In the 2024-2025 school year, Friends Select School welcomed two new students from MonteVerde Friends School (MFS) in Costa Rica: Jose Pablo Villalobos Fuentes and Mariángel Ramirez Brenes. They will be the graduating class of 2026 and will officially attend FSS until the middle of December.
Both Mariángel and Jose chose to come here for similar reasons. Jose explains,, “[One reason I came here] is to challenge myself and try something new.” English is a second language for Jose and Mariángel, despite taking English classes at MonteVerde. Jose shared “I came here to also get better at my English.”
The Costa Rican students see a clear size difference between FSS and MFS. “Our school is small, like 6 people per grade,” Jose states. The surrounding environment of FSS is another difference between MonteVerde and Friends Select. With FSS being surrounded by skyscrapers, the two schools are near polar opposites. “We used to live in a peaceful place with only animals, trees, and mountains,” Jose said.
Additionally, Mariangel and Jose notice more differences between FSS and MFS. One of these differences that Mariangel pointed out was that “[Everyone here] is in their own world.” To give detail to what that could look like, Mariangel gives an example of what people at MonteVerde do. “[At our school] when you see someone, you stop to say hi.”
Jose has joined the FSS Boys Varsity Soccer Team. Whether he’ll be an asset to the team or not is unknown but he could bring ample skill to the team: “I used to play for a professional team but stopped for 8 months after breaking my hip bone,” says Jose. He amplifies this, saying, “I’ve been playing all my life.” When asked what his exact age was when he started, his response was “since the beginning.”
With Jose and Mariangel immersing themselves into the Friends Select environment, it will bring a diverse culture and educational experience to their lives and the FSS community as a whole. A lot of people ask if Jose and Mariangle are brother and sister or boyfriend and girlfriend. Both Mariangel and Jose state, “We are not together.”
