FUN, CULTURAL EXPERIENCE!!! I have hosted for this program…read morefor the last two summers (2012 & 2013) and have had a wonderful experience. I was astonished at the previous person's review in that I disagree with much of what she said. The only thing I would say is that she tends to be a last minute person but that's mainly due to the circumstance around the program versus her lack of caring. If you go in knowing this, you shouldn't have a problem. You will not have your group parent meeting until the last minute inasmuch as she is usually still placing students. She does give you, however, several evenings for you to keep open for this meeting. As far as coming back late from field trips, as you can imagine, she has very little control over this. If there is a traffic accident, if one of the students is late getting back to the bus, if the bus has a flat tire, etc. then the group will arrive late back at the parent pick-up point. If, for some reason, they are late, then she ALWAYS texts or calls the parents to let them know what the estimated time of arrival will now be. In addition, she will offer to bring the child to the host parent's house for them, if, for some reason, they are unable to get there. The first child that I had was a boy and was not a perfect match for our family. He was, for the most part, polite and well-spoken. With that said, the few issues that we did have with him, the coordinator (PB) was right on top of it as well as the Spanish chaperone. We still had lots of fun with him but his personality just didn't click with my then 9 year-old son. All I had to do was mention it to PB and she would have a talk with my student. The trips and outings were all a lot of fun and well organized. There was never an issue with getting there and back or at the event itself. Even with the issues with the first student, we enjoyed the program so much that we did it again the following summer. The second child that we hosted was absolutely perfect for us. She was kind, polite, considerate, fun, outgoing, and well-spoken. She fast became the daughter I never had and slipped seamlessly into our family life. We have kept in constant contact with her and her family since she went back home and plan on one day going to visit them. We are not hosting this year due to the fact that she is coming back here and we are planning an extensive vacation to the National Parks of the midwest!!! I can't stress enough how much we enjoyed this experience. Were there a few glitches - yeah, just like life in general. Did this experience deserve the one star rating that the previous reviewer gave it - in my opinion no. The best way for me to express to you how I feel is to look at the fact that I have already done it twice and are more than willing to sign up again in the future. So, sign up for a student and enjoy your cultural adventure! Enough said.

We saw the signs for a number of years and had friends who hosted Spanish exchange students and…read moreraved about it. I also had a friend who's student didn't mesh with their family at all, in fact was disruptive and when they notified the coordinator, the student was removed immediately! We kept putting it off as a MONTH seemed very daunting to invite a stranger into our home. We talked to the coordinator in our area via email and on the phone and she willingly discussed all the ins and out and answered all our many, MANY questions. We decided to try it out and the coordinator came to our home, showed us the applicants that she had and helped us narrow our decision as to which student to choose. So we took a chance and decided to host in the summer of 2013. We contacted the student's family and spent the month or so before his arrival getting to know each other via email. The young man we chose was wonderful. His family was gracious and thankful that their child had a family to come to. And since returning home, he has kept in touch with us and Skypes with my children all the time. To us he is a member of our family. The program is set up wonderfully and we were informed of all our responsibilities, which were to get our student to class locally during the week and to just go about our business and be a family. So that is what we did. We aren't a family that goes and goes and financially we couldn't take him to too many places ourselves. We were happy that the program had field trips set up. We were given a calendar of events and happenings that was for the most part accurate. There were several trips moved around, due to weather and such, but we were kept abreast of all the changes. Our children and I traveled with the group to DC and were going to go to Philly, and Ocean City but various kids getting sick and myself getting Pneumonia prevented us accompanying them. However our student reported that the field trips were fun and very organized. They did sometimes run late and so we were left waiting for the text that said they were 30 minutes away, but trying to get a bunch of teens and families onto buses on time can be hard I am sure. Sorta like "herding cats" LOL There were two incidents in which our student came home very upset and reported that there were a couple of disruptive and disrespectful students and that the coordinator came down hard on the group as a whole. We immediately contacted her and she explained the situations and her decisions to address the whole group and not the individual students (in one case she didn't personally witness what had happened and so was not going to play "he said, she said".) She was NOT confrontational or put off that we were calling to question her actions, but was very professional in handling our concerns. I liked that. It validated that she cared about us and about our charges. Several times we had to contact the coordinator at the last minute about changing our numbers for the field trips (due to previously mentioned illnesses) or about drop offs and pick ups and she was responsive and put us at ease, even offering to pick up or drop off our student for us. She also put together car pools so that most host families didn't have to drive to class everyday. All in all this was a great experience and in fact our student is coming back this year to stay with us again for a month. We are also planning on hosting a new student as well. This is such a great program and a great experience. I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT TO ANY FAMILY. I did notice that there was a review here from a local family that seems to have had an awful experience with the company and coordinator and that is sad. It really is a well run organization and I understand that many of the families we hosted with last summer are hosting their same students again, which makes it necessary to find new families to host new students. So if you are someone reading reviews to decide on whether or not you will host, I say GO FOR IT! You will be glad you did!