Shady Side Academy Interim President Amy Nixon, Director of Enrollment Management Katie Mihm and Director of Alumni and Development Allison Saras recently spent a week in China, visiting several Chinese schools and talking to Chinese families about American education, including the value of Shady Side Academy education. The trip was coordinated by SSA's partners in China, the China-US Leading Schools Association (CULSA).

The Shady Side delegation visited two cities – Beijing and Changsha.In Beijing, Nixon and Mihm participated in a forum at Kaiwen Academy, where the two schools' programs and approaches were compared and discussed. (Kaiwen Academy is a high school exchange partner with SSA; in January 2019, seven Kaiwen students will visit SSA and be hosted by Senior School students who traveled to China last spring.) A Q&A session followed the forum, and families interested in Shady Side had the opportunity to interview for admission.

The next evening, Saras and Nixon hosted a dinner for SSA's current Chinese parents.This was a wonderful opportunity to connect with them about initiatives at Shady Side and their children, and to hear suggestions from them of how SSA can continue to support Chinese families despite the distance.

Shady Side also visited another exchange partner, Beijing No. 4 High School, and the high school affiliated with the University of International Business and Economics, where an agreement was signed to aid their students attending SSA's summer programs.As a school in the public system in China, this agreement is necessary for program approval.

On the final day of the trip, Nixon and Mihm traveled to the southern Chinese city of Changsha to meet with a middle school, Xiangyi Lixin Experimental School, and an elementary school, Gaoxin Bocai School.The goal of this trip was to increase SSA's exposure and name recognition to schools outside of Beijing and to share thoughts and ideas about education in both schools and countries.

"This trip was a great opportunity for us to connect with our partners in China on many levels," said Nixon. "We interviewed a number of applicants and met their parents, which we don't always get to do, and the dinner with the parents of our current students was very important to us. We were grateful for their enthusiasm and the chance to speak directly with them about the joys and challenges of sending their children so far away to us.This level of communication will help strengthen the bonds that we already have."

Shady Side Academy currently enrolls 22 international boarding students from five countries, including 16 students from China. At 69 students, boarding enrollment is currently at a 25-year high, largely due to the re-introduction of seven-day boarding four years ago. There are currently 39 seven-day boarders and 30 five-day boarders in the program. Learn more about boarding at SSA.