The thought of pursuing a college or university education in the United States can be particularly daunting to students living in other countries. This week on Admissions Beat, host Lee Coffin interviews three current undergraduates who traveled from Brazil, Sri Lanka, and the United Kingdom to attend Dartmouth. They provide tips on how international students can search for, apply to, and, ultimately, thrive on an American campus. They also describe challenges they’ve overcome, as well as opportunities they’ve seized. Whether prospective applicants are from the U.S. or abroad, Dean Coffin encourages them to point a virtual camera at themselves and snap an “existential selfie.” It’s an exercise, introduced in the second episode of the current season of Admissions Beat, that can reveal values and priorities, as well as guiding questions.
The thought of pursuing a college or university education in the United States can be particularly daunting to students living in other countries. This week on Admissions Beat, host Lee Coffin interviews three current undergraduates who traveled from Brazil, Sri Lanka, and the United Kingdom to attend Dartmouth. They provide tips on how international students can search for, apply to, and, ultimately, thrive on an American campus. They also describe challenges they’ve overcome, as well as opportunities they’ve seized. Whether prospective applicants are from the U.S. or abroad, Dean Coffin encourages them to point a virtual camera at themselves and snap an “existential selfie.” It’s an exercise, introduced in the second episode of the current season of Admissions Beat, that can reveal values and priorities, as well as guiding questions.
Lee Coffin:
From Hanover, New Hampshire, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid. Welcome to the Admissions Beat.
A couple weeks ago we had an episode called Take an Existential Selfie, and I invited four undergraduates from Dartmouth to join us in a retrospective on where they were as 11th graders and how that experience might translate to the 11th graders of 2023 as college searches begin. I'm going to take that same idea and take a slightly different spin on it and make this an international selfie. Today we've got three undergrads from Dartmouth, all international students who made their way from Brazil, Sri Lanka, and the United Kingdom to an American college. The idea is to share with all of you around the world who might be thinking, maybe I should explore an undergraduate experience in the United States or more broadly outside of my home country. How do I do it? How did they do it? How did they go from high achieving high school students in their respective countries to a campus in the United States?
What were the opportunities? What are the challenges? What tips do they have for us? I'm reminded as we launch this episode of an email I received last year from a student in India who said, "I just wanted to thank you for the podcast because in my school we don't have a college counselor and my family doesn't have a way of helping me imagine going to college at all, never mind in the United States. The podcast was my primer on how to get from here to there. The episodes really gave me a lot of important insights into how this works." And so, I hope the conversation we're about to have today follows that opportunity that our friend in India had through the pod a couple years ago.
When we come back, we'll meet our three students and we will have a conversation about taking your passport and heading off to college somewhere exciting. We'll be right back.
(music)
Okay. Today we have three guests, and I'll introduce them alphabetically. I'll ask them to introduce themselves and share some thoughts about their background, their interests, what they're studying, and then we'll go from there. So Yehalah Fernando is a member of Dartmouth class at 2026 from Sri Lanka. Hello Yehalah, how are you today?
Yehalah Fernando:
Hi, I'm good, how are you?
Lee Coffin:
I'm good. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Yehalah Fernando:
As you know, I'm from Sri Lanka, which is approximately more than 8,000 miles away from here.
Lee Coffin:
8,000 miles away. Okay, so short flight.
Yehalah Fernando:
I'm a freshman at Dartmouth and I'm thinking about being an engineering major, but I've actually, after coming to Dartmouth, I'm considering getting a studio art minor. Which is interesting.
Lee Coffin:
That is interesting. Where did you go to high school in Sri Lanka?
Yehalah Fernando:
I went to a school called Asian International School. The curriculum was in English, but I didn't really have much of a guidance counselor as well, so I pretty much had to figure out the admissions process by myself.
Lee Coffin:
In your school was it typical for someone to come to the United States for college or were you someone charting a very different course for yourself?
Yehalah Fernando:
No, it's not typical at all because I think navigating the admissions process for the U.S. is quite difficult. There are many different aspects to it, especially applying for financial aid. Many students just don't have the resources or it's too difficult for them to do it on their own. Most people just deviate to other countries like Australia, Canada, Malaysia whose admissions process is slightly different. It doesn't require as many materials. I was definitely one of the very few people who went to study in the US.
Lee Coffin:
Okay, great. We're going to come back to all of that. That's a wonderful introduction. Luke Grayson is a member of the class of '25 from the United Kingdom. So, hi Luke.
Luke Grayson:
Hi, Lee. How you doing?
Lee Coffin:
I'm okay tonight. How are you?
Luke Grayson:
I'm doing brilliant, thank you.
Lee Coffin:
So Luke, I know you come from a small town in I think Northern England if I'm remembering that.
Luke Grayson:
Yes.
Lee Coffin:
Yes. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you ended up in the United States.
Luke Grayson:
Yeah, totally. I am a '25 a Dartmouth, a sophomore right now. I took a little bit of an unusual path I would say to United States. I'm pretty sure I'm one of the minority that's ever come to the U.S. from my part of the UK. Generally people are concentrated from the south, and so I actually took the help of a community-based organization called the Sutton Trust who gave me loads of really useful admissions advice and advice on just how to navigate the process because I came from a public school in the UK. It was a state-funded school that didn't have that kind of support. And so, I really had to figure a lot of that stuff out for myself.
Lee Coffin:
What are you studying here in the US?
Luke Grayson:
I'm currently about to declare an economics major.
Lee Coffin:
Was that your plan when you applied?
Luke Grayson:
Not remotely. I feel like this is the way Dartmouth works. I came here and I was like, "I'm going to do engineering and beauty of the liberal arts." I kind of took classes all over the place and I was like, "Oh yeah, economics is kind of cool."
Lee Coffin:
Okay, so we're going to come back to that too because I like the idea of exploring, and for many international listeners that is not the norm as you head off to university or uni if you're in the UK. Thanks Luke.
Then our third guest has the longest name of the three, so I saved him for last. Antonio Jorge Madeiros Batista Silva. There you go. From Brazil. I studied Spanish and Italian so, I took a little leap into the Portuguese pronunciation. Hi, Antonio.
Antonio Jorge Madeiros Batista Silva:
Hello. Hello. How you, Lee?
Lee Coffin:
So you are from Brazil.
Antonio Jorge Madeiros Batista Silva:
Yes, but I also took an unusual path as I believe everyone did. I went to high school Canada. I attended United World College, so I was involved in school. I had a support system that was greater than the average Brazilian applicant would have had I believe.
Lee Coffin:
What are you studying?
Antonio Jorge Madeiros Batista Silva:
I have just declared my major yesterday. I'm proud to say that I'm a linguistics major modified Native American and Indigenous Studies
Lee Coffin:
Wow, really interesting. Was linguistics on your mind when you were an applicant? Yes, so you stayed pretty consistent to what you thought.
Antonio Jorge Madeiros Batista Silva:
Exactly.
Lee Coffin:
Okay. So three really different parts of the world representing international education to our listeners. We touched this a little bit in your introductions, but let's go backwards to 11th grade or whatever the equivalent year, second to last year of high school would be for each of you. Let's talk a little bit about the way you started to ponder leaving your home countries to go to college. That, Yehalah mentioned, wasn't the norm in her school. It doesn't sound like it was the norm for Luke. Maybe a bit more typical for a United World College student since you're pulled from all around the world into that boarding program. But you each had to make a decision at some point at the beginning of your search, so our audience of 11th graders were just beginning the path towards the college class of 2028, what advice do you have for them and their parents as they start thinking about should I even consider this?
Luke Grayson:
I think for me it really came after starting the search in my own country. I feel like this is a path that I presume quite a few people have is… I came from a school where going to university, I wouldn't say it was necessarily the norm in general, but it was something a few people did. I looked in the UK and the UK has some amazing options, especially if that's your thing. But I really wasn't excited about the idea of picking one subject and sticking with it, which was really the crux for me. I was like okay, I'm going to pick engineering but if I decided I'll like it in a year, what do I do?
Honestly, it was going through the organization I went through, the Sutton Trust, where they showed me the U.S. system and showed me the beauty of the liberal arts where I can choose to do different subjects at the same time. That's really what started to get me hooked on the idea of U.S. university. It went a little further beyond that when I started getting into looking at US culture, and different colleges, and the variety of personalities. I could go on for a while about it, but in general it was this idea of choice. I felt like suddenly I had so much choice of what my experience would be that I wouldn't have to dedicate myself to a fixed experience beforehand.
Lee Coffin:
What's interesting is you talk about the idea of choice and your worry then that you might not like or feel committed to engineering. That's exactly what happened. You started it and then you started to drift towards another discipline.
Luke Grayson:
I say this all the time, people are like, "Oh why did you switch?" And I'm like, "I'm going to be honest with you, I think about this all the time. If I went to the university I was originally going to, I would've got a year in and went, oh this isn't for me, and I would've had to restart." So it's really been a huge benefit for me.
Lee Coffin:
Does that ring true for the two of you as well?
Antonio Jorge Madeiros Batista Silva:
Yeah, definitely. I saw my older siblings. My sister went into uni for economics and halfway through her second year she gave up and was like, "I want to be an artist," and she went on to be a studio arts major, which involved her getting out of college, canceling everything she's already done and reapplying, going through the entrance exam once again. I don't think there's a point in me limiting my options again. I think that's what it's all about, about having a wide array of things that you can do and that you might like or not.
Lee Coffin:
I think it's also a comfort level with the subject not necessarily connecting directly to your career. I majored in history and I remember my father very skeptically quizzing me. I was the first in my family to go to college and dad saw college as the way to get a great job and make a lot of money, and history seemed like a puzzle to him. I had to say it, I'm in a liberal arts environment. This subject has really smitten me in ways that I hadn't expected when I was applying. I joked with him all the years later, I turned out just fine.
Studying history and having that framework as my educational foundation was really important. But I certainly didn't know that when I was in high school. I think the exploration piece was what opened my eyes to my intellectual curiosity in ways that coming out of the high school I attended, I just didn't have the frame of reference for that. It is different when you consider a U.S .college. Yehalah, you mentioned in your intro that a lot of your classmates might look at Malaysia or UK. Did you just look at the US? Did you look at the UK, and Australia? What was your initial list look like?
Yehalah Fernando:
I actually applied to so many countries in the process, and I think it was more like I have two older sisters and I watched them apply to universities, not get enough financial aid, weren't able to go and they had to stay at home. I was like, "I'm the third one. I might as well try a little bit harder." I applied to so many in the U.S. and in other countries, and I think that when you decide to leave your home country and leave your family and everything that's familiar to you, it might as well be for something that you think is going to be good for you. I still am on the engineering track but I think that back home I would never consider that I would be able to take classes like studio art. I took drawing last time and I'm taking painting right now, and that's just not possible back home. It's just so interesting because it's not even like I'm deviating from my path. It's more like I'm adding to it because I do see how it would help me.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Yehalah Fernando:
I think that that was my idea when I was coming to the U.S. is that nowhere else would I be able to just add things to my major like that and just explore. Drawing an art me was basically just a childhood hobby. I didn't ever think I would actually take a class in it. It's been so great so far, which makes me think that I did make the right decision.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, well I mean this next sentence will make people kind of go, "Oh boy." You want to be happy. You want to get a degree. I'm not being flip when I say that, but your happiness is this really fundamental part of going to college and you will earn a degree at the end of it, but you should also enjoy it as you move through what you're studying, who you're meeting, what you're experiencing. I want to come back to something you just said, Yehalah, about if you're going to leave your country, you want to do something big or something that makes you happy. Let's talk a little bit about how scary that is too, because I would imagine when you're in high school and you're thinking about university, the idea of going 8,000 miles away as an 18-year-old, that's a leap of faith in yourself. Took some courage.
I remember the first time I went to China and I flew from Boston to Hong Kong, and then to Beijing and I thought every student we enroll from China or places similarly distanced do this over and over and over again. And it was far. Let's talk about that emotional piece. What about preparing yourself to leave home? And we all do that when we go to a residential college, but in all of your cases you went really far away to a place that's geographically really different from where you were raised. Talk to me about the jitters you might have had about going so far away or coming to the US.
Yehalah Fernando:
To be frank, it was terrifying.
Lee Coffin:
Terrifying.
Yehalah Fernando:
Yes. But not initially, because I think when I was preparing to leave home, I didn't actually register that I was leaving home and I was just mostly excited. Then I got to the airport and as soon as I passed through immigration, I just completely broke down and started crying in front of all these people because I had just waved goodbye to my parents and I was like, oh my god, I'm leaving home. I'm the first one to leave my house even though I'm the third child. I think that's a very interesting perspective because it's so unusual to have older siblings who are still living with your parents, but you aren't. I also had to take three flights to get here. I was traveling for about 26 hours alone for the first time. All these massive airports. Honestly, I would say that the Sri Lankan airport is probably the size of a Walmart here.
It's so different and it was extremely tiring. When I got here, everything was so different. I feel like you don't really notice the tiny things. I saw everybody driving on the opposite side of the road and the steering wheel was on the wrong side and I was like, "Oh my god, what is this place that I'm in?" But yeah, it was definitely a journey that took a lot of... It was very emotionally tiring and physically tiring. It was definitely worth it in the end. I now have an ingrained I want to avoid airports for as long as possible before I go back.
Lee Coffin:
Did it make you more independent? That journey, both imagining your ability to do it, exploring these college options-
Yehalah Fernando:
Definitely.
Lee Coffin:
Then all of a sudden here I go, I have wings and I'm on my way.
Yehalah Fernando:
It definitely made me more independent and now I'm much more confident about traveling alone, which I wasn't before.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Antonio and Luke, how did you think through the question of leaving home? Antonio, you did it for high school, so you were two years ahead of this. You made the decision to leave your family in Brazil and go to Canada. Was going to college in the US kind of an easier step because you'd already had this conversation with yourself?
Antonio Jorge Madeiros Batista Silva:
I would say so. I was decided that I was now going to college in Brazil. I wanted to extend my time abroad, if that makes sense. I also enjoyed what many people think is scary, but the butterflies in your stomach when you don't actually know where you're going. I didn't take any virtual campus tours. I didn't actually know what it looked like. I think there is beauty into the process. I think it's fun.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, no but it's also courageous, especially when you're landing in a place where you've never seen it. What was that like? You pull up in Hanover, New Hampshire and what was your thought? What was your first thought?
Antonio Jorge Madeiros Batista Silva:
I felt very welcome from the first moment I stepped outside the coach. I had my international orientation peeps, my folks there waiting for me. They took me to my dorm, they showed me around. I never felt the fear of being alone or being left in the middle of nowhere. I never got that sense, at least here.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well and I would say among our peer group or universities and colleges in the U.S. in general, that international orientation is the welcome moment. That is the beginning of the undergraduate experience, so we catch you as you arrive and we say, "Okay, we're going to bring you in and set you on your way." Luke, you seem like you're a confident guy. Did you have jitters leaving England?
Luke Grayson:
I'm going to be, honestly, when I was leaving England, that wasn't the point of jitters for me. I felt like I'd really put a lot in to do it and I was excited to leave to the degree where I felt like I'd outgrown the environment I was in. When I got to Dartmouth, it didn't hit. I feel like the courage it took to leave is embodied more in a daily way for me in the sense that I'm not only traveling 3,000 miles to come to the United States, but I'm the first person in my family to attend college.
I come from a lower income background, and so for me the fear is more of a one that is associated with doing it, is more of one of I've got to make this work. It's kind of similar to what was said earlier actually, this idea of if I'm coming to the U.S. I've got to do something big. For me, the making the move was the easy part. It was getting here and realizing, wow, I'm here. There are so many opportunities but I also have to make sure like you said, that I'm doing stuff that makes me happy while I'm here.
Lee Coffin:
You're all touching this one, and it's an interesting point for your peers who are two or three years behind you. They're still in high school, they're thinking about this. What I think you're saying to them is you can take this leap, you have freedom to be more of an explorer intellectually, you will grow. But I also hear each of you saying there's some pressure you're putting on yourself to get it right.
Luke Grayson:
It's definitely not a "no strings attached" decision because all of us have a reason for traveling that far to do college. I think whatever the reason is, because it doesn't have to be the same reason, you don't have to travel and go, "I'm going to go over there and try and do it to get a crazy good job." Whatever reason, I feel like there are strings attached in the sense that I've worked so hard to get here, I want to keep that up.
Lee Coffin:
Let's talk about the difference between an entrance exam, which a couple of you mentioned as the norm in your country versus a holistic application like the Common app which invites you to tell your story in lots of different components, perhaps more qualitatively than just statistically. What was your experience switching from an exam-based national expectation to here's this document that you get to fill out in your own words, and someone's going to read and evaluate along with your transcript to make a decision about you as a candidate? How different did that feel as you were starting to understand, oh this American system is not a straight line from study, test, result? It's those things because that's your transcript, but then here's all the I have to write, and I have to talk and I have to present myself through these other pieces that come together to create me as an applicant.
Luke Grayson:
It's very liberal artsy, isn't it? When you think about it.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, it is very liberal artsy. Yeah.
Luke Grayson:
I can briefly speak on that. I did the A level system, which for anybody who isn't in the know is the UK standardized testing that everybody does, if you choose to do A levels at age 18. Honestly it was a bit of cultural shock for me because in the UK you're not really used to talking about yourself. You're not used to trying to make yourself sound good on paper. We're very geared to "I'll hand you this piece of paper and you will see from these grids how I am." It was actually such an introspective experience, suddenly being handed a piece of paper and being asked a question, "Why Dartmouth?" Oh, I got to do this. But yeah, it was challenging for that and there were also other aspects like the ACT, which I'm sure the other guys can talk about a little bit more, but the ACT as well is another kind of foreign thing for me.
Lee Coffin:
Taking a standardized test?
Luke Grayson:
Yeah, especially in that format with the multiple choice.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Tell me, just go one step further, why? Just not the way you take tests in England?
Luke Grayson:
No, so we do. You, for AIR levels, pick three subjects and you do only those subjects for two years. So again, you've already kind of restricted yourself at age 16. Those exams consist similarly of similar to what you might see on a midterm here at college. But to explain, that would be a mix of long answer questions, short answer questions. There might be a couple of multiple choice, but I did math, so for mine it would be something like here is an equation and a question associated with that. Answer the question and you're just given a page to write it. For me, the ACT was very different, especially since it was testing me on things I hadn't studied for three to four years, like English.
Lee Coffin:
Antonio and Yehalah, did you have a similar, it sounds like a little culture shock, meeting the application?
Antonio Jorge Madeiros Batista Silva:
I chose not to take any standardized tests. I took the Duo Lingo test because I had to as a second language English speaker. I think I had this negative connotation of getting an entrance exam into college of having a score speak for me rather than my essays or rather than my transcript or in my extracurriculars. That was one of the reasons why I chose to come here to Dartmouth specifically was one of the first schools in the U.S. to become test optional during the pandemic, which is when I applied. So all these things added up for me and I looked at all my options. I was like what's the most holistic? What's the most humane?
Lee Coffin:
Yehalah, what was your... You're the closest to being an applicant because you're your first year. So this just was just a year or two ago that you were the people we're trying to talk to right now.
Yehalah Fernando:
Interesting story, actually. I applied to Dartmouth twice. I applied once in my senior year of high school, and then I got wait listed and I didn't get in. Then the next year I was about to go into a local college, and I had some time so I applied again early decision, and I got in. That's how I'm here.
Lee Coffin:
So you're persistent?
Yehalah Fernando:
Yeah, I think it does take a lot of persistence but I actually followed a similar system to Luke because we followed the British system as well, so I did A levels. It was pretty much a few subjects, one exam which is worth 100% of your grade. It's not broken down throughout the year. You study the whole two years and then you take an exam at the end. I think that I was so used to that, that that was the norm for me. I didn't even think about breaking it down to assignments like we do it here.
I was so used to just that one exam being worth 100%. I actually did go test optional as well when I was applying to the United States, and that actually was the only reason I could apply because my family couldn't afford the SAT fee to pay for the exam. The only reason I could apply to the US is because the test optional came for the pandemic and I decided to go with that and trust that my essays were good enough to get me in. It was definitely a different experience writing essays about myself. I feel like I have this feeling that I don't want to talk about myself on paper that I was almost physically cringing while I was writing my essay. I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm selling myself so much to these people. I hope they can't tell."
Lee Coffin:
No, but it's a skillset because someday when you apply for a job, you're doing the same thing in a cover letter, your resume where you're presenting your background in saying, "Hire me."
Yehalah Fernando:
Yeah, I definitely think it helped me with that. It helped me be more prepared for interviews, talking about myself, just writing all those essays where you basically have to show how you are as a person, which is so difficult on paper. It was definitely an experience.
Lee Coffin:
All of you're saying that testing was a challenge, for different reasons though. In Antonio's case he's saying, "I reject the idea of a number being kind of a marker of who I am." Luke is pointing towards an exam that's a very different construct. And I think Yehalah just said the same thing, if you're writing essays once a year as your form of assessment and here's a bubble test that you're timed to complete, I can see how that would be a challenge, an adjustment. What else was challenging? For students who are nine months away from applying, so students would apply next November or January, when you think about the task of putting together the application, what other things would you highlight for international students to put this on your radar now as opposed to waiting till a week before the deadline?
Yehalah Fernando:
I think that recommendations are so important, and I think it's the best to get ahead of that in time. Decide who exactly you want to ask for your recommendation because I had a hard time by deciding which teacher I wanted to ask. It's also like you are asking them to do something, you want to give them some time to craft a good recommendation letter. I think that that's advice that I would give, just get ahead on those things.
Lee Coffin:
Same, Antonio?
Antonio Jorge Madeiros Batista Silva:
Yeah, I was going to say that recommendation letters are so specific. Sometimes you have a certain type of application that my teachers in Brazil wouldn't have known how to do that.
Lee Coffin:
Would not have known how to do that?
Antonio Jorge Madeiros Batista Silva:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Antonio Jorge Madeiros Batista Silva:
I was lucky that I had English-speaking teachers that I didn't have to worry about translating.
Lee Coffin:
Well, and that's a really interesting point too because the student is the applicant and your ability to write and express yourself in English in this context, and that's the language of instruction in the U.S. is what we're focused on. The support system around you also has English as a second language, if they do.
Antonio Jorge Madeiros Batista Silva:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
To admission officers out there who are listening to this, I think that's an "aha" for us as we're reading applications from students from non-English speaking countries and maybe my peers say, "Yeah, of course." I think it's a good reminder that as we all become more global in our representation of who's on campus, there are lots of different threads to this topic that we just need to keep coming back to. How about TESOL or Duo Lingo? Antonio, we asked you to take it as somebody... I'm guessing Portuguese is your first language. So tell us about that. Duo Lingo has a video component to it, so you're on-screen and you're having a conversation. Share with us your experience with the English as a second language exam.
Antonio Jorge Madeiros Batista Silva:
Once I was in Canada's international boarding school and everyone was taking Duo Lingo tests at the same time, I think there are many ways of measuring someone's English proficiency. Those standardized tests might not be the only ones that the admissions offices are looking at. They're also looking your interviews, or your essays, or transcripts. I wasn't specifically worried about it.
Lee Coffin:
You're right, I mean for those of us who have an interview component, that's another opportunity to sit down with someone and represent yourself in person in real time and make an impact. The parallel is you're in a classroom and professor walks in and what's that engagement with each of you? The bottom line, all of the things we ask you to submit, whether you're a US citizen or you're a citizen of another country, how do we confirm your ability to thrive on the campus we are inviting you to join? It's a version of the happy point I made earlier, but it's more fundamental to your ability to be in a classroom and participate, and learn, and grow, and share. What did your parents say when you said, "Well, I think I'm going to go to the United States."
Luke Grayson:
I think mine immediately went into shock. This is one thing actually as an international applicant, one of the biggest struggles is the people who would normally form your core support circle when you're applying to university suddenly don't know the system that you're applying to. This is a huge thing, I think actually. If I was applying at university in the UK, it's something you hear about all the time. My mom could be like, "Oh yeah, I recognize those things." But applying to the U.S. I was like, "Oh, I want to go to the United States." The first thing actually was the financial side. She was like, "Luke, I'm going to be honest, I don't think we can afford to do that."
I'd just been in a session actually where I'd been hearing about the financial aid and that kind of thing. And so for me, it was a process. This is something I think goes on the list of things to start early. For me, it was a process of really prepping my parents and walking them through it gently, and really getting them used to it because if it's something that you drop on them as you're about to press submit on the Common app, you can imagine they're not going to be too happy and it's something you're asking them to commit to as well. You as their child are going to go to another country and you're kind of relying on their help.
You've got to be open and bring them on the journey with you. That was a big thing for me, is I would sit down and make it an activity, like a bonding activity. Me and my mom would sit down a night and I'd be looking at colleges and I'd be like, "These are the places I think are cool." I'd be circling them and looking at on the websites. I think that really helped.
Lee Coffin:
Just to follow up on what you just said, you discovered places that... You didn't have a resource in your school that said, "Here are all the catalogs that Luke should be exploring as a potential engineer or econ major in the US." So how did you know where to look?
Luke Grayson:
Like I said, I was extremely, I would say not lucky, but I was extremely privileged to be offered a place on the Sutton Trust program. They helped a lot because they've been doing this for 11 years now. They really know the different range of schools in the US so they can give me a pointer. Then beyond that, honestly it was looking at things and I don't mean to name-drop, but I do love it, things like the admissions blog. Those are core points of research for me where I would look at a school, I'd see a school's name and I'd see they do the subject I want to do, and I'd be like, "Oh that's cool." I'd Google them and I'd see that admissions blog, and that for me was a window into that campus, which is something that we're not necessarily able to get as international students before actually flying and committing to go there.
Lee Coffin:
No, that's really helpful. Yehalah, how did you broach this topic with your parents? Your sisters are still home, and you said... Are you the youngest of three, or are there more kids after you?
Yehalah Fernando:
No, I have one younger sister.
Lee Coffin:
Okay. So one of the youngest in the family is going to, "I'm hopping on a plane," or "I hope to hop on a plane and fly eight hours away." What did they say to you when you first broached this topic with them?
Yehalah Fernando:
They helped in every way that they could, but I think that there's very little that you can expect an older generation to know about application processes especially that are online. It's more something that I had to navigate myself. When I told them, they were very supportive of me trying it out. I think it's more seen as an unrealistic expectation, especially because acceptance rates are so low, so many people try and just don't get accepted. It was the financial side as well because my parents were like, "If it's not 100% scholarship, there is no way we're going. Even if it's 99%, that 1% is so much."
It may not be that much in dollars, but in our home currency it's an extreme amount. I think that was their main concern. They were very supportive of me doing the application and completing it, but it was very much, "We're not sure. Please keep in mind that we're not sure if we can even send you." It kind of takes a leap of faith that you would get a big enough scholarship to actually go to the college. But they were definitely supportive of my process and they were there for me as much as they could be, which is I think as much as I expected as well because I don't expect them to know anything about this process, which is so far in.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Luke had Sutton Trust, and Antonio had United World College. How did you do it, Yehalah? It sounds like you were more on your own exploring.
Yehalah Fernando:
Mostly Google was my best friend.
Lee Coffin:
Google.
Yehalah Fernando:
I Googled everything that I possibly could. Even like Luke mentioned, the admissions blog was really a window to the soul of the college. That's the way I learned about the culture, the community, everything that I needed to reassure me that I was applying to the right places, I got from that. Pretty much everything else, I Googled. The application process, I Googled it, the CSS profile. If I had questions, I Googled everything and then I would explain it to my parents, "This is what I need from you. This is how you can help me." It was pretty much just me and my laptop getting through this.
Lee Coffin:
No, you and your laptop were a successful partnership. To people who might not have the same dexterity on their keyboards that you did, or the luck perhaps, do you remember a site or two that you're like, "This is a real," besides a blog, "This was a really important place to get information." Do you remember a couple?
Yehalah Fernando:
Not that I can recall that was so important to me. I mostly genuinely just Googled a list of the best U.S. colleges and then I went on their websites. It was a lot of research. I would say that it took me many, many months to actually find those that I liked. I went to each college's website, went through them, checked what programs they had, if it resonated with I what I wanted. That's kind of the process that got me through it and how I eliminated colleges. So it's like, "Oh okay, this college, I definitely can't apply to it, so let me just take this off my list." That's how I narrowed down my list of colleges. It was a lot of extensive research.
Lee Coffin:
Well you're giving good advice because it's early enough in the search. We're at the beginning of this cycle for this next class where I think what you're saying is, start now.
Yehalah Fernando:
Definitely. Definitely, because I regretted not starting earlier because I was so stressed, just like frantically going through the websites, trying to find colleges. If I had started a few months before, I would've definitely had a more thorough understanding of where I was applying.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Start early, Antonio?
Antonio Jorge Madeiros Batista Silva:
Yeah, definitely.
Lee Coffin:
Luke?
Luke Grayson:
Start as early as possible.
Lee Coffin:
Okay, so then unanimity on start now. I think as you're taking this kind of selfie, "Where do I want? Where do I see myself?" Then you're going to turn the camera around and say, "And where am I looking? What place feels like the right one for me?" in whatever way you define that me. I want to talk to you too about, so you come to college and in your case you're all at Dartmouth. What are the geopolitics? You land, and you all smiled as I asked that, so you land in the United States from the UK, from Sri Lanka, from Brazil, and you meet people from all around the world, but a lot of Americans as well are your classmates. What's that like to be an international student in an American student body?
Luke Grayson:
It's interesting because the process of integrating was gradual. I integrated in the international community before the greater community, which is massive thanks to the induction that we got as internationals. That first piece was extremely interesting because I felt like I suddenly had these friends from all over the world. We're all connected by this one Dartmouth piece. And then the American students got here, and for me, I genuinely loved meeting the American students because that was one of the reasons that I came to the U.S. was obviously to be around American people in an American culture, but the culture shock was so huge.
I mean, coming from the UK where the language is the same language, you kind of have this expectation of, "Oh, it's America. The UK, they must be similar." I suddenly discovered the only real similarity was the language. I do completely different mannerisms. Honestly for me recently what I've been realizing is I think part of me is I just want to make sure I find this balance where I'm integrated, but I want to retain some Britishness. That's a good thing. It's like where's this balance? Because I go home and my mother's like, "Oh yeah, you sound American when you talk to me." I'm like, "What?" I'm like, "I promise. I promise, I'm trying."
Lee Coffin:
What have you said that makes her think you sound American? Because you sound pretty British to me as I'm listening to you.
Luke Grayson:|
This is what I'm saying. But apparently this is... I mean I will admit, so I was on the phone with her the other week actually, and I was in the 53 Commons main cafeteria. We were on campus. There were people walking past, I was talking to my mother. My friend walks past and I said, "Hi." My mom was like, "Why did you just change accents?"
Lee Coffin:
No, that's so interesting.
Luke Grayson:
Yeah, I think it's just a... Right now, I probably sound British to you guys, but I think the difference in accent when I go back home must be crazy. I didn't even notice.
Lee Coffin:
Have either of you had a similar experience? Now you don't have British accents, but what's it been like to be an international student living in the US?
Yehalah Fernando:
To me, I sound completely Sri Lankan, but after the first month that I was here and I called my family and they're like, "Oh my God, you sound American. Please don't come home like that. Why are you talking like that?" I probably was like, "It's not on purpose." I notice that it happens after I spend a long period of time with my friends, and I call my mom in the night I sound American. Then when I wake up in the morning, it's gone. Which is really funny. Other than that, that was definitely a huge culture shock for me as well when I came here.
I was actually here one month before everybody else, because I was a part of a group for first generation low income students. It's a different orientation. There, I did meet a lot of American kids as well, plus international kids because it's not just for international students. I loved it. It was one of the best experiences I had, and I think it helped me so much to integrate myself into a small group of people first before everybody else came on campus.
I found that no matter what culture we were from, we had very similar childhood experiences. I had so much fun learning about American culture and what goes on here, the different things, because I feel like the movies don't really give you much. It gives you the place, it gives you the environment, but it doesn't give you much. It was so fun for me to just learn about all these new people.
Lee Coffin:
I'm smiling as you say the movies don't give you much. When I was in college, I did a junior program in Rome and it was my first time leaving the U.S. and living in Italy in that case. I remember having moments throughout that semester where I realized I'm changing. My mother said the same thing your mom's spoke and said, "You know, you're not the same person you were." And I said, "Well, I shouldn't be the same person I was because I went on this journey and I grew." So that was cool, but I caught myself looking at the US from outside the US and seeing it through a European lens for the first time, which was really interesting to get outside the bubble. I mean it's a big bubble, but the bubble of the United States, and start to just see another point of view on topics that were more multinational.
Antonio, you've been in Brazil and Canada, and now the US. Maybe the journey from Canada to America was a little less-
Antonio Jorge Madeiros Batista Silva:
I don't know. I think it's like Luke said, I really like how he put it, where you got to find that balance between integrating into campus culture, which is broadly American culture, and not feeling uprooted. It's not like you lost your home because you're here now. Rather, you've found another one. In this home, you might gravitate towards people who have similar interests or similar background as you. Most of my friends are from the Dartmouth Brazilian Society. We're about 30 undergrad students here. The same time as I manage to feel part of campus culture, I still have those spaces where I feel at home.
Lee Coffin:
No, that's a good point for students still thinking about, is this something I want? You do have connection points on the campuses you join. There are peers who come together and say, "We're a little fraternity within this bigger place." Do you ever feel exotic? I mean, I don't know if that question makes sense, but do your peers interact with you, where they're like, "Wow, you're from Brazil. You're from Sri Lanka. Where is Sri Lanka?" How do you navigate that curiosity maybe?
Yehalah Fernando:
No, I've definitely gotten that question quite a few times where people are like, "Wait, where is that?" And then everyone just thinks it's in India and I just have to keep explaining that, no, it's actually very much detached.
It's mostly curiosity. I understand why people don't know a place that's so far away and that's also so small. I've definitely gotten many questions about where I'm from and the culture, and I actually I answering them. It's fun to just tell people about it because I think for me it's more like I don't really have people from home here, because if I'm not wrong, I think I'm the only Sri Lankan in my entire year. It's just me. I think that it's important for me to just represent my culture and tell people about it so more people know about it. That's fun for me.
Lee Coffin:
My last question is a piece of advice. If you could go back to your own moment in 11th grade, you're just starting to think about this, what would you tell yourself about where you were headed? Not a do-over so much, but looking back, what do you wish you knew that you know now that a listener might say, "That's a really helpful thing for me to be thinking about."
Luke Grayson:
I think I would tell my younger self to be confident and unfazed of the future, because I didn't realize when I was coming to Dartmouth was how much... This is a specific thing to me, but I feel like it's echoed amongst other people's experiences. I didn't realize how important my identity was going to be when I got to Dartmouth. Specifically being from the North of England and not from the South where most people on campus are from. I'm pretty unique in that sense. I think there's only one other Northern Englander in general at Dartmouth.
So for me, being confident, regardless of the fact that I can't see as many other people around like me, and that I might be lumped in with another group of people because we're from the same country, being confident in expressing my own identity and not feeling like I have to be the same as other people. I am myself. I'm comfortable in that and I want other people to see me for that.
Lee Coffin:
And you still have your cup of tea?
Luke Grayson:
Still have my cup of tea. That is one common. That is one common thing.
Lee Coffin:
All right, Yehalah, so you did it twice. What would you tell yourself?
Yehalah Fernando:
I would definitely tell myself to keep being persistent and determined to get somewhere. I think just resonating with what Luke said, don't be afraid to hold onto your culture and be proud of it because I think coming here, I was so afraid that nobody would understand. I would be so different. After coming here, I've learned that I wish I could tell myself that that's okay. You don't have to just blend in with everybody else and become like them.
It's okay to hold onto your culture and be different. It's actually really beautiful when people do that. It's something that I've seen here. I genuinely feel like being at Dartmouth and having the friends that I have that are so, so many international people, so many people from different cultures, they've actually taught me to be prouder of where I'm from. I think that that's something I would tell myself.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, I love that because when I represent the college to applicants and parents, I talk about the heterogeneity of the community, that we're trying to pull together students from lots of different backgrounds. That opportunity gets lost if you all blend in. Being hopefully not the only Sri Lankan at the college for much longer, but as the ambassador of Sri Lanka in our undergraduate community right now, that's an opportunity. The collective heterogeneity I think is really exciting.
I think to the applicants of the future, celebrating that... A couple of you earlier said it was hard to talk about yourself and introduce your persona. This is an example of bringing that forward. I poked at Luke about his cup of tea because he mentioned that on his blog intro that, "Come on over and I'll pour you a cup of tea," and I think that's a really charming nod to something that's really English that you want to preserve. So Antonio, you get to be the closer. What advice would you give yourself if you could do it again?
Antonio Jorge Madeiros Batista Silva:
I'm here also being on my own and I'm meeting people that are so different from what I expected them to be and from what I am. I think allow yourself to both be grounded on your identity, but at the same time experiment and get other peoples.
Lee Coffin:
Thank you Antonio, Yehalah, and Luke for joining me on Admissions Beat, and bringing this really poignant perspective to the conversation about college admission and to help your peers around the world quite literally think about the opportunity that leaving home represents. It's scary, but that leap of faith in yourself to come to the United States, or Canada, or Australia, or UK is a journey that's exciting. I'm so grateful for the wisdom and the insights you've shared with our guests. Thank you for joining me today.
Next week, we'll be back with another episode of Admissions Beat. For now, this is Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. Thanks for listening.