For students around the world, going to college in America has been a goal of many for decades. AB host Lee Coffin and his guest Robin Appleby—who led schools in London, The Hague and Dubai—ponder the opportunities of American higher education for an international audience of prospective applicants. Appleby encourages students to explore the “why?” of applying to schools abroad and to ask questions like “what kind of learner am I?” They discuss the advantages of studying a wide range of subjects versus the norm of a more structured concentration in a local university as well as the cultural and personal lessons such an American adventure offers.
For students around the world, going to college in America has been a goal of many for decades. AB host LeeCoffin and his guest Robin Appleby—who led schools in London, The Hague and Dubai—ponder the opportunities of American higher education for an international audience of prospective applicants.Appleby encourages students to explore the “why?” of applying to schools abroad and to ask questions like “what kind of learner am I?” Theydiscuss the advantages of studying a wide range of subjects versus the norm of a more structured concentration in a local university as well as the cultural and personal lessons such an American adventure offers.
Lee Coffin:
From Hanover New Hampshire, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's, vice president for admissions and financial Aid. Welcome to Admissions Beat.
(music)
Last week we met Witold, a first-year student at Dartmouth from Warsaw, Poland via Brazil. And his really global high school experience reminded me that so many of our listeners live outside the United States. And this week we're going to lean into that global perspective and have a conversation with a colleague who has been in international secondary schools for many years and will talk with me about the idea that someone might leave home. And by leaving home, I mean leave your country. To come to the United States, maybe Canada or Australia or the UK, and have an undergraduate experience that is often quite different from the experience that might be had in country. So when we come back, we'll meet Robin Appleby, a Dartmouth alumna and recent arrival in the Dartmouth Admission office to pull on her many years of experience in international secondary schools. So when we come back, Robin and I will have a conversation about global migration.
(music)
So Robin, hi, nice to see you on Admissions Beat. Thanks for doing this with me. By way of prep, I went to LinkedIn and I typed in your name to see what popped up. And it said, "I'm a senior admission officer with years of experience as an independent school teacher, leader, and consultant in both the US and internationally." And I think you're situated in a really interesting space. Because while this year you're starting to work at Dartmouth in the undergraduate admission office, most of your career has been as a teacher and as an administrator, as a head of school. And for listeners, Robin was most recently head of school at the American school in London. She was superintendent of GEMS Dubai American Academy for several years. She was principal at the American School of The Hague before that, as well as several jobs teaching English and being an administrator at schools in the United States. But those three international posts—like a diplomat, you've worked your way through the Middle East and Europe. And I'm really eager to dig into that, Robin. But before we go there, I always love to ask guests to think about their own college admissions story. How did you go from high school to college? It was like me a few decades ago.
Robin Appleby:
It was a while ago. Yes. So I grew up in Rhode Island in a family where my mom actually had not gone to a four-year college, but my dad had gone all the way through med school. I think there was always an expectation that we would go to college, but it was pretty low pressure at that time from my parents. They just knew that we would do well, we would do our best, but I wasn't facing some kind of giant wall push to be at a certain place or in a certain way. And just like we tell kids today, I did my research. I knew very early on that I wanted two things. I wanted to be in a school with a really strong English department because I knew I wanted to be an English major. I was the geek with the book from the time I was in kindergarten.
I used to say things when I was six, like, "Ooh, I'll be late for class," with my little book in my hand. So I knew that and I also knew that I wanted to be able to study abroad because I had studied abroad a couple of times even before I left high school. I lived on a farm in Scotland as a sophomore for my sophomore fall and went to public school in Scotland. And I also had been in France in eighth grade. And so I had had these opportunities via my public system to do this. And I knew I wanted that to be part of my undergraduate experience. And so the places I applied to all had that, but Dartmouth had it the most. And in the end, the decision came to go to Dartmouth. I got a fantastic education in English and I got the abroad experiences. I'm part of the ... We say in admissions like 10% of kids spend three terms or more abroad. And I'm part of that 10%. And that actually fueled my desire later on to go international with my career. So there is a throughline there, although certainly not anything that I saw coming way back when I was 17.
Lee Coffin:
Well, I love that you called yourself a geek with a book. And I always say to applicants when they're pondering like, "How do I tell my story?" I say, "Well start with something like, do you like words or numbers or are you someone who likes puzzles or systems because those are clues about what you might study." So you were leading schools outside the US, three really interesting and different places. Tell us about being an American educator overseas and the families you met. Because our listeners will be in schools like the ones you led, but they'll also be at public schools everywhere. And what did you learn? What was that experience like being an administrator outside the US?
Robin Appleby:
So all three of those schools are very different places. They're in three different countries. So the Middle East, heavy English speaking there of course, but very, very culturally diverse. In the Hague of course the Dutch all speak English, but many, many students learn Dutch naturally. And that language piece actually really matters to this college experience and to the experience kids have too, because language and culture obviously are so intertwined. And then in London where it is a native English-speaking country, that means you don't see the cultural crashes about to come because you assume everybody thinks the same way, but perhaps they don't. I think a lot of the experience really depends on what is the composition of the school that you are in. Are you in a school abroad where most of your classmates or your child's classmates are from the same country and are simply choosing maybe a private school with a different curriculum because they aspire to go to college in a different place? Or are you in a school that is truly in a mix?
So in Dubai, for instance, the school I was head of there, 2,400 kids from 106 different countries. No percentage of the student body was larger than 15%. So there was no majority. Whereas in London, while more mixed at the American school in London, than most people would think ... Americans have the largest portion of that population. Many of those Americans are expat kids who may have lived like my daughter, minimally spending her time in America while growing up or have multiple passports. And so the experience of working with those kids and those families really depends on the individual situation of a family. And what you have to remember when you're working with them as a teacher or an administrator is that their backgrounds are all really, really different. And the cultural expectations, the educational expectations that they bring to the table in any discussion are going to vary widely. And so when you're talking about college or when you're talking about approach to academics, there will often be particularly parents in the room who will have no background in that area or that approach. And so you have to start from ground one in those conversations.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, so let's start from ground one. I love that answer because as listeners, some of them will have 12th graders, seniors who are committed to studying in the United States. Some might just be pondering maybe. But there may be listeners who are still in 11th grade listening who are still scratching their head saying why? It seems exotic and compelling and the US has a strong reputation worldwide around higher ed. Maybe start there. Have you noticed that when you've been in international schools that American higher ed seems to be an opportunity that people appreciate?
Robin Appleby:
Oh, absolutely. So particularly those who understand that by and large the kind of colleges or universities they're choosing in the states are going to offer them a more liberal arts perspective where they're going to take classes in a wide range of subjects, not just study one subject, which is frankly more close to the norm around the world than it is in the United States. There are other places with a liberal arts approach and there are individual universities and colleges within any country that have that, but the vast majority do not.
And so the “why” can be that they want that. The “why” could be that they want to build a connection to the United States or they see themselves maybe working here in the future and that having a degree from a university in the states might facilitate their better chances on the job market, et cetera. But I think the question, what's at the heart of the why is really what listeners ought to be thinking about. It's what kids ought to be thinking about, parents, is why would you be choosing this? And do you understand truly the difference between the kind of education you would get in another country, whether it's your home country or whether you're an expat? For the Americans who are abroad you can divide them into two groups. People who have been abroad in the same place for a very long time and have maybe perhaps where their kids have essentially become third-culture kids where they've not been raised in the culture of their parent and they're not of the culture of their country, but they are of it. Or there are those who've just been there for a short time and are assuming that two to five years that their kids were always going to come back to the United States to go to college.
But in both of those cases, it is still worth asking the “why” because it will feel different for that student coming back to the US for university or for college than it will to a kid who naturally expects that it's going to be an international experience. It's not study abroad, it's going to school abroad, which is a very, very different thing. It's not exploring the culture, it's committing to the culture. And it's not just the culture of where the school's located in the United States, it's the culture of liberal arts and university education in the states, which is very different than it is say in the UK, in the Middle East, in Asia, et cetera.
Lee Coffin:
Well, let's talk about that a bit because it’s reminding me of a visit I made to Norway where our local alum said to me, as you go into this presentation, remember Norwegians do not organically understand the liberal arts or a residential college idea. And it stuck with me when he said that because I had to really back up and start from square one to say, okay, I'm representing an American institution as a very different course of study and social residential experience than what is the norm here. Talk a little bit more about the liberal arts. Because I think that's to an international audience for whom the idea that you explore for a year or two seems exotic, mysterious, and perhaps silly. How should someone think about this as good intellectual fit?
Robin Appleby:
So it goes back again to culture. So I would say two things about this. The first is that not everyone sees the purpose of education in the same way. In many countries, the purpose of higher education after high school education is employment. Is what is the job that you were headed towards? What is the career you were headed towards? And the goal is to get there as quickly and successfully as you possibly can in many places. In the United States over time, we really have developed a university system that is much more based on the idea that your college years in the liberal arts world, that your college years are preparing you to think about what kind of career you want and to be flexible enough to go into a range of careers when you come out the other side. Now, that doesn't mean it's not skills-based.
It can be both skills-based and theoretical-based. But you're looking in the liberal arts, you're looking at the world's problems through multiple lenses. So you're taking and you're encouraged to take courses across a range of topics. And in most schools—not all—you actually are required to take classes across a range of topics, whether it's a core curriculum at a school or whether it's a distribution requirement like Dartmouth has or whether it's just simple satisfying various skill approaches that many maybe state universities have. You have to do that. And that's unusual in other countries in the world where you have applied usually into a three-year program to just do one major course of study and pretty much all of your courses are going to be in that field of study, and you're not necessarily put into a system that encourages you to think broadly and widely about how you would do the work in that system.
So you really need to think about that when you're thinking about going to school in a different country is what do you want? What kind of learner are you as a kid? Because one or the other of those two approaches may be far more appealing and it would be nice to go to school in a system that really, really appeals to you. For kids who have been in a more Western high school environment, this will be somewhat familiar. Even in the British system with A-levels until they get to A-levels and they're doing GCSEs, the lower level end of 10th grade equivalent. They're doing a wide range of subjects and are focusing just usually on three for the A-levels. But there will be a muscle intellectual memory of having studied a range of topics and for kids who preferred that rather than just sticking with one coming to the United States or Canada or other places that allow you that breadth of study . Even Scotland now has a breadth of study because they're a four-year approach, not a three. It may actually be a really, really good fit.
But the other thing I would say is what is not just the learning experience, but what is the life experience that you want to have? So I'll tell you, I have a daughter who is a freshman in college this year. I'm almost embarrassed to say this, but she's a very, very well-prepared kid. And so she started looking at colleges and universities in terms of visits after her freshman year in high school. And so I have visited 51 college campuses over the last three years in four countries because we were living in the UK at the time. And so I can tell you how vastly different the expectations are about the life you lead at college depending on what the country is. Here in the United States, the closest question you get to housing is are you guaranteed housing of all four years? And in the UK I think the common question I heard was, how soon can I move out? Because it's just a different style.
And when you're living differently, you are learning differently. And that's important to think about too. If you're not somebody ... If you don't have a child or you're not as an individual, somebody who's actually pretty good at organizing your time and you're thrown headlong into a university system that isn't a college campus where even though you're not supervised, you're going with the flow of a college day. In many universities abroad, it isn't going to feel like that. It's a much more independent life. What we in the United States might think of more of as a graduate school life is closer to the undergraduate experience there.
Lee Coffin:
I think the idea of coming to the United States--for listeners, you're thinking about an academic experience that is more multi-dimensional than you might find at home. But you're also thinking about a social experience. That is for most of the US colleges and universities, a whole experience like you're there on a campus living with your peers.
Robin Appleby:
This also goes to our western cultural mindset where yes, we're somewhat communal, but really we're individualistic in other parts of the world where the family is really the center of the daily life and the daily world, the university culture has grown up around that. And so that is something to keep in mind that it is part of the culture shock that some kids may experience in coming here.
Lee Coffin:
You mentioned your daughter's search in the 51 visits in four countries. So to the expats who are listening speak to them. Was that fun? Did it make your head spin?
Robin Appleby:
Okay, we have to recognize that I was willing to do this because I was in education, and so I found it interesting. But as a parent, let me just tell you, all of you who are sitting out there with a guilt complex right now thinking, I told the kid they could go to 10, that's okay. Okay. I was really interested in this and we were living in a place that actually made it very easy to do so. Our circumstances made it easy for us to have all of these visits and we've relished it. So I think it's good if you can. If part of your college decision process is not just what college or university am I going to apply to, but what country, I do think it's important to try to make every effort to get to those countries to at least experience one or two campus visits. When you see something that is not what you're used to, that helps you recognize what you do know more and what is more familiar to you. And I think that's what you're looking for when you're doing an international search and you're thinking about going abroad. It doesn't have to be the fit for life, but it needs to be enough of a fit with who you are as a person so that you do have the capacity to make the most of the educational experience that's in front of you.
Lee Coffin:
Sticking with the idea of American citizens who've lived most of their life in another country and now they're thinking about coming to the United States for college, are there any challenges hiding there that a student or parent should think about as they repatriate or maybe live in the US for the first time and so they've got the blue passport but they've never lived here?
Robin Appleby:
Yep. Absolutely. This is something that most international schools will actually work with families and kids on in the last few weeks of senior year. So that reverse culture shock. And for some kids, if they've never lived here or have barely lived here, it's just culture shock of coming into the United States and experiencing the American university traditions. It can be just completely ... pardon the word…but foreign to them if they've grown up in a different culture. And this can be about dorm life, this can be frankly a lot about alcohol. The ways in which kids learn to drink in other countries is very different from the ways and modes in which people drink in this country. The interesting thing about this is these can all be the same challenges that non-Americans international students have coming here. But the two groups don't tend to see each other necessarily as peer groups. Kids who are non-American coming here and Americans who supposedly are American but maybe aren't so American coming back.
Lee Coffin:
And I would just say to that group of students, it's a really interesting life experience to share as part of an application and essay. You may think I don't have anything to talk about. Well, you do. If you are an American who've never lived in the United States and you've spent 17 years in Czech Republic, that's a great topic. Just what did you learn? And then coming back into the United States with an international-
Robin Appleby:
Perspective.
Lee Coffin:
Perspective. Yeah. Is a valuable add to a classroom, to a dormitory. And I get a question a lot ... Came up the other day. I'm a US citizen living in Chile. Do I count as an international student or do I count as a US citizen? You count as both. Most of us will read files based on the school of attendance. So in this example, you're on the Chile docket because you're in school there, so you would count as international by address, but by citizenship you're US. And what that does in many colleges, if you're a financial aid student, the fact that you live in Chile, you're a US citizen, you're eligible for federal financial aid. The national identity is multifaceted in that one. So for students, own your story.
Robin Appleby:
Absolutely.
Lee Coffin:
If you're applying into the United States as an American living abroad, tell us about that. What do you see as you look across the pond as they say? So as you're imagining this academic experience abroad, I'm going to guess that there are some American colleges and universities where the name transcends the national boundary, but there's probably many more of us that have a fuzzier degree of visibility outside the United States. How should a family start to think about this? Maybe they have a college counselor, let's assume they don't. Who's well-versed in all things American. How do you start, how you assess fit?
Robin Appleby:
I think you start again with the “why.” You start with why do I want to do this and what do I want to achieve while I'm doing it? And then use the answers to those questions to begin to do research. The internet is great for this. And maybe try to find some experts who are writing about this or thinking about it. Use any connections you may have in the United States. Friends or colleagues who have either been educated in the US or who live in the US now and will know a lot about the areas that they're in. I'm not suggesting that every university and college in the United States has a liberal arts approach. That's not at all true. So it's also possible to do a degree in the United States in a much more focused program. That's okay too.
And then honestly, if you know what you're looking for, I think you will find the schools that provide what you need. The challenge of course, is that there's these big name schools in the United States and they tend to attract everybody. We all know that. That's a conversation for pretty much any one of your podcasts about the challenges of that. But for instance, state universities are far less known for which great programs they may have for kids abroad. And many of them have incredible programs and are in the United States known to be incredibly prestigious. That's not known as widely outside the United States. And trying to figure out where those places are makes sense not only for academic reasons, but also for cost reasons because they can be less expensive.
Now, that's another thing families need to take into consideration. You've got to think about the fact that in general, the sticker price of education in the US is going to be much higher than probably where you're going to be. And so then you need to research things like financial aid and whether it's need-based financial aid and a school can provide that for a student no matter where they're coming from in the world, which is unfortunately not as many schools as we'd like here, or whether it's need aware where they know what you need when they're maybe going to admit you or not, or whether there are scholarships, what the status of international students are for that visas, passports, etc. That can be a very relevant second source and second topic of research.
Lee Coffin:
As I was listening to you describe options, two things popped up. One is, rankings would be tempting to find your way to any of them. Sources that say, one, two, three, 20, 50, 90. Do you find that to be true in the international space and were they helpful if so?
Robin Appleby:
So I think what's harder about rankings in the United States is that they are by and large rankings of overall schools rather than areas of study. At other places in the world. For instance, in the UK, when you look up a ranking, you are really looking up the ranking of the degree in which you're studying. So you're looking up what are the top schools for English, what are the top schools for economics? And those may or may not align with whatever schools in the UK have been ranked the top of the year.
And so there's a little bit ... I don't know. From my very American way of thinking about this is actually a little bit less pressure to come up with the biggest prestige university in that realm because you're really looking for the program. And in the United States it is much harder to research what are the top undergraduate degree granting programs. You can do that here for graduate school, but it's much harder for undergraduate because the ways in which our publications create these ranking lists don't look at specific subjects. They look at things like what's the overall graduation rate, what's the professor, student percentages, et cetera. Size of classes. But they don't look at specific subject areas in the same way.
Lee Coffin:
So just to make this really specific, we'll use Dartmouth as the example. You might see Dartmouth in a guidebook or a ranking as the college itself, but what's harder to find listeners is you might want to study biology and it will be harder to suss out biology and its reputation through a singular institution.
Robin Appleby:
Right. In many other countries you can do that. You know what the rankings are and you worry more about ... You think more, not necessarily worry. But you think more about the ranking of the program than you do about the overall name of the university. In some ways I think that's a good thing.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. And is there any wisdom during the exploration process of thinking about geography? If you're coming from another part of the world to the US, is that a way of starting to sort the option to think, well, I know New York, I know Los Angeles, or is there a different way of framing it to make this less overwhelming?
Robin Appleby:
So I do think geography is a factor for lots of people. There may be parents, whether they're expat American parents who will continue to be living abroad when their kids are ready to go to university, who will say, "I'm ready to have you fly. Literally fly the nest to the US." But since we are in Europe, the East Coast would be better both for time zone, travel, cost of travel, et cetera. Those parameters may be a way to begin to narrow down how you research the universities that then fit into those geographic places. The challenge with that of course is that it's almost inevitable that your kid is going to fall in love with some school that sits outside that geography and then what do you do? When the right school's on the West Coast, sometimes you just have to say, okay, that is the right school.
I think for kids who are coming here who are not American, who have not spent any time here, if they do have family members in the United States, it can be helpful if they are at least within a few hours of where a student might be going to school for that familial support if it's needed. I think families take that into consideration. I've often heard families say, "Oh, he's going to go to ..." And they'll name a place in Pennsylvania and it'll be because there are relatives in Philadelphia or even D.C. Or New York that are relatively close by. It's going to depend on the temperament of your student as well.
Lee Coffin:
I pause all the time when I'm on the road. I was in California a couple of weeks ago and even within the US thinking, it's a long flight from Los Angeles to Hanover. And five years ago I was on a recruiting trip in China and thinking, this took 20 plus hours to get here. And it made me pause and think students who are coming back and forth from Beijing or Shanghai to a campus in New England, it's an investment of time. That's not a silly consideration to think about the ease of going between home and campus. And what I always find really poignant is some international students, everywhere I've worked come and they leave home for a year. This is not a break. I can go home. They can, but they often don't. And so these are the things I think students and parents ought to ponder. That independence, that distance may feel exciting and empowering or it might be too much and there's a way of thinking about it.
The other topic that dances around this issue a lot is American colleges will often practice what is known as holistic admissions where we read a file, we invite essays and recommendations and many elements that add up to a person's story. And on the podcast, we talk about this all the time. But across the world, universities have an entrance exam that a student takes and you pass it or you don't. And admission is based on that. And so help translate that, Robin. So for people living in a part of the world where the entrance exam is the norm and then they hear one of us pop up in a school visit or a webinar talking about you are the sum of many parts and they're like, "What the hell are you talking about? Where's the test?"
Robin Appleby:
It goes to the heart of what a liberal arts education is. If we want kids to come in and study a number of subjects from a number of points of view, we need to see that as a learner, they have the capacity to do that. And reading holistically allows us to see that. It allows us to see the classes they've taken, the grades they've received, the classes they could have taken, and what they elected or didn't elect to take. How they've done in comparison to their own cohort in their own school. Reading individually like that is more important, probably the successful outcome than reading them against what we anticipate to be their future classmates. Looking at test scores. Because certainly it's not that there are no tests in college. While assessment is much wider than it used to be, it still does include exams and particularly licensing exams for the profession. So you've got to be able to have some of that under your belt and be confident about it.
But we also want to know that you have reflected on what kind of learner you are and that you have thought about the purpose of education. And even though you're not necessarily going to write about the purpose of education, how you think about the world shows up in your essays and in your narrative about yourself. The likelihood of fit or the capacity to thrive at a liberal arts university is often revealed by those factors just as much as it is by testing. And that's really why we are reading holistically when we're thinking about admissions into a school like this.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. This is different. This is going to be a more multi-dimensional process. But speaking of questions, you've been working in admissions for a couple of months now and you're doing info sessions, some of them outside the United States. What kind of questions do you get? What's popping for you as you meet applicants in this journey?
Robin Appleby:
So with non-American applicants, with international applicants, the questions are a lot more about the culture piece and what life would be like. So I had a student on an largely international webinar this morning who wanted to know if students were allowed to cook their food in kitchens in their dorms. Now you don't get American students asking that because the dorm experience, the cafeteria experience is something that they're raised with and they understand it. They've seen it in movies, they've seen it. But other cultures the act of cooking is a cultural act. The act of doing it in a small group, sharing a meal, having that process is very much part of it. It could also be about food preferences or food tolerances or what one can and can't eat according to religion and culture, et cetera. So that's a different kind of question that I've seen come up quite a bit.
There's also a lot of anxiety about predicted grades, how much we use them in that process. Because for the Americans out there who don't necessarily understand in other cultures, you have predicted grades maybe in the British system, the Indian system, many others at the beginning of what would it be your last year, the equivalent of your senior year. But your ultimate admission to a university in that country is on hold. It's conditional until you've taken those exams at the end of your senior year and you get your results in July. So in those countries, you don't really know where for sure where you're going to go to university until the end of July, beginning of August. And in America we're really a whole year ahead on that. And so there were lots of questions as people struggle to understand, well, if my predictors are so important, then does it matter what I get on my exams or not? How does Dartmouth look at that or how does schools look at that and trying to put that into a context.
Lee Coffin:
Very different system.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
What would you say to a parent who is resistant to her child's American dream?
Robin Appleby:
I would, as a parent, spend as much time as possible trying to understand the “why.” Why does your student want this? What is it that your student is looking for that they don't think that they're going to get in their home country or wherever it is you want them to go? What is that? And the reason to do that is one, because maybe it'll help you understand them and then feel better about their choice if you can ultimately support it. And two, it'll help the student define what they're looking for as they undertake the college process. If what they think they're looking for is more distance from family so they can separate, but you really can't stomach them going all the way to the states, can you then find a compromise where they're going someplace else that is farther away, or where you develop a family system where you let the student live in a dorm rather than at home. Almost use it as a counseling moment to figure out what the desire is. But if it comes down to the academic environment that if they can truly only get that in the states, then you have to decide as a parent whether you're going to support that child's dream or not. I know it's a tough one, but it is the moment to let go if you can.
Lee Coffin:
It’s hard.
Robin Appleby:
Yeah. It is. It's really hard.
Lee Coffin:
It's hard. There's an English student at Dartmouth that I've come to know who recounts a version of this story. He was from a small town in northern England, and he recalls telling his mother, I'd like to go to the United States. And she was like, "What?" And it's I think for many families, for the student, that's a really exciting aha. Here's an opportunity I'd like to explore. But I can see from a family point of view that's scary.
Robin Appleby:
Sure. Absolutely. And things that make us less scared or when we know more about it. So if you're fortunate enough to be able to travel, great, but otherwise you can do lots of research from home to try to understand it. Many colleges will provide special sessions for international parents to try to understand what the program would be like there, even if they can't travel. And so it's worth exploring opportunities to do so.
Lee Coffin:
So part of the process is asking questions and exploring. And not all American institutions will have comparable international cohorts on their campuses. Some will be known as a United Nations of sorts with a campus that's got lots of different nationalities and perspectives. Some places not so much. Does that matter? And how might a student and parents discover that?
Robin Appleby:
I think obviously you've got to ask those questions. You've got to try to find out if the university's not broadcasting what their international status is. There's probably a pretty good chance that they're not particularly international. And it never hurts to ask. It never hurts to push and try to do as much research as you can about that. There are good reasons for international students to really ask those questions because I think probably not to stereotype, but most would feel comfortable in a place that because it has more students, has more programming to support them, understands that the international student experience is actually not one experience. It's a different experience for every kid who's there, who's coming internationally into the United States. And it can be easier if you're in a place that has more international students.
Now, that said, I'm thinking of a very particular kid back when I was principal at the American School of The Hague. He was a student who was an incredibly good basketball player, but also got into theater. He was Dutch. For financial reasons, really couldn't have afforded university on his own. And so his way of moving forward was to get a basketball scholarship. And where he got it was at a very small private college in the middle of the Midwest where I think he was probably the only international student. But once he got there, he got himself out of basketball and into theater. While it was hard for him, he has turned that now into a career, and he's actually a well-known television and film actor in the Netherlands because he had that background. And so I think that is probably not the international university experience he would've chosen if he had had great control over the circumstance, but he turned the opportunity he had into his lifetime, his career, his success story. And I think that is another reason why when your kid comes home to you and says, "I'd really like to experience university in another country," there's good reason to listen over dinner and understand their why.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. And I think to answer my own question, most colleges will have demographic data on our websites. And I think for a student outside the US finding the international link : Is there a global map of countries representing the student body? And I think one of the questions to ponder is, what if I'm the only student from my country on that campus? Do I like being an ambassador of my nation at this American college? Or would I feel more comfortable and would I thrive if I had more of a community of siblings who came from the same place? Or is place world region as well as nation? Maybe you like to use your Netherlands example, someone saying, "Are there other Europeans here?" Because while I am Dutch, I also see myself as a citizen of Europe, and that would work. Or if I'm flying all the way from Sri Lanka to Chicago, is there a Sri Lankan community in Chicago? So it might not even be on the campus, but just more broadly in that geography. Different things to be thinking about.
Robin Appleby:
And you raised an interesting point there too, is the idea of Chicago. Most urban centers in the United States are going to be a little bit more diverse, and yet many parents abroad are not going to be as comfortable with the idea of their student being in an urban center. And so there can be a trade-off and a discussion there too.
Lee Coffin:
Robin, is there anything I didn't touch that you're like, "Oh, I wish he asked me about this.", that pulls from your experience in the international secondary school space?
Robin Appleby:
I think maybe one thing we haven't touched on quite so much is we've talked about the liberal arts approach in the United States to education and why somebody would want it. I think what we have to keep in mind is students are coming out of different kinds of high school programs. They need to be asking themselves, how have I been prepared for the kind of university experience I might get in the states and then ultimately, am I going to like that? Maybe you're an American who's in, I don't know, the UK or Singapore or Hong Kong, and you actually discover that you love the more structured approach to education that you've had in your international school there. And you would really like to just be going into your field of study. That's the way your brain works. That's who you are. I think it's well worth actually also asking your question, why do I assume if I'm American and living abroad, that I'm going to go back to the United States for my education?
Lee Coffin:
Let's spin it. Maybe I'm an American who wants to go to Scotland. You're at a high school in Florida. And the idea you're thinking, huh, maybe I'll look at St. Andrews. Let's touch that a little bit. For US based students, you might look at Canada, UK, Australia, wherever, and say, "I'm really going to break the norm in my high school. I'm going to be the international student."
Robin Appleby:
Okay. So then the key thing there for those kids is understanding the application process because it is so different than what they're used to here. So for instance, if you're going to apply to go to schools in the UK, you can only apply to five. There's a central system and you can only choose five. So there's not that American thing of, oh, I'll just keep throwing darts to the dartboard and apply to 20 to see what happens. You've got to pick five and that is it. And so you need to do research about those programs and figure out ... That's why the ranking of a program, of course of study is so important there because you've got to pick based on the program, not just on the overall reputation of university or a place you'd like to be. Because maybe the place you'd like to be, maybe you want to be in Edinburgh, but they don't have a program in what you really want to study. And so you need to be able to do that.
And then you also need to realize that the kind of essay that you write for applications there is much more focused on what you have done so far in your academic work and a little bit your co-curricular, but mostly your academic work to prepare you to go right into that course of study. So it is not holistic. It's a very different kind of essay and a very different approach. And if you actually have been super broad ... You're one of those students who's done a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and you've done it all well, it could actually be very challenging to write that essay because you may not have enough in your summer life, the things you've done outside of school, the things you've done in school to actually demonstrate that you're ready for that advanced course of study in one area.
Lee Coffin:
That's really interesting. But for some of you who are looking at the US admission landscape, you maybe you just had a little aha moment. You're like, "Maybe I'm going to McGill and I'm going to look at Canada as an option that hadn't been on my list before." And here's a shocking thing to say. Americans, you could be international students too.
Robin Appleby:
Yes. Look, my bookworm self, I could have written that essay to go study English in another country because that's what I was doing. That's who I was. And if you are that kid in whatever field, hey, it's a great way to get an education.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. So Robin, thank you for joining me on Admissions Beat to ponder this international admission space as we're having a conversation that is complicated, but it's exciting. I love the international component of my work. I've always been dazzled by the files that come in, whether it was at Dartmouth or Tufts or Connecticut College. Everywhere I've worked, the international voice in the university process has been an important one. And it's a global community. And these are a global curricula and inviting peers from around the world to have a shared academic and residential experience in the United States feels important. People, especially now in the 21st century, to the international students out there and their parents from this long time admission officer, we love having you in our pools, and I hope this conversation has given you some things to think about and also know that there are Robin Appleby's in most admissions offices. Maybe not head former heads of school, but certainly people with international portfolios who are working on recruitment and selection and happy to be of assistance as you reach out and ask your questions. So Robin, welcome to college admissions, and thank you for joining us today.
Robin Appleby:
Thank you very much, Lee. It's been great.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. For now, this is Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. I will see you next week.