@altacct , my daughter went as a junior in college, and that program is only for college students. She lived in a home with a Japanese family. It was a selective program and she had to be proficient at a certain a level of Japanese before she went, as the family spoke no English.
My student studied in one of the Low Countries and lived with two families for the school year. I don’t know what program he did, but he had a nerve-wracking time finding a second host family because the company he went with didn’t find a suitable second family for him to live with in the second semester.
A very good friend’s daughter did an intense yearlong program in a poor African country, as a gap year project before going to college. It was pretty grueling, as they lived in what we would call primitive conditions. It was also competitive to get on the program, because the student t teachers had to be able to endure no modern plumbing and not great food, etc…One participant became quite sick and had to leave the program. However, my friend’s daughter absolutely loved her experience.
I myself studied abroad as a college junior. I stayed in Europe for nearly a year. It changed my life for the better. In fact, as a working adult, I then ended up moving back to that country for twenty years, where I got married and had kids.
The thing we all have in common: these experiences made us who we are now. We all faced challenges and had to make mature decisions. Not one of us regrets living abroad for an extended period of time.
Sure, you may well study abroad again in college. Frankly, passing up a great opportunity that’s a sure thing for a BIG maybe doesn’t seem like a good bet.