New York is the city most students already have a picture of before they arrive, and the useful thing to know is which part of that picture is accurate. The density is: Manhattan really is that vertical and that fast. The variety is: the city is five boroughs and the ones outside Manhattan are where most New Yorkers actually live, eat and pay rent. The accessibility is not — this is an expensive place, and that shapes a student's term more than anything else on this page.
For a language learner the city has one clear advantage over almost anywhere else: you cannot avoid English, and you cannot avoid accents. New York runs on people who learned the language as adults, from every country, and the version of English you hear on a single subway ride is wider than a year of listening exercises. Nobody will slow down for you, which is uncomfortable for two weeks and then extremely effective.
The subway is the city's spine and runs twenty-four hours, which no other American system does. A student who plans around it can live further out and reach class in the same time as someone paying Manhattan rent.
The free and the cheap is a longer list than the reputation suggests. Central Park, the High Line, the Staten Island Ferry and Brooklyn Bridge cost nothing. Several major museums run pay-what-you-wish hours or days for students, the public library's main branch is open to walk into, and most neighbourhoods have a street festival at some point in the summer. Your budget goes on rent and food, not on things to do.
Two things to weigh. The cost of living is the highest of any city on this site, and accommodation is the largest part of it. And New York rewards students who arrange their week — the city does not hand you a routine the way a small town does, and the students who get the most out of a term here are usually the ones who joined something in the first fortnight.
Studying here. Topstudy works with three schools in New York. Kaplan New York, EC New York and LSI New York each offer General English, Semi-Intensive English and Intensive English — a standard week, a middle option that leaves the city usable in the afternoons, or a full intensive load. In a city this large the school's location matters more than usual, because it sets your commute for the whole stay.
Accommodation. Alongside host families, Kaplan New York places students in Mansfield at Grand Central, Midtown East and Westside Studios. All three are residences in Manhattan, which is the trade this city asks you to make explicitly: a shorter commute and a higher rent, or a longer commute and more money for everything else. A host family is usually further out and is the stronger choice if your real difficulty is finding people to talk to outside class.
Who it suits. Students who want to be pushed rather than eased in; anyone who needs to understand English as it is actually spoken, at speed and in many accents; and students whose budget can carry the city, because that is the honest gate on this one.
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