THE FACTS

Below is some of the information which in the past has generated questions from our incoming students and their families, as well as links and resources for further details.

Immigration documents

As soon as the newly-admitted international students confirm their enrollment at Ithaca College, the Admissions Office sends their files to us at International Programs. We review the financial certification materials and once everything is in place, we prepare the I-20 forms for the students. These forms are sent to the student’s home address via FedEx, so the students could apply for the F-1 visa.

Visa application

The best source of information for the F-1 visa application is the US Consulate responsible for the area you live in. The Consulate’s website should have all the information and forms necessary for the visa application. Before applying for the F-1 visa, students need to pay the $100 SEVIS fee (see www.fmjfee.com).
More information is available at www.unitedstatesvisas.gov and http://travel.state.gov/visa/tempvisitors_types_students2.html.

International Orientation

All new international students are required to attend the mandatory International Student Orientation in August (the schedule is at www.ithaca.edu/oip/international.htm). The orientation is free and covers a wide range of topics. In addition to a thorough immigration information session, we discuss the following: the specifics of the US college classroom, the essential offices and services on campus, safety and security, health services and insurance, banking, employment, culture shock, and life in Ithaca. Parents and family members are invited to join International Orientation; there is a special session just for the parents.

After the International Orientation, the students will proceed with the August Academic Orientation Program and the Fall Welcome Program of the Office of New Student Programs (www.ithaca.edu/sacl/new_student/incomingfirstyear). There are 7 summer orientation sessions in June and July – if your child/you are in the Ithaca area, you are welcome to sign up and attend one of them, but you are not required to. For our international students, we hold a special session in August (after the International Orientation). We have reserved slots for everyone in the August Academic Orientation program, there is no need to pre-register.

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Housing

To sign up for housing, students need to go to https://homerconnect.ithaca.edu after May 1 to complete their housing applications.
All residence halls (except HOME, www.ithaca.edu/reslife/home/index.html) close for the school breaks which are a week or longer (Thanksgiving Break at the end of October and Spring break in mid-March, as well as Winter Break which is a month long).

Ithaca College is a residential campus, and so all incoming undergraduate students are expected to live on campus. If interested in living off campus, the students must apply in writing to the Office of Residential Life for permission to move off campus; they must meet the criteria of the Residency Policy (www.ithaca.edu/reslife/rl_guide/residencypolicy.htm), and receive written approval from the Office of Residential Life before moving off campus.
More information about the residence halls and the Office of Residential Life is available at www.ithaca.edu/reslife or e-mail housing@ithaca.edu with your housing questions.

HomerConnect (https://homerconnect.ithaca.edu) is the Ithaca College student information system which contains all students’ admission, academic, financial, and billing records. The Office of the Registrar generates the HomerConnect ID and pin number for each student and OIP sends it to the students in the packet with their I-20. If you have questions regarding HomerConnect access, please contact registrar@ithaca.edu .

Paying the bills

The Bursar’s Office (www.ithaca.edu/bursar) prepares the students’ semester bills and mails them out (via regular mail) to the students’ home address in the second part of July for the Fall semester (the payment is due by August 10) and in late November for the Spring semester (the payment is due January 10). The very same statement as the one sent by mail is available in the student’s Homer record, so each student can print out the bill by themselves as well. The Bursar has made the following exception for the deadline to pay the bill for first semester students only: if they cannot pay the bill by the deadline or if they would prefer to bring the payment with them when they come to campus, they must e-mail bursar@ithaca.edu to get an extension. The Bursar charges a $200 late fee if the payments do not arrive on time.

Your child can give you viewing access to his/her bill information, so you can view and print out the bill, or pay online if you choose – information about that is in the last section of www.ithaca.edu/bursar/sai/billsched. The different ways to pay the bill (check, credit card, etc.) are listed at www.ithaca.edu/bursar/sai/pay . If you have any questions, please e-mail bursar@ithaca.edu .

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Healthcare

We are firm believers that prevention is the best cure – so we hope that our students will take advantage of all the resources available to them on campus to stay healthy and fit. We will be encouraging the students to utilize the facilities and programs of the Fitness Center (www.icrecsports.com/FitnessCenter_Site). We also hope that students will take care of themselves, that they will dress warmly during the winter season, and that they will eat properly (for information about the dining options on campus, please see http://ithacadiningservices.com).

The Hammond Health Center on campus (www.ithaca.edu/sacl/healthcenter) is staffed by doctors, nurses, nurse aids, and laboratory technicians and can treat students who need medical attention when school is in session. If the student needs a referral to a specialist off campus, the Health Center will help the student make an appointment and will also provide transportation to the appointment and then bring the student back to campus. They also have eight “treatment beds”, which are available during the Health Center’s open hours (8am-11pm Monday-Friday; 10am-6pm on the weekends) for students who need to be observed by a medical professional (but do not need to go to the local hospital). The Health Center also has a small medicine room on site, and they work with a local pharmacy which will bring to campus any prescription medication a student may need. As needed, the doctors at the Health Center work closely with the psychologists from the Counseling Center (www.ithaca.edu/sacl/counseling) which is located in the same building. While there is a fee for some prescription medications, the rest of the services available through the Health Center (such as X-rays, laboratory tests, and most medications) are free of charge to all students who have the standard IC health insurance. The Health Center is closed during school breaks.

All new students receive a Health Certification Form (available also online at www.ithaca.edu/sacl/healthcenter/healthcertification) before coming to IC – it is very important that the student and their doctor fill it out completely, so our Health Center has the correct and current health and immunization record of each student. The Health Center must receive this completed form in advance of the student’s enrollment into classes. If you have questions about the form, please e-mail dmistler@ithaca.edu .

Insurance

The College policy is that all students must be covered by health insurance and all undergraduates are automatically enrolled in the College’s health policy -- see
www.ithaca.edu/sacl/healthcenter/studentinsurance . Graduate students can also purchase this policy, and the form they need to fill out is on this website, as well. J-1 exchange students are required to purchase their own health insurance which meets the Department of State’s additional requirements for their program; they cannot participate with the Ithaca College insurance plan.

Homesickness and culture shock

Traveling far from home and living in a new place is very exciting, but can also be difficult, and it takes a while to settle down and get used to this new life. Homesickness and “culture shock” seem to be only a normal part of this process of adjustment and growth. During International Orientation we will spend a good bit of time talking to the students about the transition to their new school and town, and we will introduce them to the resources available to them.

Safety

The Office of Public Safety (www.ithaca.edu/safety ) is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and provides the safety and security services for the College campus -- from patrolling the campus to investigating violations to offering assistance to all students and staff. Public Safety also manages the IC Emergency Notification System and the Blue Light Emergency Telephones (intercom-like phones mounted on poles with a blue light on top), which allow students to contact Public Safety directly by the touch of a button. The staff of the Office of Public Safety is highly trained and is dedicated to their educational and professional mission.

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THE MYTHS

Below are a couple of “myths,” or stories which are not true, which we have noticed tend to create problems or confusion for our incoming international students and their families

More money will somehow become available

Sometimes students (and possibly their families) believe in the many stories which flood the Internet about the unlimited financial possibilities which exist in the US. Occasionally we see students who prepare only the funds necessary for their first year of study and come to school with no plans for where the funds for the remaining time of study will come from. Unfortunately, the story of endless funding options in the US is very much a myth, and it is very important for students to understand the financial aid possibilities they can count on.

At Ithaca College, incoming students apply for financial aid when applying for admission (see www.ithaca.edu/admission/finaid/index.php). All students, international and from the US, are automatically considered for merit-based scholarships such as the President Scholarships. If students wish to apply for a financial need-based scholarship, they must submit the financial aid application form (www.ithaca.edu/finaid/international.php). There is also a separate application form for the Leadership Scholarship at (www.ithaca.edu/admission/finaid/leadership.php).

There are a number of endowed scholarships which are offered to juniors and seniors and students who are eligible are notified of these opportunities and can apply for them (see /finaid/programs_and_scholarships/endowed_scholarships.php), . However, these awards are few, they are quite competitive, and offer limited financial amounts. Therefore, we urge you to make sure you have a complete understanding of the costs involved with your child’s college education, and to have a solid plan on how the family will meet these financial obligations.

My child will be all alone

While it is our goal as an educational community to assist our freshmen to become independent and self-reliant, we also know that this is a process, and we are here to support our students. There is a network of support services available to help students with issues they may encounter, from academic concerns (the student’s academic advisor, Dean’s Office, the Academic Enrichment Services), to health issues (the Health and Counseling Center), to residential concerns (Office of Residence Life), to questions of career planning (Office of Career Services). And of course, there is always our office, the Office of International Programs, which is ready to be a “home away from home” for our international students and to help them and support them in their transition.

I need to stay on top of things on behalf of my child

We trust that you know your child best, and you will continue to be the parent who will provide the love and support and attention your child needs in order to thrive. Your care and support will continue to make all the difference for your child, and we trust you will continue to be your child’s greatest advocate, resource, sounding board, and source of comfort and encouragement. But we also hope that you will empower your child to become used to being in charge of himself/herself.

If my child is not doing well, IC will call me

It is our institutional policy to treat our students as young adults – the students are responsible for themselves: for their health and wellbeing, as well as for their academics and for their records. So if the student is not performing well in class, or if there is an issue with their bill, for example, the relevant office will contact the student directly, not the parents. We trust that the students will relate the essential information to their family, and we urge you and your child to keep the communication channels open. If you would like access to your child’s academic record so you can view his/her grades online, your child can share with you the ID and PIN for his/her HomerConnect account.

I can call any office at IC and get any information I want

This is true in most cases (when calling different offices, be sure to have your student’s ID number handy, to assist in the process) with a couple of exceptions. All medical records are protected by HIPAA, a federal law which protects the confidentiality and integrity of individually identifiable health information. So if you (or anyone else) calls the Health Center or the Counseling Center to ask about your child’s health or treatments, the staff in these office will not be able to answer any questions – unless your child signs a release form in advance. There is also FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a US federal regulation designed to protect the privacy of education records. If a student indicates that he/she is independent from their parents, then the College cannot disclose educational information to the parents. More information on this regulation is available at www.ithaca.edu/sacl/services/ferpa.

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Where can I get more information?

Nowadays practically everything is online, so if you have access to the Internet and e-mail, you should be able to obtain most necessary information and to communicate with the different offices at IC via e-mail. One easy way to start is to access our main site www.ithaca.edu and then click on Site Index at the top – that will give you an alphabetical listing of the offices and programs at the College. Another helpful site is www.ithaca.edu/about/localarea and there is a special site for the IC parents at www.ithaca.edu/iconnect.

If you have tried the index page and you are still not sure whom you need to contact about a particular issue, you can e-mail infodesk@ithaca.edu or call them at +607-274-3011. You are also always welcome to e-mail intlprog@ithaca.edu or call us at +607-274-3306, and our office staff will do our best to assist you.

What can I do to help my child at IC?

It is our educational mission to help the young people at our College to grow and develop as independent young adults. We hope that you share the same desire, and that together we would work towards that common goal. We will assist your child in the process of transitioning to living and studying here on their own. Transitions like this are not always easy, and they do take time, so we trust you will be there for your child, but also let him/her figure out how to be independent. We urge you to stay in touch with your child – nowadays technology is making it possible to do this in many ways! – but also be realistic and appreciate the fact that your child is going through lots of changes and that he/she will be very busy at school. So talk to your child, support and encourage them, and urge them to be in charge of their lives and not to rely on you to “fix” things from far away. Here are some suggestions on things you could do:

• Plan for emergencies in advance – if something happens, how will you and your child respond, are there credit cards or other financial sources available for immediate use, are there friends or relatives in the US who can help and how, does everyone have contact information for each other in case the regular means of communication are not available

• Read up on the Central New York area, which is your child’s new home; read the newspapers from this area on the Internet: The New York Times at www.nytimes.com, The Ithaca Journal at www.theithacajournal.com, The Ithaca Times at www.ithacatimes.com

• Stay informed on the online news from IC: our weekly school newspaper The Ithacan is at http://theithacan.org and the magazine Fuse is at http://fuse.ithaca.edu. If you want to receive The View, the bi-monthly IC parent E-newsletter, please e-mail mexposite@ithaca.edu and she will add you to the list.

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