Sally Hu ’25 appreciates LA’s supportiveness, close community, and fresh air

by Caitlin O’Brien P’26

on’t worry too much. Relax. Be you. Work hard, play hard, and you’ll have so much fun,” is the advice Sally Hu ’25 offers to new international students at Lawrence Academy.

Sally, a second-year junior from Beijing, China, has followed her own advice and embraced all that LA has to offer. She takes violin lessons at Groton Hill Music Center and is in their youth orchestra, leading the section two violins. She is an alto in the Lawrencian Chorale, participates in dance, and was in the winter musical, Mean Girls. She is an international Spartan Leader, a Class of 2025 class representative, and a campus tour guide. And she organized a Lunar New Year celebration on campus.

Before coming to Lawrence Academy, Sally attended three schools, all in Beijing. Those educational experiences emphasized uniformity and tradition, student integrity, leadership, and academic success, and helped Sally prepare for LA. She easily adjusted to LA’s curriculum and teaching format but notes one significant difference: “LA doesn’t feel like a school at all sometimes. It’s a very well-rounded little community, where teachers and students come together, making LA a great place to both live and study,” Sally says, adding, “LA is very supportive towards every student and listening to the student’s voice.”

Because Sally applied to Lawrence Academy during the COVID pandemic, she first stepped on campus when she began school in the fall of 2022. “On my 16th birthday, I stepped on the plane, alone, into a country I’ve never been to, into a school that I didn’t even know in fact existed,” she recalls. She arrived at campus around midnight. It was her first experience with New England weather, which she describes as “night breezes … they are sharp and hard like blades, yet so malleable that they can sneak into every little unsealed gap between my clothes and body … enveloping a layer of cold air.”

Although the transition to Groton’s climate has been challenging, Sally has grown to love the landscape and the access to fresh air and nature. “Waking up and seeing all that greenery outside, while breathing in that pure and fresh air as I step outside my dorm, feels … great,” she says. In fact, Sally says her dorm room, with its eight windows, “gave me a great advantage on seeing the seasons change and marveling at the wonders of nature. Seeing the trees right at my window turn red, bald, then covered in frosting-looking snow, sprout with little green buds, blossom, and back to the prosperous green tree I met when I was first on campus was so marvelous.”

To Sally’s surprise, homesickness hasn’t been an issue. “I think one of the reasons why is because LA purposely keeps the students busy in the beginning of the year to help them experience new things and find their position within the community,” she reasons. “I was also very lucky to be surrounded by a great number of amazing people who really helped me feel very at ease.”

Although many of Sally’s favorite experiences at LA so far have been in the performing arts, she looks forward to playing a sport and starting a student club, PandaPals, which will help provide fundamental English education to kindergarteners in Ya’an, a small city in the south of China, best known as the hometown of pandas.

“LA doesn’t feel like a school at all sometimes. It’s a very well-rounded little community, where teachers and students come together, making LA a great place to both live and study.”