Semester or year study abroad in New Zealand / Australia or a program like "semester schools" (but cheaper)

[Nart]

My son is currently in 9th grade and is interested in dong a study abroad in New Zealand or Australia or anywhere else that is English speaking. He doesn't really want to stay with a family and prefers a boarding school type environment or outdoor type school. I found "semester schools"  that are primarily for students who are already at boarding schools or private schools to study in interesting places for a semester. He would love doing something like Maine Coast Semester (https://mainecoastsemester.chewonki.org) but it is $36,000 for the semester. There are other "semester school" programs in Colorado, North Carolina, Chile but they are all really expensive. 

Anyone know of any boarding schools in Australia/New Zealand that take students for a semester or year? I thought I had read there were outdoor type semester or maybe it was year long type programs but maybe it is only for students from certain schools or maybe it was somewhere else. 

[luuknam]

AFS India says they offer a boarding school option (though I think the student would still spend some time with a host family during school breaks). It's $15,800 for a year (no semester option), so much more affordable (especially considering you won't have to pay for your son's food etc for a year). I did a year in Thailand through AFS a couple of decades ago (but with a host family, not boarding school). Most semester programs I've looked at for my own kids tend to cost almost as much as year-long programs, fwiw. 

I found this link for volunteer programs abroad where you can enter a lot of parameters like language and country (you can google a list of English-speaking countries). Something like that would probably be better for a gap year or a summer or something, but ymmv. 

Another option is to do a semester or year abroad while in college, either planned through whichever college your son attends at the time or arranged by himself.

Is there a reason he doesn't want to stay with a host family? I did have some issues with my host family and switched partway through the year (and then again right before the end of the year), but there are upsides to a host family as well and I'd happily opt for a host family again if I were to get a do-over. 

Also, fwiw (just throwing this out there in case he's unaware), being an exchange student in a non-English speaking country tends to come with widely varying expectations wrt learning the local language - my 8th grader wants to do a year abroad in Switzerland and to be placed in the French-speaking part you need 2 years of French, whereas in Thailand a lot of the other exchange students knew only minimal Thai by the end of the year.

Likewise, the types of classes vary by country etc... I took things like dance, music, drawing, sword fighting, takraw, Thai language, cooking, and only the occasional academic class, whereas in countries like Australia the expectation is to take the same kind of classes as you'd take in the US (I also went right after high school graduation, which was an option for certain countries back then, so basically taking a bunch of fluff for a year worked great for that, but it's my understanding that almost all kids placed in Thailand took a relatively high amount of fluff due to the language barrier).

EDIT: NOLS offers semester abroad outdoorsy things, but they're 18+ (the summer in Alaska one says 17+). I've done wilderness first responder (10 days) through them at a camp in NY and recert in NM, and they seemed solid; no idea about their abroad programs though. 

Edited March 29 by luuknam

[Nart]

8 hours ago, luuknam said:

AFS India says they offer a boarding school option (though I think the student would still spend some time with a host family during school breaks). It's $15,800 for a year (no semester option), so much more affordable (especially considering you won't have to pay for your son's food etc for a year). I did a year in Thailand through AFS a couple of decades ago (but with a host family, not boarding school). Most semester programs I've looked at for my own kids tend to cost almost as much as year-long programs, fwiw. 

I found this link for volunteer programs abroad where you can enter a lot of parameters like language and country (you can google a list of English-speaking countries). Something like that would probably be better for a gap year or a summer or something, but ymmv. 

Another option is to do a semester or year abroad while in college, either planned through whichever college your son attends at the time or arranged by himself.

Is there a reason he doesn't want to stay with a host family? I did have some issues with my host family and switched partway through the year (and then again right before the end of the year), but there are upsides to a host family as well and I'd happily opt for a host family again if I were to get a do-over. 

Also, fwiw (just throwing this out there in case he's unaware), being an exchange student in a non-English speaking country tends to come with widely varying expectations wrt learning the local language - my 8th grader wants to do a year abroad in Switzerland and to be placed in the French-speaking part you need 2 years of French, whereas in Thailand a lot of the other exchange students knew only minimal Thai by the end of the year.

Likewise, the types of classes vary by country etc... I took things like dance, music, drawing, sword fighting, takraw, Thai language, cooking, and only the occasional academic class, whereas in countries like Australia the expectation is to take the same kind of classes as you'd take in the US (I also went right after high school graduation, which was an option for certain countries back then, so basically taking a bunch of fluff for a year worked great for that, but it's my understanding that almost all kids placed in Thailand took a relatively high amount of fluff due to the language barrier).

EDIT: NOLS offers semester abroad outdoorsy things, but they're 18+ (the summer in Alaska one says 17+). I've done wilderness first responder (10 days) through them at a camp in NY and recert in NM, and they seemed solid; no idea about their abroad programs though. 

Thanks for the info. NOLS seems really interesting and they have summer programs for 14-15 year olds.

Maybe he is interested in boarding schools because he went to a swim meet at a boarding school and ended up talking to a boarder who really liked it. He is easy going, gets along well with others, is outgoing and is an adventurous eater so I think he actually would do fine with a host family. On the other hand he likes to be active and doesn't like being cooped up at home, so sometimes it is 9 at night and he says he wants to take a walk around the neighborhood which is fine with us. Sometimes he will go out with a friend and ask us to pick him up after a movie or concert at 8 somewhere and then call and say he and his friend prefer to walk 2-3 miles home or to go eat something instead of getting picked up. So I can picture a host family might not be so tolerant of this. 

I hadn't really thought of the academic expectations if you go to a non-English speaking country- he might actually like the option of taking "only the occasional academic class". 

[luuknam]

13 hours ago, Nart said:

Thanks for the info.

You're welcome. The reputable organizations really try to match students with host families on a variety of points, so if he/you'd communicate these points as priorities with them they'll do their best (obviously not everything can be matched perfectly, especially if the wish list becomes long, and also dependent on cultural etc realities in the host country - if it's not safe to walk outside at night, you won't be able to find a reasonable host family that'll let your son do that, kwim? - and in some countries kids are more independent at, say, 16 than in others, so that'll affect local expectations). 

My knowledge of boarding schools is basically only from books and TV, but it's my understanding that some of them can be rather strict and not leave much freedom of going out or on walks at night etc. I'd imagine that both with boarding schools and host families it's a ymmv thing. Same with academic expectations - it'll vary by school, though it's my impression that Western and East Asian countries are much stricter about expecting lots of academics even if they're not English-speaking than countries in the global south, largely because of their overall cultures. A lot of the country pages on the AFS website also describe the vibe wrt how focused on academics they are. AFS does, btw, expect students to learn the language of the host country, but some countries enforce this a lot more than others - just letting you know, because you can't just go to them and say "hey, place me in Thailand, but I don't plan on learning Thai" - they'll be unhappy, but realistically, a lot of kids didn't learn much, and a lot of schools/host families didn't particularly expect them to learn much (I was placed in an area where even the high school English teachers' English royally sucked, and my Thai was good when I left, but see the whole "matching students with host families" etc... I'd requested that). 

My first host family was a pretty good match, btw, and maybe I should've stayed with them the entire year. The language barrier didn't help in resolving issues (and I was not the best at communicating at 17/18yo - I probably have Asperger's). A lot of the communication I did was with my twin 14yo host sisters, and one day I said I was going to bicycle into town and they told me that dad (who only spoke Lao, because this was the Isaan, and who wasn't home much so I didn't talk to him much) had said I wasn't allowed to because it was too dangerous. I later found out that they lied (because they were worried it might be too dangerous, not out of malice), and it destroyed a bunch of trust, especially given that I was so reliant on them (what else might they have lied about?). So, anyway, we didn't successfully resolve that, and I got placed with a different host family.

FWIW, different languages have different difficulty levels to learn for English speakers. If you scroll down on the FSI website, there's a list with difficulty estimates and time to learn different ones to the same level. This would affect both the odds of your son learning to communicate well enough with their host family in a reasonable amount of time, as well as the odds of the host family knowing English to a reasonable extent. Obviously, there are cultural/economic/geographic/historical reasons for learning or not learning English, but in most European countries host families, classmates, etc will know a lot of English, whereas in some countries many fewer or much worse (and in places like Thailand, English is more commonly known in touristy areas or Bangkok, and less in places like the Isaan). 

So, anyway, lots of pros and cons to different countries, languages, host family vs boarding school, etc. I'm sure your son will have lots to think about. I'd recommend reaching out to some exchange organization(s) and seeing if he can talk to some people - they might be able to help him figure out what might work best for him too (I'd initially asked about Hong Kong (I'd wanted to go to China but they didn't send there that year from where I was), and they strongly recommended Thailand instead, thinking it'd be a better fit for me), and let him talk to some former exchange students from the US or current exchange students from abroad. 

 

 

Edited March 30 by luuknam

[Miss Tick]

There are regional organizations in the US that facilitate study abroad trips. We are in the region covered by Youth For Understanding. My dd is going to Germany next year with a program administered by them, but I know they also administer some programs to other countries. I recall that most are shorter in duration.

[Miss Tick]

1 hour ago, luuknam said:

So, anyway, lots of pros and cons to different countries, languages, host family vs boarding school, etc.

Thank you for taking the time to write out that long post. We recently found out my dd  was accepted to a year long study abroad program and I'm starting to think about what kind of questions I need to ask and what kind of challenges she may face.

[lewelma]

We have one boarding school here in Wellington, Scots College. It has a very strong international program and is considered one of the top schools in the country.  Here is a link: https://www.scotscollege.school.nz/admissions/international