Does anyone have any international college experience?

[Heather in VA]

My daughter dropped a bombshell on my today. Well I guess it's not a bombshell because she's talked about it before but she's serious about it. For years she has talked about going to Italy and working there as a teacher after college before settling down etc - knowing that it would be harder to live over there once she gets married, has kids etc. But after her trip with my parents a few years ago, she said she wanted to go to college in Italy. One of her guides was a young American girl who was in school there, studying history (which is what she wants to study) and working as a guide in the historic sights - I can't remember which ones.

 

So today she asked me if we can start researching requirements and application processes for going to college overseas. She knows I've been contacting American schools for info on what they want from homeschooler etc. so she said it woud be important to research Italy too since that's really what she wants to do. I have no idea where to start.

 

YIKES!!!

 

Thoughts?

 

Thanks

Heather

[yvonne]

You might want to look into US colleges that have a strong year abroad program as a starting point. The best programs, imho, are the year-long ones where you are a fully matriculated student of the foreign university.

 

I spent a year studying at the University of Geneva. It was a great program because I was a fully matriculated Univ. of Geneva student, the same as any other student attending the Univ. (In fact, the availability of that program was one of the big draws of that college for me. I knew when I was in high school that I wanted to study abroad.)

 

It's not _exactly_ what your daughter wants if she wants to do all her college abroad, but it might be a good starting point? They might be able to point you in the right direction if you want to talk directly to certain foreign universities.

 

Good luck! My year abroad was one of the highlights of my life!

 

yvonne

[Karen in CO]

My ds is going to an American university in Tokyo. He is able to use his prepaid college program plus Stafford and student loans to finance it.

 

One of the schools he looked closely at is Franklin college. It is in Switzerland, but is a very short trip from Italy.

 

I liked the American university abroad because all of his credits are transferable to other US colleges. It made me feel better.