International students seeking to experience a slice of American culture and life may be drawn to the charm of a small-town college, surrounded by quaint local shops and friendly neighbors.
Joosep Vorno from Estonia says the main thing that drew him to Bowdoin College in Maine was the school’s strong sense of community.
“What I have also come to realize over my time at Bowdoin is how deeply connected the school is to the town of Brunswick,” says Vorno, who graduated in 2022 with a double major in German and theater.
Anjanita Mahadoo, educational consultant for StudyUSA Global Educational Consulting in California, says attending college in a small town “allows for a smoother and less-shocking transition as students are able to adapt and adjust more easily to their new environment and country, due to their college town being not so different from their own country — especially if they come from developing countries.”
While some international students may prefer the hustle and bustle of big-city life, others may seek a quieter and slower-paced college atmosphere.
Here are three reasons to consider a college in a small town.
Smaller Class Sizes
Colleges in small towns often have smaller enrollment. This can provide international students with more individualized attention from professors, who may know students by name.
[READ: How to Choose Between Urban, Suburban and Rural Colleges.]
“Colleges in smaller towns tend to be smaller themselves, which can foster a more personal experience for all students,” says Claudia Marroquin, senior vice president and dean of admissions and student aid at Bowdoin.
Smaller enrollment often means smaller class sizes. Tie Sun, a former international admissions counselor at Illinois Wesleyan University, says there’s a difference between learning in a class of 10 students compared with a large lecture hall with hundreds of students — the former providing easier access and stronger connections with professors and fellow students.
Sun, who is from China, graduated from the school as an international student in 2017.
Beyond enrollment, international students can research a college’s student-to-faculty ratio. At the University of Mississippi, for instance, that ratio is 17:1, says Blair Thomson, senior international officer and director of study abroad at the University of Mississippi.
“The smaller ratio provides students greater access to their professors so that they can ask questions individually, feel comfortable with the material and connect with a faculty member on a deeper level than in larger classrooms,” Thomson says.
For international students, this can also encourage “stronger peer-to-peer engagement, which makes it easier to connect with classmates and form friendships beyond the classroom,” says Nitin Agrawal, co-founder and CEO of Interstride, a San Francisco-based education technology company that provides international student support services.
For students who choose a college in a smaller town, “the connections they form across campus with peers, faculty, staff and also with community members can lead to fulfilling and robust college experiences,” Marroquin says.
Students are seen as individuals, she adds, and staff focus on helping them grow and succeed both academically and personally. “Our campus community is one in which students are not a number.”
Greater Chances to Immerse in the Community
Small-town life can provide international students a strong sense of community, experts say.
“In particular, the American South’s reputation for hospitality means that locals pride themselves on being helpful to and inclusive of everyone in the community,” Thomson says.
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She says in smaller U.S. towns, off-campus events can be smaller and more intimate, which may allow international students to enjoy extracurricular activities and make friends organically.
“Smaller campuses make it easier to build meaningful relationships and take on a more visible, valued role in both campus and local communities,” Agrawal says.
In Brunswick, where Bowdoin is located, “there are local community members who attend talks, sports games and theater performances, and love chatting up students either when they walk their dogs on the quad or in local community hot spots like the Gulf of Maine Bookstore or the Little Dog Coffee Shop,” Vorno says.
Bowdoin has a “community host” program where locals connect with students to help them with everything from storage to transportation. They also serve as local ambassadors, “attending the students’ sports games, presentations and performances or inviting the student over for Thanksgiving dinners,” Vorno says.
Marroquin says the program helps students build a home away from home and develop deeper connections with the local community, with hosts becoming family. “The connection extends well beyond their time at Bowdoin.”
A college in a small town can have additional benefits, Sun says, like providing valuable local connections and resources between the school and town, such as information about internship opportunities and lodging for family and friends who visit.
[READ: 4 Common Myths International Students Have About U.S. Colleges.]
More Opportunities to Improve English Skills
Living in a small town could provide the added advantage of strengthening English language skills as international students become immersed in their new community.
“Small towns in the United States, like Oxford, have ample opportunities to practice English,” Thomson says. “Our international community is very diverse with students hailing from over 90 countries, so the ‘lingua franca’ (common language) is English.”
She says international students at the University of Mississippi must practice English daily to live in a small town, which may not have been the case if they had chosen a school in a big city or with a large immigrant population that speaks their native language.
If an international student attends a small-town college “with a limited number of scenarios to communicate in their first language but more chances to utilize English with native speakers,” Sun says, “it could help the student to improve the language skill in English, especially in speaking and listening.”
Having lived in Brunswick for a few years, Vorno says he considers himself lucky to have attended a small-town college and relishes the connections he made with peers, faculty members and the local community.
Over one summer there, he says, he spent a lot of time working on a research project in a local coffee shop. “If going to a coffee shop and asking for ‘just the usual’ is not emblematic of the American experience, I don’t know what is!”
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How International Students Can Benefit From a Small-Town College originally appeared on usnews.com
