She really needs to talk to the admission and housing departments at the university. There are certainly a lot of off-campus apartments in Cambridge but she would have to see if they would let her live off-campus or accommodate her in a single.

If she’s been admitted, I’d suggest she contact those departments directly. It’s likely that they do have special arrangements for non-standard students.

Some schools let older students live in the dorm where graduate students live, but I don’t know about Harvard. She should talk to someone at Harvard about her housing options. At my school I had a classmate who was in his 30’s and he lived in the dorm where most graduate students live.

I think she should live on campus if she is a freshman, although living with people closer to her age makes sense. Living off campus is just not the same. On campus you have much more interaction with other students and learn about things you otherwise might not discover. There probably are apartment complexes off campus that are full students that might be similar, but it is not the same.

At my school some dorms were primarily freshmen, so they tended to be very young students, but the dorms where juniors and seniors lived the students would be in their early twenties, and at least she would still have a campus atmosphere. Maybe that is also an option?

There also might be campus apartments, my campus had apartments for married students and students with children, but I went to a very large school, 45,000 students.

@JLeslie Yes, thank you. It’s one thing to be an American and preparing to go away to college, but she has never left her country except for vacation. Going away to college will be a huge adjustment. Just figuring this stuff out will be quite a learning curve for her. You are helping me figure out the types of questions she should ask.

@snowberry I understand she might have some culture shock, but my roommate helped me a ton. I transferred as a sophomore and she was a sophomore, but she had already been at the school a year, so she was a great source of information. Being in the dorms exposed me to majors I had never heard of, new friendships, never lonely, didn’t have to cook, I didn’t even have to clean the bathroom, because my dorm the bathrooms were down the hall, but she would probably want a dorm with a bathroom.

My school had some dorm rooms that had the bathroom in the middle of two rooms, and one of my friends was solo in her room, but then had “suite mates” on the other side of the bathroom. So, kind of having roommates, but still your own space.

I think my sister got an exception when she transferred to Wisconsin because she is vegan. They let her live off campus because of her food restrictions.

Let us know what she finds out. It would be interesting to know what options they offer.

Going from the Caribbean to Boston will be thermal shock as much as culture shock.

Yeah, be sure to tell her the first layer of clothes needs to be close to her skin to really keep her warm. Like long John’s. Brrrr. That is not intuitive, people need to be told. Need a scarf too, no skin exposed when you go outside. A long coat does make a difference from a short coat.

@janbb is right, and contacting the group that oversees international students would also be helpful. They are very skilled with advice about all of the likely differences and issues such students will encounter.

Thanks for this. I’ve tried to explain all about dressing for cold weather, but she will have to experience it to really understand. I’ll make her watch a bunch of videos. That will help.

And really, unless she is impossibly naïve, she’s going to Harvard, she’ll figure this all out pretty quickly.

I had forgotten about the center for international students! Thanks! @canidmajor

This might help as a start: https://www.hio.harvard.edu/

My husband was shockingly resistant to dressing appropriately for the intense cold, and also a friend of mine who was raised in South Florida, so I am projecting a little. Your friend might quickly adapt. I have friends from warm climates who did fine in snowy cold climates.