Benefits & Eligibility

A student exchange program complements your formal education in important and exciting ways. Imagine living overseas for anything from two to twelve months. You’ll be placed with a host family and attend a local school. You’ll live like a local and become immersed in the culture. You’ll learn the language and gain valuable international experience. You’ll learn a lot about yourself.

Being an exchange student is a challenging, rewarding and fun experience. You’re not a tourist or a guest. You’re actually living in your host country as a member of that community.

Student exchange programs promote tolerance, maturity and independence. They also encourage an international perspective. In a very competitive world these are highly sought after qualities.

Benefits:

Student exchange is an investment for life. The experience can be beneficial in many different and valuable ways:

• Learn another language and open career doors you didn’t know existed
• Get to know how others live and come to see the world from another perspective
• Test yourself and acquire independence and maturity
• Make new friends and appreciate old ones even more
• Gain experience and judgement
• Learn about the world first hand

Long after you return home your exchange experience will influence and inform your life. It will provide you with a substantial backdrop from which to make future study and career choices. Employers are increasingly alert to the benefits of student exchange. Your experience will set you apart from the crowd and mark you as someone who has proven themselves in challenging circumstances. Experience is everything.

Eligibility

You are eligible to participate on an exchange program with us if you meet the following requirements:

• still at school when you apply
• in good physical and mental health
• have maintained the equivalent or better than a C grade average since Year 9 (Australia)
• have achieved a National Certificate of Educational Achievement at the appropriate level, or produce a statement from your school about anticipated levels of achievement when the certificate is awarded (New Zealand)
• are mature and open-minded
• are flexible, adaptable, responsible and ready to learn
• are between 15 and 18 years old (exceptions can be made for 14 and 19 year olds)

The exchange experience is not possible without volunteer host families. Host families welcome their host son or daughter into their family life - with all the rights, responsibilities, privileges and obligations of other family members.

Learn more about becoming a host family here or call us on 1300 135 331 (in Australia) or 0800 440 079 (in New Zealand), to discuss participating in student exchange without even leaving home!