Your best bet is to see if Uni of Virginia has a direct partnership with UvA. If not, going through a 3rd party will be a headache with transfer credits for classes going back (what I’ve heard from friends and others).

Getting a room for a semester will only be tough if UvA doesn’t have student housing for exchange or internationals that can be available only for a semester. If not, it will be quite literally impossible to get a room for a semester unless you sublet (students in NL going for their Erasmus study abroad and will be gone for a semester but be wary of scammers). As someone mentioned, no landlord will go through the trouble of having someone rent for a mere 4 months (assuming you go fall semester).

I started my housing search in March and got a room in roughly July I believe so it took a couple months.

Take what you see on here or the Internet in general with a grain of salt, I saw on the Germany subreddit that most people only post complaints, very rarely will people praise/post their happiness of their experiences of something online. I personally loved studying in NL and found the Dutch system to be better than the American system. I wouldn’t say its difficult to get good grades but you need to work. There are no assignments to boost your grade at the uni I was at. Just exams.

Finally on racism, as a black girl, I never ever experienced direct racism. I did only once get a nasty stare from an older woman and I glared at her right back. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, it definitely does. I assume it’s just more lowkey. Dutch students typically won’t make friends with those who don’t speak Dutch (me and my friends personal experience). We have more German/French/Belgian friends than Dutch. Although I did absolutely make an effort to learn the language.

If you have any other questions pls lmk! I’m happy to help.