My husband and I would like to host an exchange student. Does anyone have any experiences they’d like to share-good or bad with being a host? I’m researching different companies, I know there are some sketchy ones. My biggest concern is my kids aren’t in high school yet, I don’t know if I should wait until they are older so they could help them meet people/figure out school…however I also see how that could cause problems if they’re personalities didn’t match…Thanks in advance for any advice/opinions.
Go for it! It is a kind thing to do, turns some assumptions upside down, and widens the world for your family, and deepens human understanding.
One D was a Rotary Youth exchanger, in two different countries. Her life was very positively affected by the two families she lived with the longest. Rotary is a good program, depending on your local district, they can be very organized, and the expectation is for less than a full year, so you can perhaps get your feet wet trying this out.
Being a single parent with a demanding job, I never felt able to host a HS student, but have hosted many university level students, and have loved the knowledge gained about the cultures of various countries. I just visited some students from 10 years ago in their home countries and it made us realize how much a part of each others lives we became sharing my home so long ago.
I hosted four exchange students with YFU (Youth for Understanding), and it was awesome! My daughter was 8 when we started hosting, and our first exchange student was from France. Others were from Chile, China and South Korea. I highly recommend hosting an exchange student. Your entire family will learn things you never expected to learn – things you would not imagine. It’s very rewarding, and you can form bonds with not just the students, but also their parents, and other host parents and volunteers. With so many Americans having empty bedrooms in their homes, I don’t understand why more people don’t host exchange students. Our YFU students were all hardworking students, respectful, eager to adapt, and wonderful role models for my daughter with easy-going personalities. We tried to choose students who shared some similar interests and hobbies as we enjoy, and that worked out well. If we ever had communication issues (misunderstandings can occur that have nothing to do with language skills, but rather cultural differences), a YFU volunteer was right there to come over and work things out – that only happened a couple of times, but it was nice to have the support. You should definitely host!! It’s an amazing experience.
We ended up not hosting a HS student after we got a whiff that the kid who was looking to spend a year in the US had “issues”, and the step mom wanted to unload the unruly teen via this exchange program.
We hosed (for a very brief periods of time) some European college student athletes. The young ladies were awesome!
With younger kids, the only problem I forsee is transportation. I don’t think exchange students are allowed to drive. Someone would have to be responsible for getting them to and from school and all activities.
Some programs give you a say in which student you get. I like this idea, as you can choose someone who has similar interests. I’ve known families that had students who never got involved with anything at school (hence made few friends) and families that rarely saw their students because they joined everything and had many friends.
We had a Rotary student during the summer, so I can recommend that program. YFU and AFS are also reputable programs.
One other tip… Check with your local high school to make sure that they will accept a student. Ours only accepts AFS. They have actually rejected other students, saying they don’t know how well they are screened.
I’d start small. We’ve taken in foreign exchange students twice. One time it was a program the private high school had to host students for 3 weeks. We took in 2 girls. They claimed they were bilingual, they really weren’t. Their language got much better staying with us. The only issue with them was one girl got a big crush on my son and really made him uncomfortable. It was good for our kids to see how much homework these kids came having to do - packets and packets of math problems. We all remarked if our kids went on such a trip, they’d probably have to journal and write papers, these kids came and had to keep up with their math.
The other time the housing situation wasn’t working out for a boy - the woman’s house was under construction and the poor kid had no running water.
Transportation is an issue as is entertainment. I felt like we needed to entertain them a lot, and little things like hanging out in pajamas or my wanting a little downtime made me feel a little uncomfortable.
They eat what you all eat, but I definitely felt like I had to make dinner every night. And the girls in particular had a tougher time with how we eat.
It was a really good experience. We Americans are different kinds of parents, and it was good for my kids to hear about the sheer amount of schooling South Koreans do nearly year round, plus after school schools. Near the end of the two girls trips we all talked about what they were expecting vs the reality, and what they thought was the biggest difference. Both girls were surprised by the big houses, how much land available, and American bathrooms. They thought we’d eat hamburgers all the time.
AFS is a great organization. Both my older sisters spent a summer abroad through AFS, one in the Philippines and one in Uruguay. We also hosted a Japanese girl for a semester. Other posters are right, the teens can’t drive while here, at least through AFS.
We also hosted a French French teacher for a semester. She was a foreign exchange teacher at the school my dad worked at. I think they went to work together. I do remember her going out in the evenings, not sure if she drove herself or other teachers picked her up.
It was a great way to learn about other cultures and other parts of the world. It is best to keep the students busy someway, somehow. If your kids are too young to drive, then get your friends older kids or neighborhood kids involved with being friendly taxi drivers.
Thanks for the replies. You’ve given me a lot to think about. I wanted to be an exchange student but in the end got cold feet, but did do a semester abroad in college. I hope we’d be able to choose someone who has younger siblings and enjoys doing the same stuff we like to do. It will be motivating for our family to get out and do more stuff.
My niece lived in Spain with a family with much younger kids and she says it made her less home sick, (and less eager to have her own kids lol)
I’ve emailed the exchange student coordinator with many of the same questions and hoping to hear back this week. I’m also going to contact the YFU and AFS. The school here requires kids to stay for the entire school year. The bus stop is very close to our house, but I do realize they might be in activities where they can’t always take the bus. The school is 2.2 miles from our house, and I do see quite a few kids biking so depending on the type of kid, that is an option, if not to school then to hang out with other kids houses etc. I already live in my car driving my kids around most days anyway… 
I’ll also talk to the high school aged kids of my friends and neighbors.
Goskid’s HS had an exchange program with a group in Europe, the year our D was 16, a junior in HS. They would send 30 kids here for a month and then our kids would go to their house for a month. In theory, sounded good and we enjoyed our student. But! the kids that came here ranged in age from 16 -20. We got a 19 year old. She (and a few other students) were quite amazed when we said no to drinking, which they had been legally able to do in Europe.
Then, thru conversations, we find out that her parents had split, she lived with her Dad, but he really wasn’t around much and she basically lived on her own. Needless to say, our 16 year old did not go on the reciprocal visit…
The visiting kids were pretty bored at school for that month…hard to get into the swing of classes for a short time. And they were here for the month of November, right when our kids were gearing up for finals, Winter Pops concert,
fall sports post season competitions, etc. Our student was amazed at the homework our kids did and the EC and time commitments. The visiting students were also amazed at Thanksgiving…and the amount of food for that day!
We hosted a student while he attended state university in our area, but he wasn’t a stranger to us. His father and my brother in law were friends in Sweden. He spent four years with us and we consider him family. In fact , he is coming to visit soon for a business conference. He will spend the last days of his trip with us.
Not only that, but a friend of mine who taught French at our local school had a young girl from France helping out in the classroom. Long story short, we fixed them up, and now they are married with two children !
An OP update, we’re going to be hosting a young lady from Germany. We’re super excited and we’ll even get to meet her and her family before she arrives here in the US. We’re stopping in Frankfurt on our way to South Africa. We planned the trip before we knew we’d have a German student so it was a nice coincidence. Thanks to those who responded!
Many people have a wonderful experience with exchange students. We, on the other hand, hosted the French exchange student from H***. If we’d read between the lines on the application, we would have figured out that the parents were exhausted and needed a vacation from their kid. OTOH if the school accepting said exchange student for the semester had read between the lines, they might have figured out that the boy was not a good match for the school. As it was, I had more discipline conferences in 4 months with this kid than I did for both my boys in their cumulative academic careers – and he ended up being expelled before the end of the semester.
Wishing you much better luck! I have never heard of anyone with an experience like ours!
cnp55, sorry to hear that. I mentioned upthread that we dodged a similar problem.
Fingers crossed for OP!
My good friends hosted a student from Italy about 20 years ago and they are still in contact. She has to come to the US on business frequently (in the wine business) and always tries to work Albany into her trips. My friends just visited her and her family there about two months ago. I hope your experience turns out as well @basil1 !
We had a Japanese girl with us for 3 weeks one summer. I will never do it again. At least for that short a period of time. Perhaps I put too many expectations on my sholders. The exchange student attended a special camp (designed with the Japanese students in mind) with my daughter during the day. At least every other night and on weekends we tried to do something memorable. It was fun, but exhausting. Her English was acceptable, but not great. Plus, the lunches I prepared for the exchange student came home uneaten every day. Not sure if she didn’t like the unfamilar food, or if there was something else unappitizing about it. I did ask, but I think she was trying to be polite and told me they were wonderful. LOL, then at least throw it out so it looks eaton. I ended up stopping on the way home from camp to buy sushi every day. Many families did not do a lot of extra activities with the students, but I felt obligated, so maybe the fault was mine it was so exhausting. If she was going to be here a full year, we would have spread the memorable stuff over a longer period of time and I am sure I would have figured the lunch thing out. 4 years later we still exchange cards and gifts. Actually, I am the only one interested in responding to her and I think I am on the lifetime plan to send her bday and Xmas gifts. haha. No idea how to politely stop it.
We have had three now, one of the boys twice, through Education First cultural and language exchange, month long assignments during the summer. It has been a very good experience.
Last summer was a 16 year-old girl from Germany, not too far from Frankfurt. One thing to note is that the drinking age for beer in Germany is 16, but nobody really cares if younger teens are drinking. She might be fairly well experienced with alcohol. While the French and Spanish boys we had were more adventurous, our German girl really only wanted to go shopping.
We also had a not so good experience. We took in a girl that was having trouble with her original host family. The advisor told us that the girl and the host father didn’t get along. Wrong, the girl didn’t get along with the host mother and the host daughter. The same thing happened at our house. This girl and my teenage dd did not care for each other. The girl was also rude to me but wonderful to my dh. It was a long four months. However, I still think about doing it but would only do a short stint next time.
A family I am close with had a bad experience with a Korean female student living with them for an entire school year. The girl must have been raised as an only child in a family where the parents made her the center of their universe. The child’s job was to honor her parents by succeeding academically. That was her only focus. The parents must have catered to her every need, since that is what she expected of her host family.
We’ve hosted 3 exchange students, with mixed results.
Our first was a young man from Switzerland who was taking a gap year before university through YFU. He was with us for a semester, and it was great. We are still in touch with him, and we have met up with him when in Europe. (S was in middle school when he was here.)
The second was a French student whom we hosted for 2 weeks in the summer. He was in our area with a small group, but all activities were planned by the host parents. That also went well, although we did not become friends as we did with our first student. For that one, the French students were roughly the same age as my S and his friends with whom they stayed.
Our last experience was problematic. The student was placed with us via a local coordinator who apparently dealt with a variety of agencies. (The same person who did the summer thing.) This kid was presented to us and to our HS as an exchange student for a semester. It turned out that his parents’ intention was for him to remain in the US for all of HS. I think that the agency they used in Korea ripped them off. They also misrepresented our role to the family: they were led to believe that we were being financially compensated to some degree, when we definitely were not. The family also lied on the forms, stating that he was a non-smoker, but it turned out that he, like almost all Korean males, smoked, and his family simply expected him to quit cold turkey when he got here. Needless to say, that did not happen, and we found him smoking in our house. He declined to join in on any of S’s activities, and was homesick and unhappy most of the time. His English was not up to snuff, and efforts to help him improve by, for example, watching American TV, did not work out. He listened only to Korean music and radio, and surfed Korean web sites on the computer we provided. People called him from Korea at 11 PM–and never said anything at all to us, except to ask for him, including his parents–and kept him on the phone haranguing him until after midnight. He had basically failed to make it to an acceptable level for his academic family in Korea, and they were hoping to salvage the situation by having him come here. They were also hoping to separate him from his “loser” friends. Rather than sending him to a US boarding school, they were evidently hoping to have him make it by spending 1 year at a time in different schools with different famillies, masquerading as an exchange student. I felt very sorry for him. I spent more time in the guidance office over him that 1 semester than I did in 13 years of schooling for my own kid. As a result, and as a result of what I learned about the entire Korean kids abroad scene, I would be very, very careful if asked to accept a Korean exchange student.
Thanks for all the great stories guys LOL. We’ve talked to our student a couple of times and she seems okay–but I will keep you posted if she turns out to be a dud. Maybe it’s good we get to meet her before she arrives. 