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Originally posted by RogueJSK:

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Originally posted by OttoSig:
How long is the duration? Or did I miss it?

One semester. August-December.

My wife's sister was a student swap with 2 Russian kids when she was in HS (late 90s I think), it was a short duration stint, like 2 months. Not sure how that worked back then, especially with the language difference.
At least with an Aussie, you both speak English.

When foreigners are coming to the US, it's a safe bet their English is pretty good. When I went to Germany, I struggled. I was the best in my German class at an excellent prep school in NJ and I still struggled. And the part of Germany I went to speaks the cleanest, non-dialect version of German there is, exactly as I learned it in school. And it was tough. But I came back talking like a native. In my subsequent travels, I spent a lot of time in the dialect areas - eastern Germany, Bavaria, Austria - and that really sharpened my ears and skills.

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Originally posted by Rick Lee:
When foreigners are coming to the US, it's a safe bet their English is pretty good.

There was an Italian girl from Rome who came to my highschool who spoke very little English. The next year, we have some Costa Ricans who spoke none whatsoever. I had a fling with one really cute gal, and it was only possible because I spoke enough border Spanish to get by.

At least with an Australian, this isn’t such a huge deal. Depending on how heavy his accent is, of course. I have a friend in Melbourne I talk with pretty regularly and he’s easy enough for me to understand. Others, I’ve had a rough time with.

Rogue, growing up in Florida, in the woods, spending my first 30 years ignorant to other ways of life I would 100% recommend doing it, the cultural exchange alone, even between two English speaking western cultures (about as close as you can get) would make it worth it.

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Originally posted by 229DAK:
Neighbors across the street from us did last year for a semester. Just be aware you may need to drive them around to various activities during their stay.

Someone in our neighborhood found out that my kids went to the same school that their Chinese exchange student attended. She came knocking on our door and pestered my wife into picking up the exchange student and taking her to school every day. I have no idea why they even were chosen to host the student because they didn't even have kids of their own. It must have been miserable for the exchange student.

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Originally posted by Suppressed:

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Originally posted by 229DAK:
Neighbors across the street from us did last year for a semester. Just be aware you may need to drive them around to various activities during their stay.

Someone in our neighborhood found out that my kids went to the same school that their Chinese exchange student attended. She came knocking on our door and pestered my wife into picking up the exchange student and taking her to school every day. I have no idea why they even were chosen to host the student because they didn't even have kids of their own. It must have been miserable for the exchange student.

That’s incredibly rude. Wonder how the exchange student felt. Geez.

1 was a student who lived in Spain with a host family. A Swedish girl from our college was also hosted at the same time (we got along great, no problems). Host family had 2 daughters around our age. One liked to take us out and try and use us as bait (she wasn’t so great). The other was amazingly sweet. Dad loved us. Mom didn’t want us there.
All that said, they made us some amazing traditional meals, and overall gave us a great experience. I’d do it again in a second.
*this wasn’t a traditional exchange program, I don’t think, just part of our overall semester long class trip - I think we spent about 2-3 weeks with the host family, then all of us returned to our hotel to finish out our classes.
So if you’re going to do it, go all in. And regardless of your marital status, I’d stick with my own gender. Less concerns overall. I will say some of the kids on our trip went looking for and got into trouble..but as mentioned, that comes with the territory. Best of luck in your decision.

We have hosted 11. Both high school and college. The local college has a wonderful host program for their international students.
We have covered a lot of nationalities China, Germany Brazil England Scotland.
We took a trip to Brazil for 11 days and covered the eastern part of the country with our family from Brazil.
It can be trying at times, but if you have the correct student and proper intention it can be incredibly rewarding.

We don't have children but many of our friends and neighbors home school and they asked if we would host a teen aged boy from France for 6 weeks during the summer. We live on a farm with lots of horses and other animals, and we go boating a lot, so there would be lots of outdoor activities.

I found out that summer in East Virginia is much too warm for spoiled French children. This kid would sit on the couch and watch TV and play videos games, while complaining about American food. He hated animals and got seasick. The home school kids didn't know what to make of him.

We were very glad to see him go and have never had any desire to host again.

Years ago I knew friends who hosted exchange students. They had good stories and a few bad ones.

It's a crap shoot. I would do your due diligence and learn as much about that student as you possibly can. Social media activity might be very useful.