As the year comes to an end, many seniors are committing to colleges, and of those 325 seniors, around 3% of them are planning to attend international colleges. Senior Hollie Lane-Smith is one of the nine students attending an international college.

“I am going to be attending the University of Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia […] I’m Canadian so it’s a lot cheaper tuition […] [and] they had my specific major,” said Lane-Smith.

Planning on majoring in Child and Youth Care, Lane-Smith found that the colleges in the states utilized majors such as social working, rather than Child and Youth Care.

As of 2016, the University of Victoria, British Columbia was among the top 250 universities around the world. With civic engagement as a key part of their mission and an admission requirement based on a person’s current education, the university has a 74% acceptance rate.

According to Lane-Smith, she is the only member of the 2018 senior class to apply to the University of Victoria, and although academically the school was a safety for her, the specific major she plans to go into is extremely competitive, causing the major to be a reach.

Lane-Smith’s guidance counselor, Brian Doherty, was involved in Lane-Smith’s process for choosing a school. Overall, he believes that applying to an out-of-country school is different than applying to an in-country school.

“It’s a little different in terms of how the programs are set up. […]it’s kind of a narrow focus on what you can study,” said Doherty.

As the final months of school came to an end, Lane-Smith spent her time working with Westford Academy Theater Arts director Michael Towers for her capstone.