Yuan, XiaoYang, YangMcGill, Craig2024-05-302024-05-302023-09-222166-37502162-3104https://hdl.handle.net/2097/44367Research on international students suggests they have a low sense of belonging at the U.S. institutions they attend. This study examined whether academic advisor’s cultural empathy, advisor-advisee rapport, and international students’ advising satisfaction influenced international students’ perspectives of belonging to the institution. We further examined whether cultural empathy and advisor-advisee rapport mediated the effect of advising satisfaction on international students’ sense of belonging. The cross-sectional quantitative study used a convenience sample of 209 international students enrolled in two institutions in the United States. Results indicated that cultural empathy and student advising satisfaction had a statistically significant influence on the sense of belonging, not advisor-advisee rapport, and cultural empathy mediated the effect of advising satisfaction on sense of belonging. We offered recommendations for institutions and academic advisors when working with international students.Copyright (c) 2023 Journal of International Students. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Academic advisorCross-cultural empathyBelongingInternational studentsText10.32674/jis.v14i3.5227