That's definitely an option, in fact, it sounds like a really good idea! I wonder if any homeschoolers have experience with this? We were thinking about putting off one of my older children's graduation because of some glitches we had had with the community college, but those were resolved, and I thought it would look kind of bad to do that. The other advantage of doing it that way would be that she would also have time to go overseas and see how she likes being there, and how she handles it. I might know of a couple of people with whom she might be able to stay for a short time in the summer. Of course, the advantage of going during the school year is that she would meet people her age from France.

You know, the experiences I saw were also with kids younger than 17.

Thank you all so much for all your responses--I know I won't be able to thank you individually.... I just remembered how exhausted I was when I was overseas and dealing in a foreign language all the time, and my daughter does tend to wear herself out when she is away from home--well, at least she always comes home totally exhausted. Maybe a school year would be too much for her... So all the alternatives you are describing are really helpful :D

She would be doing it not this coming-up year, but the following year, when she would be 15.5 and going into 10th grade. She wants to do it then because she does not want to lose any time the following year when she will be able to start taking courses at the community college. Since she wants to study physics in college, she needs to get a lot of good science courses under her belt in high school, so she is in a position similar to your son's :)

This is so kind of you! And this is very good information, thank you very much! (I was looking but was unable to find what I was looking for!)

This is much more what I have done with my children, discussing, writing points which they bring up on the dry-erase board, then having them write more. What I have learned, and do not always remember, is that if they have trouble doing something, it helps to break it down into smaller steps and then to help them through each step. And, boys are soooooo like that! I remember when mine would take 45 minutes to put on his shoes!!!! But now he is well-organized and really gets things done, at 17. So you only have a few more years to go!

Wow, this is amazing--You are in Central Asia, which is a place I have always wanted to go... And you arranged it yourself, privately--I would be happy if she could do that as we are Catholic and would want her to be with a Catholic family. And since my daughter is homeschooled, she'd be able to catch up, esp if she went for less than a school year, which I did not think of as an option. Thank you so much for sharing your experience!

Wow, thanks everyone so much! This is a lot of information.... My daughter has been studying French, and would probably be lost for at least a month when she got there (I studied French for much longer and was completely lost for 3 weeks, but she has access to better resources than I did way back when!) She is home schooled, so the school she has to deal with is me! And she was born to be a world traveler--she has been away several times and really enjoyed it. So it's really just the educational issues that we are concerned about. If she loses a year, well, it seems like colleges should be happy about her having "lost" the year in France! Not like she loses it by goofing off.

This is very helpful, Melinda, thank you!

Thanks, Suzanne :) I have to admit that the exchange students I ran across had terrible problems, so I was totally against this idea at first!!! Good to know that others have had better experiences!

My daughter wants to be an exchange student in France for 10th grade (next year). We are actually having quite a lot of trouble finding out about this... but my current main question is what they study for science at the age of 15? I am also having trouble sorting out what year she would go into--I don't want her to be lost by being in with her age group at a Bac school, but I don't want her to lose a year here, either. They seem to be generally ahead of us, so I am not sure how it all would translate. Sigh. I wish she wouldn't want to do this... how will I keep her down on the farm...? Thanks for any info!!!!

My daughter is 13 and wants to be an exchange student for a year. She's thinking about this now as she wants a lot of time to study the language if she does it. I do not like this idea. I have lottle experience with this, bit what I have is bad. One exchange student I knew was sent to a dysfunctional family and was completely miserable and they wouldn't let her change families (luckily another family sort of took her under their wing). Another case was a man who had a business in a remote rural area. He made the students work at his business with no pay, and wouldn't even let them have time off is someone else wanted to take them somewhere where they'd be able to see more of the country than just cornfields. Plus the school system was simply awful. In both cases, the students were discouraged from contact with their families on the basis of helping the students be independent and adjust to their new situation. One case was a long time ago but the other was pretty recent. I have such a bad feeling about these types of programs as a result that I really don't want her to go. Plus I think that a teenager in what could easily be a not-well-supvised situation is a recipe for disaster. I have done my best to teach my children the way to go, but the problem is they are still young and don't always know the roadsigns to disaster. But I realize I could be wrong... Thanks for any thoughts :)

Thanks very much for that link, it looks great :)

And we don't have a 4-year in mind, because we thought she'd be going to school under a program and that she'd have a limited number of schools to pick from, but that plan get messed up so that is why we are starting from scratch at this point.

AFAICT, the "good" guidance counselor is on maternity leave for at least 6 months, and the one who is left is the one who is... not so good, like students left with one required course they didn't know about, at the point when they thought they would graduate. Plus, it's obviously very small, and serves what is mainly a retirement community, so not many are planning to go to 4-year schools. Anyway, we have a next step. We are going to call three colleges we pick with pins, and see what they say about how it all works. One big state school, one small private school, and one Catholic college. This will hopefully give my daughter some idea of how this all works. (And me, since she is the oldest of 4. And I thought supervising their driving after only 6 hours of instruction was rough!) Thanks so much, esp because I am thinking there might be a way to call a different CC and see if they have more experienced GCs, as this cc is linked up with some others.