YFU or AFS or rotary or ASSE??

I am biased toward Rotary. It is such a wonderful program. I am an outbound to Brazil this coming school year. They know what they are doing. They are also very picky about who they accept. They want to make sure that you would be ok in a different country for a whole school year. I am very excited to be going with them. You would also get an allowance each month ranging from $50-$75.

You may bring your lap top but I am not sure that it may worthier for you to use an internet public place to email, if that is what you need your lap top for. The nice thing about a program abroad is that you will be so busy with so many activities and excursions that you wont have hardly ever any time to miss home and this way you will be immersed completely in the culture and lifestyle of the country you chose to live in. The below program offers in one single cost lots of activities and excursions that are so much fun and enriching. Spain is a wonderful choice and the program www.beautifulspain.com, one of the best if not the best of the programs offered abroad world wide. Location is a safe and most amazingly beautiful beach resort in Northern Spain. Host families are extremely well screened and very loving. This program gets returnees year after year, so great it is. Cost is really reasonable considering everything included (as long as you sign up with this program through their web site as there are organizations that sell the same program for much more so high quality it is). Some of the activities and excursions it offers besides Spanish, cooking and dancing classes are: Guggenheim Museum, paella dinner, bullfight, fireworks on the beach, city tour, medieval towns, fishing villages, many beach days, Aquarium, tall ship vessel excursion, Roman village hiking trip, canoening down the river, shopping, and much more. It offers you the possibility of enrolling with a friend with whom to share same host family home, or for you to stay alone at host family. Many host families count on children of similar age to participating students.

While these four programs might be the most well known, there are plenty of other student exchange programs out there. I am a program advisor with Intrax Study Abroad, and we provide Academic year, Fall/ Spring semester and summer programs for high school students. The focus of our programs is full immersion within the culture as well as the language and lifestyle of the country. Students are living within family homestays and attending local schools, and living amongst the people of that country. Plus we are one of the few companies that give you your first choice in country as well as include airfare within the program fee. For more info, check out: www.intraxstudyabroad.com

YFU, AFS , Rotary (and Aspect) are some of the most well respected programs. ASSE does OK in some places, but not others. The biggest differences you will find are in costs. YFU, AFS and Aspect are all independent programs and will run you about $7,000 - $10,000 depending upon the country you go to and how long you stay. They all offer scholarships however. Rotary is MUCH cheaper, however, it's much more competitive and, as it is part of an international club system, is run somewhat differently than the other programs. If you are from the U.S., I wouldn't recommend going to England or Ireland -- not that there is anything wrong with those countries, but that you would be losing one of the biggest benefits of an exchange -- language immersion. That will pay big dividends down the road! As to the laptop question -- it definitely has its uses, however it can lead to far too much communication with your home country which can have a detrimental effect on your exchange. Another online community to visit for lots of info is http://www.exchangestudentworld.com/