Anyone ever host a foreign exchange student?

Question:If so, where was he/she from? How was the experience?



Answers:
Yes ... and today was a sad one as we just had to put our German son on the plane after his year with us. We'll truly miss him!

We have hosted 12 kids! 3 Danes, 3 Germans, 2 Swiss, 2 Swedes, 1 Finn and 1 Brazilian (our first, we were only an arrival family). We have a Dane coming in August!

It is an amazing experience ... but I will be honest. These are kids and there are ups and downs. The positives far outweigh the negatives however! They do truly become a member of your family! The trick is to treat them like family members and not like guests!

And there is another fun part -- the visiting! We're about to take off for three week European vacation to go and visit a bunch of the kids -- plus other exchange students we became close to over the years.

If you decide to do this, make sure you go with a quality program that has lots of support and has local representatives. Ask the rep how many students he/she is PERSONALLY responsible for (our group only has two per rep!) Also find out how far away the rep lives from you and where you will have to go for orientations (there are several required over the year). I would check and see who your high school recommends!
I hope you decide to do this! Good luck and enjoy!
I hosted a student from south Korea. She was a wonder full person,we had a good 10 months.We are planing to go visit her in Korea. It is a good experience for you and the family.
You learn about the different culture and the way they life.
When I was in high school, my family hosted a girl from Germany. At first it was kind of cool, but it turned out to be more difficult than I expected. Our culture is so different from theirs (especially since I lived in a conservative, southern city) and she had a difficult time adjusting to it. She didn't respect my parents rules and often talked badly about our family to her friends.

It was quite upsetting, and I can said I was glad to see her go. I don't know if this is a common experience among families that host exchange students, but it was not pleasant for me.
Yes! My family had a foreign exchange student from Hungary. She was a 16 year old girl and happened to have the same last name as us!(we're not related and our last name is really uncommon) It was great! it was like 6 yrs. old at the time but she ended up going to college here and she got married to an american and she now lives in Utah and we visit all the time! I'm like 13 now and we're like super close friends..even tho she's like 23 or whatever..it was great! She cooked Hungarian food for us and taught us some of the language...so much fun!
Sadly I had the same experience Julee did. My family hosted a 17 year old girl from Sweden and she was extremely self-centered--had no desire to fit into our family or do 'family things'--thought we should spend all our time driving her around so she could go golfing.

I've heard of MANY others, however, having a very positive experience. Clearly it all depends on the exchange student. My advice would be to be sure the student you take has siblings. I think that was the problem with ours.. wealthy family and no siblings so she was used to being the princess.

Best of luck!

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