“If I were an international family being wooed by a public school system that recently added a boarding program, I’d start my research by asking some questions.”

An “ah, ha” moment struck me after we published that piece.

Our recently published free E-book, “An International Student’s Guide to Applying to Private School,” covers exactly these topics/questions in more detail and with a more detailed eye toward execution.

Author and colleague, Christine Chapman takes international families through the thinking; the “nuts and bolts” of applying to private school in North America and Europe.

She covers some of the questions and issues (as well as how to address them) that I raised in “Shrinking Public Schools Turn to International Boarding Programs as a Lifeline.”

If you’re an international family considering a traditional boarding school, private day school or a home stay-public school experience, “An International Student’s Guide to Applying to Private School,” Ms Chapman offers sound advice and templates for good planning.

Ridley College seniors explore why they were drawn to this Canadian boarding school as international students, what they’ve found at Ridley, and how this shapes their college search.

Both appreciate that Ridely offers and international community in which students can excel in any number of ways- academics, athletics, and the arts.

They share that some of the challenges of being an international boarder, are the very things that benefit one the most.

The Ridley experience has been so transformative for both that they wish they would have come to the school earlier in their secondary school years.

Additional resources:

Ridley College - www.ridleycollege.com

Brian Fisher (BF): Were Canadian schools initially part of your family’s school considerations? How did Ridley (and other Canadian schools) come to your attention? Did you see some instant advantages to choosing a Canadian boarding school?

Dana Evans (DE): We did not intend to look at any Canadian schools, we were looking for a boarding school for our son. Mostly in the NY/Connecticut area. My son met the admissions representatives from Ridley at a local boarding school fair. Ridley did not stick out as being foreign, Canadian or too far away to consider. He very much wanted to visit after talking with Dr Weller who pointed out that the school was no further than many of the boarding schools that came to the same fair. It just happened to be across the US border – basically it’s Buffalo. But, St Catharine’s, by nature of being in Canada, is way more glamorous than Buffalo!

In retrospect, the main advantage was that he did not have to compete for a spot at Ridley against his classmates and friends. In reality, I believe Ridley is a school with a stronger academic record than some of the ones he was looking at in Connecticut/New York. In that, I think our son made a smart choice that will last a lifetime.

BF: With Ridley, you find yourself in the position of being an international student, how has that worked? For your son? For you?

DE: I think he considers himself just a student. We are quite impressed at the representation of so many countries at Ridley. It gives our son global exposure which should serve him well when he moves out into any career. It could have an influence when he applies to colleges (which I assume will be US schools) but that’s not on our radar at this time. The quality of his education at Ridley will serve him well as he goes through the college process.

BF: Does being an international student family, require any special preparation on your part? How’s the paperwork?

DE: Yes, but involves just a passport and student visa. We had to renew the passport so that it would be valid through his 3 years at Ridley. The visa paperwork was much less daunting than the line at the Canadian Embassy in NYC. After two attempts at the cue, I found a service that handles student visas- with ease and clarity – very simple and straightforward. Even easier than getting a passport. The visa service price was very reasonable – I think just $80.

I do have to figure out the PSAT/SAT/ACT routine which I have to admit has not been at the top of my to do list. And in that vein, we need to make sure he fulfills US requirements for example the foreign language requirement in US is not the same as in Canada.

BF: How does travel and, say parents weekend, work for an American family with a student in Canada?

DE: Travel from NY area is very easy. We fly into Buffalo from LaGuardia which is then only 30 minutes to St Catharine’s. I can drop my other kids at school here, and be there for lunch with time to spare. Often times airfare is less than a tank of gas (big American SUV). Buffalo is a very easy airport in which to travel to and from. Small snow storms don’t shut down the city or the airport like they do in areas to the south. We have found it easy to go up for a day or the weekend. In fact, it’s even easier for our son to get home. All we/he has to do is reserve a seat on the shuttle via the school website and with airline ticket in hand – home he comes.

BF: Did you find some pieces of having an international student in Canada easier than you expected? Some more difficult than you expected?

DE: Not easier or more difficult – just different..

Health Care – With both a knee injury and head injury, I was surprised that the care and follow up was more thorough and comprehensive than he would have received here at home under our private insurance coverage..

Banking – I have yet to figure out the best way to handle money with him. Our primary banks don’t have branches in Canada. There are fees for transactions and currency exchange fees which add up. It seems TD Bank has the best option, though it involves me depositing funds into his account – old fashioned style – since we are Citi and Chase customers.

Cell phone- not the greatest situation….it works best to have someone in Canada get them a phone. He can’t without Canadian papers. So, we just kept the US plan which can add up if he uses a lot of data. So far the cell bill is about 20% higher, but in the big picture, we are glad that it’s easy to contact him and ultimately our responsibility on this end if he loses his phone.

In all, it’s been a great move.

I call attention to their piece in this forum because the demand and influx of Chinese students into American higher education parallels the demand and increase in Chinese students in American boarding schools.

Fischer and Bartlett take an unvarnished look at the current influx of Chinese students into American colleges and universities beginning with the “how’s” and concluding with the “why’s.” The process is akin to learning, or watching, how the sausage is made. The picture is honest- driven by some blunt economic realities.

I posit that American boarding schools may be able to play a role in providing a cleaner, more honest, path for Chinese students into American higher learning institutions.

The collegiate admission process for Chinese students is fraught with graft and fraud. But, the simple truth is that Chinese students seek American higher education/institutions (and boarding school) for all the right reasons.

China doesn’t have enough university seats for its students and, at the other end of the equation, American higher education (and boarding schools) need full-paying customers. Application and admission issues arise out of unclear, and insecure, admission processes for Chinese students coming to America.

“…what seems at first glance a boon for colleges and students alike is, on closer inspection, a tricky fit for both [Chinese students and American universities].”(NYT)

Bartlett and Fischer cover the issues:

• Chinese families (sometimes multiple generations) heavily invested in their child’s achievement
• Cultural and educational fit for each student largely absent from the admission equation
• Unrealistic expectations shaped by status consciousness (too much Harvard, Yale and Princeton)
• Chinese education agents- promising to help families- who over promise, fail to deliver, set unrealistic expectations, prey on the status consciousness of client families, or, are just plain thieves; standardized testing fraud; transcript fraud
• Inflated English proficiency

And, once students arrive, an unfamiliarity with the ways American prep school and collegiate classrooms work presents functional challenges- discussion hallmarked by give and take; premiums placed on creativity; decidedly, un-test centric approaches to learning and achievement; requirements of academic honesty.

American colleges and universities (like Delaware as featured in the article) are choosing an international path to stay viable and offer an international outlook to their students. To be successful in their international growth, the schools must understand the processes and pitfalls of international admission and be ready to adapt and continually work to improve them.

American Boarding Schools Can Have Place in This Equation

Given the economic and geopolitical processes shaping and driving this educational equation, the best question for everyone is how to make it work?

I think American boarding schools have something to contribute to this interconnected world. Boarding schools ofter the opportunity to provide above board admission processes while simultaneously acculturating and preparing Chinese students for the American university experience.

A year or two in an American boarding school can address almost every issue raised by Fisher and Bartlett and their subjects:

• Honest transcripts
• Honest test scores
• Honest English proficiency assessment
• Classroom acculturation
• An understanding of academic honesty
• Cultural acculturation
• All are available through the boarding school experience.

The trick of course will be the boarding schools’ ability to assert and sell their value while inserting themselves into the equation.

Photo credit: rockinpaddy via Creative Commons

ASI has two interesting concurrent stories- its founding and its students.

ASI is a young organization with young leaders in grad school and, obviously, for our audience, they understand and use the boarding school experience as an opportunity and medium.

Qiamuddin Amiry one of ASI’s founders expresses the value of education having won a scholarship to attend school in Hong Kong and being recruited by Colby College. Amiry explains in the ASI Documentary:

“I could see the stark difference and contrast between how my life could be and how my life was…Two years of education in Hong Kong taught me how you can change somebody; how you can create dreams for someone. How you can build leadership in someone who has the passion but doesn’t have the opportunity.”

This value of education underpins ASI’s work and students.

One of ASI’s first students, Meetra Ameni spoke to The Boston Globe of her ASI, Gould Academy, and Smith College experiences:

“If I didn’t have this chance, I might have had a typical Afghan girl’s life…At first, it was really hard for me to make the transition. But after a while, I am used to it. It makes more sense for me now.’’(TBG)

ASI’s program is rigorous and selective in working toward preparing “Afghanistan’s future civic leaders.”(ASI)

Students “are selected based on their writing skills, reasoning skills, and demonstrated intelligence e.g. organizing thoughts, and school grades” and rigorously prepared for their boarding school experience.(ASI)

ASI continues supporting the educational and social experiences of their students throughout their boarding school years.

Watch the full episode. See more Morning Classical Music with Suzanne Nance.

Maine Public Broadcasting’s Suzanne Nance visited with Liang Wang (Idyllwild Arts Academy ’99) at length in a 36 minute interview. Interspersed with performances, the ranging interview covers his work at Bowdoin International Music Festival, his coming to America, and his work.

Wang came to America alone at age 15 at the urging of an Oboe company executive. At 7:39 of interview, Wang talks about the arrival of his I-20 student visa, airplane ticket, and full scholarship to Idyllwild Arts Academy (Idyllwild, CA).

He gives great credit to Idyllwild’s ESL program and the many wonderful people along his journey to professional musician.

Wang is, among other positions, the Principal Oboe of the New York Philharmonic.

A town under stress as industry declined and its population seeks opportunity elsewhere, Newcomb school enrollment had fallen to 55 students, K-12.

Necomb’s solution comes right out of a history book.

Building a boarding school program isn’t as new, or unheard of as one might think. Taking in students whose families tuition, or, whose towns pay tuition has a long, illustrious, and, in Vermont & Maine especially, living tradition.

In the nineteenth century- before regional school systems- academies were set-up by municipalities as the school system. Towns and families paid direct tuition. And, many of the academy’s took in boarding students who lived locally, or, in dormitories as they were built.

Two academies very much alive and thriving with large boarding student programs come to mind- St. Johnsbury Academy (VT) and Fryeburg Academy (ME).

To this day, the academy movement is the reason many independent boarding schools are knows as X Academy. Most academies became independent schools with the rise of regional school systems in the late 1960’s to early 1970’s.

Enter Clark Hults, hired as Newcomb school superintendent in 2006. He’s taken some pages from the old academy model and taken the Newcomb school system international.

Winerip writing for The New York Times:

“…Mr. Hults, known as Skip (who is also principal, assistant principal and van driver, and who answers the phones when Pam Bush, the receptionist, steps away) had a bright idea. America is known around the world for its education system, he reasoned. Newcomb needed a niche to stand apart from other dying towns. Why not bring in students from all over the world and give the local economy a much-needed boost?

On its face, it sounded preposterous.

But in the last four years, 30 students from 19 countries (including Iraq, Vietnam, Russia, Israel and Lebanon) have spent a year studying in Newcomb, of all places. This, in turn, has attracted students from surrounding districts, who, as Mr. Hults put it, want something more from a school than an all-Caucasian experience. Enrollment has climbed to 85 and is expected to hit 100 next year…”(NYT)

…Foreign students pay $8,000 for the year. Half goes to the host family, half to the school district. If they pass all the necessary state Regents tests next week, they earn a New York high school diploma. Mr. Hults has also created a program that allows his students to earn college credits. The foreign students generate little extra state revenue, but costs are also minimal, since no extra staff members are needed.

‘Nobody is doing what Skip is doing,’ said Carl Springer, an American in Thailand whose agency, Asiamerica, places 600 foreign high school students a year in the United States — mostly at private schools.’Newcomb is one of the most affordable,’ he said in an interview via Skype. ‘A typical private school is $25,000.’

There are more big plans ahead for little Newcomb. Next fall Mr. Hults expects to have his largest group yet, 12 foreign students. ‘We’re working on getting two from Ethiopia,’ he said. On Friday, he conducted an admissions interview with a boy in Russia, using Skype. In Thailand, Mr. Springer is working to line up investors to build a 50-bed dormitory in Newcomb.

If that happens, Mr. Hults plans to raise tuition to $20,000, which would add $1 million to the district’s $5 million budget.”(NYT)

No small change to what could become an economic engine in a small town.

One by one, our students from Japan returned from March Break this week. When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan on March 11th, Kents Hill School was on March vacation, and many of our Japanese students had returned home. Others were with host families, and we also had American students visiting their friends or living in Japan. Even though we were on vacation, the school administration worked tirelessly to track everyone down and make sure everyone was OK. Our Director of Alumni Relations liaised with parents in Tokyo to track down all of our alumni. Thankfully, all of our students and their families were and remain safe.

The students returned to school Sunday night and were greeted with hugs and cheers all around. Amidst the chatter and buzz of reunion, they talked about the importance of Facebook and how so many of their friends reached out to them from all over the world during the dark days following the tragedy. At the school, we had also been busy putting into place some plans and ideas to help them return to school and to help the school understand and support their experiences.

Monday and Tuesday’s Morning Meetings were devoted to the crisis in Japan. On Monday, the headmaster and school chaplain spoke to the school, updating everyone on what had and is happening and ending with a moment of silence for all who lost their lives and for all who are bereft.

On Tuesday, the Japanese students hosted a Dress Down Day to raise money for the Red Cross Japan Relief Fund and ended up raising a record-breaking $1,000. They also gave a stunning presentation on the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor crisis. Speaking personally and movingly to the school, they thanked their friends for their unending support, They reassured us all that they were “all right.” In private conversations with friends, nurses, counselors and advisors, they have shared the stresses and strains of unending shaking, shortages of water and power, radiation scares, unending tragic news coverage, and fears for friends and family.

Once again, we realize the reach of our global community up here on the Hill in Maine. I was glad and thankful to see our friends from Japan return to us safely; I am continuously glad and thankful for a Kents Hill community that watches out for all of us, wherever we are.

Photo credit: trivialbrioche via Creative Commons

The new program pairs:

“10th Grade Worcester Academy students with 10th Grade Abaarso Tech students in a sort of 21st century pen pal program. They are not only learning about different cultures, but are also making friends, he said. Additionally, classes in Worcester and Somaliland will be connecting with one another using Skype online live video conferencing, which allows the classes to see and speak with one another in real time. Students have already begun maintaining a blog about their ongoing experience. The blog can be accessed by visiting waabaarsotech.ning.com.”(WA)

Worcester faculty participate by serving as resources and mentors to Abaarso Tech faculty many of whom are new to teaching.

Founded by Worcester Academy alumnus Jonathan Starr (’94), Abrasso Tech seeks to apply a “business model to improving conditions in Somaliland by offering world-class education, assisting rural populations, and backing community improvements.”(WA)

Opening with and inaugural freshman class of 50 this year, Abaarso Tech plans to add 50 students each year until full with 200 students.

Worcester Academy’s “Open Gates” works to integrate real-world experiences into the academy’s curriculum. Worcester currently has sister-school relationships with Abaarso Tech, the Haderslev Katedralskole in Denmark, and The Royal Grammar School in Worcester, England.

More information:

Giving Hope in the Horn of Africa

International club president Sydney Rupe (’11) has taken the club to a whole new level since becoming president. The club, which was once 16 members, now boasts a membership of 130 members and bragging rights as Baylor’s largest student-run club. Membership in the club is about a 50-50 split between U.S. and international students. Because of the many events that the club hosts throughout the year, cultural barriers are often broken down and common experiences are brought to the forefront.

“I feel like the International Club really opens members’ eyes to the similarities among them but at the same time emphasizes the cool and unique things about everybody and every culture,” says Rupe. Last year, the club hosted an international party that included food from all over the world Including China, Italy and Mexico just to name a few. There were also cross-cultural games, international music and even salsa lessons which were lead by Spanish instructor, Eli Anderson-Barrera. The International club is just one of the many clubs Baylor offers to its boarding students.

There are more than 60 clubs offered to the students at Baylor. Learn more about the clubs offered at Baylor or check out the Baylor Magazine to learn more about us!