This is our nightmare experience participating in a high school foreign exchange student program

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Have you ever wondered what it might be like to host a high school foreign exchange student program for the school year? It could potentially be a nightmare.

Thinking it would be a fun experience having a child from Switzerland, Japan, Colombia or other exotic country?

Maybe you have kids and you want the experience for them? Or maybe you just want to volunteer your home to provide for others as so many Americans do?

This is our nightmare foreign exchange student experience

So let me tell you this –

We were curious.

I was just a couple of weeks post-op and recovering from a hysterectomy.

I convinced my husband that since we would not be having children, this would be fun! And a great solution to proving for a child.

He agreed.

And guess what?

At the time we were so excited!! And with this excitement, we jumped in EYES WIDE SHUT.

And now as I write this article, I can tell you, it was the BIGGEST mistake of our lives.

HUGE.

Do you know what is 20/20?

Hindsight.

Hindsight is always 20/20. That’s life for ya, right?

Now, I know some of you reading this might be fully committed to the process and have agreed to take in a student for the year and many of you have come to me wondering if there are any things to know before hosting a high school foreign exchange student. No matter where you are in the process, please pause, and read this entire article. And make sure to follow all 33 questions in this article. You need to know as much information now before it’s too late.

For high school students who decide to study abroad, there are many program providers, aka agencies, from which to choose. And you’ll have the same choice as well, in fact, some of them are probably popping up on your Facebook timeline as you read this. And you will see them in all of the local Facebook groups, Facebook mom groups, Facebook garage sale groups and more.

Foreign students are intrigued by the opportunities of studying abroad, some of their siblings have participated and some of their older classmates have been in the program.

And we were ready to make this student an Honorary American ⤵️

But beware of stories like this . . .

“In the few months that An Tso Sun had been in the United States, police allege, the foreign-exchange student used a school iPad to learn how to buy guns, boasted of a plan to massacre his high school classmates and assembled the beginnings of a “military-style” arsenal in his suburban Philadelphia bedroom. The 18-year-old was arrested Tuesday night on a terroristic threat charge . . . “

(find the rest of the story here)

And that’s just one of the many foreign exchange student stories out there.

And there’s more nightmare stories out there like this one where the student was murdered. Or you can see the story here

Nightmare Foreign Exchange student (cont’d)

But before we go into the good and bad, here’s some insight into how these high school foreign exchange student programs began – –

About 28,000 students come to the U.S. each year for youth exchange programs of varying lengths. Not surprisingly, their motivations vary. They want to improve their English-speaking skills. They want to establish their independence from their parents. They want to see the America of Hollywood and the streets of New York. If they don’t have siblings, they would like one. They want to share the beauty and complexity of Japanese or Italian cooking. They want to play American football and be on the cheerleading team. They want to travel and see new places.

They want to live life as an American teenager.

Student educational exchanges became popular after World War II. The U.S. government, and others, encouraged such exchanges to increase participants’ understanding and tolerance of other cultures, as well as improve language skills and broaden young people’s social horizons. The Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961 (more commonly called the Fulbright-Hays Act) further demonstrated that the U.S. considered international student exchange programs an important element of U.S. diplomacy; the Fulbright program continues today as one of the most well-known and prestigious government-supported international exchange programs. In 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton extolled the importance of international exchange programs and encouraged American families to continue to host exchange students.

Families who welcome these exchange students into their homes and hearts not only enrich the life of an exceptional young person, they help build people-to-people connections that span the globe and last of a lifetime.

– Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Summer 2010

With these objectives in mind, the high school foreign exchange program continues.

Thankfully, many have had a good experience.

And these are the benefits for them . .

Many host parents and their exchange students are having a great experience and reaping the benefits – –

Being exposed to a new culture and learning new things about a country
Learning a new language
Learning new foods to create and eat from their country
Exploring your city like a local again! How fun is it to show off everything to do in your city during the year? From football games to water parks to hiking trails and museums.
You’ll get a lot better with geography
You’ll be on your own staycation for the next 10 months
Your children may get more involved in helping other people – they are going to start seeing the people of the world around them differently.

And if you have this experience or have had it this experience, that is amazing! That’s exactly what we signed up for. All of the experiences above and of course, to provide for someone else in our lives.

However, our experience was nothing like that. Our foreign exchange student experience was horrible.

✅ We were disrespected.

✅ Our home was destroyed.

✅ Our dogs got hurt.

✅ We spent a lot of money (there is no stipend or getting paid to do this).

✅ The student took over the entire house, complaining endlessly.

✅ He was in our house all day 7 days per week, popping in from school whenever he wanted.

✅ We had no one to reach out to.

✅ The agency was unhelpful.

✅ The police could not help.

✅ And even in reaching out to our Congressman, we had no recourse.

✅ We were stalked during our remaining weeks.

✅ And to this day, still have nightmares about these students and the outrageous agency.

✅ And so much more . . it was so disappointing.

And yes, we tried everything to correct the situation. We tried to instill new rules, more consequences, grounding him from the bike, implementing a rewards system, taking things away, calling the agency, calling his parents, saying NO only a million times and everything and anything we could try to rectify the situation.

Here are some of the details of our nightmare foreign exchange student experience ⬇

I mean maybe I should have entitled this article, “Diary of a Psychopathic Exchange Student?”

So where did it all go wrong?

It went wrong form the very beginning, we did not ask the agency enough questions nor did we discover if it was a reputable agency, a well-run organization with checks and balances.

The local agency coordinator visited us in our home in Plano after we filled out a lengthy application, we chose our student that would attend Plano East Senior High and things started moving quickly from there.

It all happened very quickly, a rush assignment. We also discovered that the parents paid $15,000 to land a home in the USA, we get it, of course it’s rushed.

Keep in mind, this is only the highlight reel of what happened and there were still so many horrible issues =( This was truly a nightmare foreign exchange student.

We won’t mention any names, but we will mention this:

The student cost us a lot of money each week, the student did not use any of their money which we found out later was against the guidelines
The student took over our house eating everything in site. For example, he would take a 10-pack of frozen chicken breasts from the freezer every day and stick the entire frozen pack in a skillet until the smoke alarm would go off. This happened every day. He would even come home for lunch and do this which was frustrating since we both worked from home.
He never locked the doors.
He left windows up and doors wide open and would take off from the house.
He refused to tell us where he would disappear to.
He only used speaker mode on his phone and ipad so we could hear his entire conversation (also 7 days a week for 3 – 4 hour long phone calls).
He hooked up his speakers and played rap in the house 7 days per week (again: we both work from home)
He demanded to be taken to the gym for 2 hours every single day.
He demanded to be taken for ice cream every day.
He demanded to be taken for burgers every night.
He would sit in the front seat, take over the radio controls and blast the speakers.
He demanded for us to take him out at 9pm every night to just go out and drive around.
Let me be clear, our house smelled like burnt meat and had rap music blaring 7 days per week.
He complained about everything we gave him and provided for him. This just falls under the teenage category but going from 0 kids to a 16 year old was exhausting. P.S. Thank you to all you hardworking parents out there. This was hard work!
When he rode one of our bikes he refused to wear a helmet or take out his ear buds. He typically rode his bike at night and in all black in the middle of the road.
He demanded to know how much we made.
He would hit and push our dogs around.
We set him up with his own room on his own side of the house; he destroyed his room and bathroom refusing to ever clean it. We still have the pictures of the destruction.
When he broke all of the knobs off of the shower and sink, he refused to let us know about this and hence he did not shower for 1 month. The tub also filled up to the very top leaking over the edges.
He would take pictures of us while sleeping.
When we took him to the state fair he would point at the food or amusement ride and say “give me!” Even though his English was impeccable.
He used the demand “give me!” just about every single day. Yes, he had impeccable English. He could have clearly stated it in a different way.
We were told that he and his twin brother would tell their parents, “if you make trouble for us, we will make trouble for you”. Wow. How lucky were we to have this attitude in our home now?
The agency did not prepare us for what he needed for school so we spent the first week of his arrival running him around to doctors appointments, school counselor appointments and registration appointments. This was supposed to be taken care of.
The school said they would turn their head once the vaccinations expired in May. Yes, he did walk around the school unvaccinated for one month.
The agency never provided us any support.
When we would call the agency they would tell us we were lying and proceed to yell at us.
The other twin was placed with a man in his late 80’s and the twin lived with another foreign exchange student who would buy drugs to bring back to the house.
We reported this drug usage to the agency it was again mishandled and we were told we were lying. They refused to check in on the senior host parent.
We were concerned for the other host parent and we were screamed at for showing any concern.
We paid for all of the students extracurricular activities and meals; he refused to pay. They are supposed to pay for any additional costs.
He would lie about skipping classes and missing school. Of course, the school would leave us an automated message letting us know he missed class.
He did not seem to make any friends or could not keep them.
He gained 40 pounds within 4 weeks of being here. We wanted to be hospitable but omg, that was a lot we were feeding him.
Early on, we noticed his mistreatment of my younger family members in general board games and playing soccer, he would shove them aside.
During a day long retreat with our in laws and other family members, he cussed them out and gave them the middle finger
We eventually asked for him to be removed from our home as we it was causing so much stress and we felt that because he was on probation with the agency, this strike against him meant that he was supposed to be sent back to his country.
He stayed in the USA, in Texas and in our city.
The agency handled the situation so poorly by telling the student to find a friend’s couch to sleep on. Considering he had no friends, this was impossible.
We were yelled at by the agency and the student was picked up and taken to the local coordinator’s house until he was placed elsewhere.
They placed him within a few miles of our house where he continued to visit and stalk our home as well as other places that he knew he could find us. The nightmare foreign exchange student was just minutes from us now.
They had no exit strategy and left all of his documentation/passport in our home.
He showed up one night to my nonprofit organization with a ski mask
Yes, I had special police watch on my house keeping an eye out for him
Yes, I still have nightmares of him returning to the USA
We found out too late that we could invoice the agency for expenses such as the guest bathroom plumbing he destroyed; however, they never paid it with excuse after excuse. We consider the agency to be thieves.
We were isolated from other host families (this was a lonely journey)
We were told to not talk to the student’s parents and cut all ties
The student was also supposed to cut ties and not talk to his family for more than 30 minutes per week. He spoke to them plus snapchatted, skyped, facetimed, instagrammed and more about 8 hours per day. Typically, on speaker phone.
When he was a passenger in our cars he would also blast rap music and multiple times through my gears into neutral so I could stall out
He nor his twin was right in their heads – we had 2 chemically imbalanced 16 year olds in this country with no where to turn.
He showed up with a ski mask on one day and not even the police could help although we did have security around our home on a weekly basis.
The only place for support was Homeland Security.

Which brings us to hindsight. Its always 20/20.

We tried to ignore some of his behavior thinking it would go away.

Or maybe it was just teenager stuff.

Nope.

The boy had issues.

And so did the agency.

The agency offered no support. We asked for help over and over and over again.

Nothing.

They promised if there was one more incident that he would be flown home to Germany.

We were mocked by the executive director of the agency, yelled at and humiliate by the agency.

One that seemed to not be regulated in any way.

They had no one to answer to.

I could only justify this:

If they sent the nightmare foreign exchange student home, they would lose their customer and might need to refund the parents.

We were officially knee deep in this nightmare foreign exchange student story.

In hindsight, we would have offered support, housing and financial support to someone who was in desperate need of it. Not someone with plenty of money treating our family like shit. There are so many people in need we could have lent a hand to. And that would have been so rewarding on every level.

And if we ever hosted a student again, which we won’t, we would ask the Agency these 35 questions.

We have these questions listed here as well as in an image below. Please learn from our mistakes and be prepared for your host student and how to properly question the agency so you do not have the same nightmare foreign exchange student experience.

We may never feel safe again, but we want you to go into the decision with eyes wide open.

Here are the questions to ask a foreign exchange agency:

35 Crucial Questions to Ask Prior to participating in a high school foreign exchange student program (so it doesn’t become a nightmare foreign exchange student):

1. How long has your agency been in business?

2. How does your agency make money?

3. What is the exit strategy once the student is departing?

4. Does your assist in enrolling student into school?

5. What are the host parents financially responsible for?

6. What are the students’ parents financially responsible for?

7. Are the student and his/her parents aware that we are volunteers and they are financially responsible for these things?

8. What is the process if the child becomes sick?

9. What happens if the student breaks something in the house?

10. What do we do with the child if we need a vacation?

11. What is the process if the student gets arrested? Who is the first person to call?

12. How often will the agency check in with us and our well-being?

13. How often the agency check in with the student on their well being?

14. What is the procedure if the student refuses to follow the rules?

15. Are we liable if the student gets hurt because they do not follow the rules?

16. Can you physically be here for a check in once per week?

17. Is our local coordinator a volunteer or an employee?

18. Are the local students gathering on a regular basis?

19. What’s your exit strategy if things go wrong or don’t work out?

20. Do you have a checklist of what the student needs on a prompt exit from our house?

21. What is your Plan B? What is your Plan C?

22. Do you have referrals from parents who have has a good experience?

23. How do you handle a situation for those parents who have had a bad experience?

24. I see that many host parents take their students on trips, who is paying for this?

25. Should we have an attorney?

26. What if the student dies?

27. What if the student is not making friends?

28. How do you help host parents who are not parents?

29. Who is our support system? We would like to be connected to other exchange parents, how do we get in touch?

30. How does the agency show appreciation to your host parents?

31. Will we have conference calls with the parents to check in?

32. Do you limit parent & host parent communication?

33. What are the rules for the student?

34. Will these rules be placed in a visible spot in our home?

35. Will they be advised of a ‘starter kit’ when they arrive? Items such as bandaids, tylenol, cold medicine, favorite snacks etc?

You can also pass the images on below:

If hosting a high school foreign exchange student is still something you would like to do, then we wish you all the luck on your journey. Be sure to question your agency and find the answers to the support.

And if you’d like more support on your foreign exchange journey, check out these books (affiliate links):

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