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Most US boarding schools have in the past expected all students to leave campus during long breaks. Where students went was largely a matter of the student’s family’s choosing, based on their situation (some would go home, some had domestic relatives/guardians to stay with, some would stay with a school friend’s family).
COVID has resulted in all sorts of changes. The changes vary by school - and the chosen solutions vary. At my child’s school, when boarding reopened last August, they decided to have the option for boarders to remain on campus during breaks. There were other boarding schools that went the opposite extreme of opening none of the dorms when reopening in the fall, and offering to place borders with day student families if they wanted to attend in person. (I think all the schools that started with no boarding have reopened their dorms at some time this year - one school I know waited until late March!) No one knows what will happen next year.
What families should look at when looking at a BS is: will we feel like our student is safe in the care of the people running this school? Look over updates to a school’s response to COVID this year, read what the head of school says, look at the faculty/staff running residential life. Felling comfortable trusting that the school will do their best to take care of students in a way that you will be comfortable with is vital. (There are international students at my child’s school who have not been able to return to their home country since August 2019.) -
Reputable schools do not tolerate overt racism any more. However, as others observed, there are less overt forms of racism. You would have to look school by school to see whether the campus culture is a fit for you. Note: you will find negative comments about just about every school. It is up to you to distinguish between those that are truly concerning, and those that are referring to incidents long in the past or of a more minor concern.
Can’t contribute any experiences as an international BS student in this century.
But, one of the issues to consider are the “little details”. For example, laundry. What are the dorm’s laundry facilities like, and how are they paid for? Because it can range from free (super easy to deal with), to using a card (charged to your student account, still easy), to coin operated (quarters). Yes, my kid has needed QUARTERS to do laundry this year - so at least 1 BS in the US still uses coin operated washers and dryers. I would think that wouldn’t be a deal breaker, but it is yet another thing for an international student to navigate.