You would have to look school by school to see whether the campus culture is a fit for you. Note: you will find negative comments about just about every school. It is up to you to distinguish between those that are truly concerning, and those that are referring to incidents long in the past or of a more minor concern.
Can’t contribute any experiences as an international BS student in this century.
But, one of the issues to consider are the “little details”. For example, laundry. What are the dorm’s laundry facilities like, and how are they paid for? Because it can range from free (super easy to deal with), to using a card (charged to your student account, still easy), to coin operated (quarters). Yes, my kid has needed QUARTERS to do laundry this year - so at least 1 BS in the US still uses coin operated washers and dryers. I would think that wouldn’t be a deal breaker, but it is yet another thing for an international student to navigate.
That is very unlikely for the summer break. It might be possible for a 2 week or shorter break, but it will vary by school.
Thank you. I’ve never actually thought about how laundry could be a problem.
If you can’t afford to go always home, are you applying for FA? It’s very hard to get as an intl. student, but it would help.
Yes, I’m applying for FA since my family’s income is actually less than the tuition.