Second International ASSIST Student To Study At GPS This Fall

In an effort to diversify the student body and bring a new perspective to the community, GPS will again partner with ASSIST, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that matches academically talented, multilingual international students with American independent secondary schools. 

“GPS hosted our first ASSIST exchange student this year, eleventh-grader Maria Soldevilla-Garcia from Zaragoza, Spain,” said Head of School Dr. Autumn A. Graves. “ASSIST offers our GPS community a great way to host an international student for one year. They are typically very strong students who expect to be a part of their host school's curricular and cocurricular activities.” 

Because GPS does not offer a boarding component to students, host families (one per semester) are needed to provide not only housing but also the family experience a girl will need to acclimate to the American culture. Ms. Garcia has stayed with two GPS families this year, who included her in their day-to-day family lives as well as special travel and cultural opportunities. GPS Parent Council, particularly Patti Marsden and Coughlin Cooper ’88, ensured Ms. Garcia felt welcomed at her new school by presenting her with a wardrobe of GPS uniforms and other GPS gear upon her arrival.   

Ms. Garcia had some international travel experience that included a brief visit to the United States, but she had never been away from home for a full year or attended a girls’ school. Her family came to the U.S. for a visit at Christmas; she will return to Spain at the end of May. 

Like every new GPS girl, Ms. Garcia was welcomed into the sisterhood with open arms as classmate Gracyn Davis made sure she learned her way around GPS. “She took me around to my classes,” Ms. Garcia said, “and I became part of her friend group.” 

Ms. Garcia has an older brother and sister who no longer live at home, but she had never been a big sister; while at GPS, her host families provided that opportunity for her. For the first semester, she stayed with the Gardner family on Signal Mountain, whose daughter Meghan is a seventh-grader at GPS and they have a fourth-grade daughter, Lauren. 

Mom Michelle Gardner read about the opportunity to host through ASSIST in a GPS Parent/Student Update last year. After responding, she was put in touch with a representative from ASSIST; completed the application, interview, and home visit; and found out a month later her family had been chosen just weeks before Ms. Garcia’s arrival. 

“It’s been a good experience,” Ms. Gardner says. “We loved having Maria and got really close to her and her family. Our only regret is that we didn’t get to keep her the entire school year.” In the short time the Gardners hosted, they managed to pack in plenty of activities, quickly acclimating Ms. Garcia to American culture. Together they participated in a 5K race, ran a concession stand, shopped for ugly Christmas sweaters, celebrated Christmas, and attended family camp. 

Ms. Gardner says communication with ASSIST was professional and easy to navigate, and she became Ms. Garcia’s advocate for her once she arrived. “Maria’s family is very nice but also adamant and decisive about what they wanted her to study,” she says. “Obviously they know what’s best for their daughter, but they weren’t familiar with the American school system.” Because English is her second language, “Maria was very bogged down with academics when she started and was a little overwhelmed.” She was also trying to play volleyball but ultimately dropped out.   

“GPS is harder than my Spanish school, and it took me a while to organize myself,” said Ms. Garcia, “but I feel really good now. I’m even taking the SAT just in case I decide to come back to the U.S. to attend college. You never know!” She loves moving from class to class and being with different people each period. Her favorite classes are graphic design with Mr. Lee Wright (“a good outlet for my creativity”) and physics with Mr. Bryant Hanes (“he uses different objects to help us learn”). 

Ms. Garcia spent her second semester at GPS with the Bage family, who live about five minutes away from school. “At first I was a little worried (about the change) since I had been settled down with one family, but I like having the experience of different areas of Chattanooga,” Ms. Garcia said. “And it’s nice to live close to school now that I’m on the tennis team.”

The Bages had traveled to Europe and Spain and found the idea of hosting an international student intriguing. Mom Julie remembers her grandparents hosting exchange students and having fun visiting with them when she was a kid. “Being a host family sounded like an adventure we’d love to experience with our daughter, Dara, who is in eighth grade (at GPS),” she says. Dara has taken Spanish since early elementary, and Ms. Bage was “more than happy to make Spanish food for Maria. It’s been a fun adventure to have her with us and to revisit some culinary experiences we had while we were in Spain. She fit into our family very quickly.” 

The Bage family introduced Maria to some American culture, too, including a horse show in Nashville, skiing in Utah, and “Star Wars.” “Maria had never seen a ‘Star Wars’ movie, so it was fun to revisit that through her eyes,” Ms. Bage says. 

“I wholeheartedly recommend the program,” Ms. Bage continues. “GPS could not have picked a better ambassador than Maria. Who would not want her in their home? She has a profound work ethic and a positive approach to her studies that we hope rubs off on our daughter. It’s been so nice for Dara to have someone besides her parents in our household. If you have the room in your home and the resources, it’s been a great experience.” 

Ms. Garcia says she will miss most the friendships she’s made at GPS but will keep in touch via social media and hopes to FaceTime during her classmates’ Chapel Talks next year. “I really hope I can come back and visit my (host) families and my friends,” she says. “And I’ve never been an older sister, so it felt good to teach them what my sister taught me.” 

ASSIST is a nonprofit, international educational and cultural exchange organization based in the United States and active in more than 20 countries around the globe. Its core work is to identify, place, and support outstanding international students on one-year scholarships at leading American independent secondary schools. 

One of ASSIST’s goals is to create a worldwide circle of future leaders-friends who have come to know and respect one another, and one another’s cultures, by sharing a year of study and living together. International outreach begins with individual relationships; it fosters these relationships through a year of academic and cultural immersion designed to affect peers, teachers, friends, family members and business associates for a lifetime. ASSIST believes that bringing together future American leaders and future leaders of other nations makes a substantial contribution toward promoting understanding and tolerance of cultures, racial designations, and religious beliefs. To learn more, visit to ASSISTscholars.org.