During the first weeks of February, the Upper School will receive an influx of international student guests from China, Spain, and Argentina.

One of Westminster’s sister schools, Beijing 101 High School, is located in the capital city of China. The school is situated in the Haidian District of Beijing, a renowned college town and technology hub in China. The high school is also near Beijing University (Bei Da) and Tsinghua University, which are considered top colleges within the country. Beijing 101, which has students from grades 7 to 12, has a 200,000 square meter campus and was also the last leg of the torch relay during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. The Chinese Exchange Program between Beijing 101 and Westminster began in 2012. Students from Beijing 101 will visit Westminster from Feb. 6 to 18, and a Westminster exchange will visit Beijing from May 27 to June 10.

“We look forward to meeting the friends from Beijing 101 at Westminster in a few weeks,” said exchange program coordinator Lily Liu.

Exchange students from Spain will arrive on Feb. 1 and stay until Feb. 14. The students are from Seminario Segorbe, a historical private school in the city of Segorbe – which is located in the Valencia region in eastern Spain.

“This was actually the first school we visited in 2013 when looking to connect with a school in order to establish a study abroad program for our students in the Middle School,” said Middle School exchange program coordinator Zeke Hoyos, “and we were very impressed both with the students and their teachers.”

Westminster will host six Middle School students and five Upper School students from Seminario Segorbe. The school is known for top-notch quality of education, talented and highly qualified faculty, individualized attention to the student, and a vast amount of strong values instilled in the students very similar to those at Westminster.

Students from Holy Trinity College, a K-12 school in Argentina, will be in Atlanta from Jan. 31 to Feb. 13. Holy Trinity College is a private school situated in the beach city of Mar del Plata, a cultural hub south of Buenos Aires. The school, an IB and bilingual institute, was founded by two women who observed a lack of good education in the city and is now the top school in the area. A group of 12 students, freshmen and sophomores, will be arriving at Westminster to end their trip to the States. Prior to coming to Atlanta, they will also visit Norfolk Academy in Virginia and another school in New York.

“They’re not just coming for the education in general, they want to know how Westminster works,” said exchange program coordinator Sofia Tosello. “The idea is for them to feel like they are part of us. We want to become global citizens as far as seeing that we are different…but at the same time, we are part of the same world.”