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So, my husband and I are considering becoming a host family for a high school exchange student. Right now we're just in the "thinking about it" stage, but we're both leaning towards doing it, if we can get all the logistics squared away.
Has anyone here hosted an exchange student, or worked with a particular exchange program? We'd be looking to host for a semester from Jan to June (to see how it goes), and we're just a little bit outside the Beltway in Northern Virginia.
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I knew a few kids who did it overseas, and a few families who sponsored kids in the US. They all, without exception, loved the experience. A lot of families host kids more than once, and feel it is a very positive experience.
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I have a friend who had a rotten awful time with an exchange student from I think Hong Kong? I'm not sure... In any case, the girl did not follow family rules, did not respect the host parents' authority, and blatantly lied to both school officials and the exchange program. In the end they were just happy to have her out of their house (the exchange program found her different hosts across town; she heard a few months later that this had happened before, and that the third time she started doing this, in the new home, the exchange program finally wised up and sent her home.)
But that's the only experience I've heard of that was bad, everyone else's has been uniformly positive and "we would do this again." Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I had a wonderful experience as a "exchange person" of sorts - I worked as an Au Pair in Germany after graduating high school early - which is part of our motivation to host an exchange student. And, of course, Abhi was an international student in college. *grin* He got a wife and a life in America (for now) out of that exchange.
We hope that we can provide a home for a student so that he can enjoy the same sort of mind-stretching we had living in a foreign country. I think, given our experiences, we could be really great hosts. My main worry is that we'll get a kid that doesn't fit well into the family, and that the program won't support us if we run into problems. Thus, I'm hoping someone here at Hatrack can make a suggestion about a good program...
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I went to Germany for two months when I was 17 through Youth for Understanding . I also have a friend who was a Rotary ambassador and got to go to Germany. Rotary International also has an exchange program for teenagers. I'm sure there are other programs out there, but those are the only two I'm familiar with.
One thing that might help is if you are of a particular faith that an exchange student is also. I didn't have a host family assigned until just before I left, because they were trying to find an LDS family for me to stay with.
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quote:Originally posted by Jhai: So, my husband and I are considering becoming a host family for a high school exchange student. Right now we're just in the "thinking about it" stage, but we're both leaning towards doing it, if we can get all the logistics squared away.
Has anyone here hosted an exchange student, or worked with a particular exchange program? We'd be looking to host for a semester from Jan to June (to see how it goes), and we're just a little bit outside the Beltway in Northern Virginia.
My sister (who lives very close to me) hosted high school exchanges students twice, while her own boys were in high school. Both were boys, and both were from Germany.
The experiences were about as opposite as you can get. The first boy they hosted was wonderful -- they still keep in touch with him to this day, and in fact just made a trip to Germany to see him this past spring (he was here about 5 years ago).
The second boy came and did his time studying here and living with his host family, but he seemed to grumble about every part of it. He used every opportunity he could to complain about America and American ways of doing things, and was not well liked in general. When he went home, there was no follow up, no "thanks" and they pretty much never had any interaction with him again. They were glad to be rid of him, and he was glad to be rid of us.
So it all depends on the personality of the kid you end up with.
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my family hosted a student from Brazil my freshman year in high school. He was in 11th grade but we were in the same English class, so that was cool. He was originally with another family and they basically kicked him out because "it just wasnt working out." He was fine with my family. We were on the same club soccer team and we were instantly friends. I've been to brazil twice to visit his family.
I guess I'm trying to say it can really be hit or miss.
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My family hosted five different exchange students (from Barcelona, two from France, and two from Japan) and had great experiences with each. We did this when my brother and I were younger. The last I was about 9.
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I hosted an exchange student from France when I was in high school, and it was great. Granted, they had a lot of organized activities and stuff, so she wasn't our responsibility the whole time, plus a lot of her friends were here staying with other families (my circle of friends changed dramatically during those three weeks), but it was really fun! I loved it.
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Jhai: another idea on how to find an exchange program is to contact the local high school where the student would be attending. They probably have contacts with various programs and might have an opinion on what works best for them.
Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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CaySedai, a blog friend of mine gave the same advice: contact the local high school, and find out which programs are the best for them to work with. I think I'll try that.
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