Oldfort raises some good points - how many kids end up being unhappy with their experience. Akthough not the asme thing, one of my kids did a summer overseas program that turned out not to be a great experience. It was a homestay program, but the family was out all day at work or school, leaving him to fend for himself. The best times were when he was with other foreign students, but that was not all that often.
OP: one thought is whether you can get the course list ahead of time and get some buy in from the high school. Is there any way to show that the overseas school will be as rigorous as her current HS?
@Oldfort – the problems you mentioned are pretty much the POINT of the foreign exchange experience - that is WHY colleges really value students like @proudterrier or my daughter who had the courage at age 16 to get on an airplane, fly to some point of the globe thousands of miles away from home, to live with strangers, perhaps in a community where no one speaks their language. Yes, my daughter had some tearful nights-- in fact, that later was the basis for her common app essay – (the basic, “challenge you have overcome” theme – focused on the language barriers). My DD did have a positive experience with her host family - but she also came into conflict with the host mom. It was typical mother-daughter dynamics-- except, of course, they weren’t really related.
Of course many young people aren’t ready for that sort of challenge – but I am assuming that the OP’s daughter is.
Living abroad with a host family is very different from living abroad with one’s parents. In the first place – usually a foreign exchange is the students’ idea. (Very few parents push their kids towards something like that; many, like me, are supportive and encouraging, but other teens have to work hard at persuading their parents to allow the exchange.). And a kid who is on her own living with a host family is going to respond differently to challenges, precisely because she doesn’t have her parents there to pick up the pieces.
@oldfort: We were a host family for a German student. The program we were in was called Youth For Understanding (YFU). They have a regional rep. check in with the student once a month and see how are thing are going. We also saw another girl this year in that program change families…the family just wasn’t happy with the change in their family dynamic. She had at least two other families at her school that were willing to host her. Also the parents get to meet (via skype) the other host parents so you don’t feel like you are sending your kid into the unknown.
The family I lived with in France had been hosting exchange students for at least ten years. I think their experience was very helpful. I kept up with everyone for over thirty years.
Frankly having done international moves as a parent, (and just to english speaking countries, allegedly) doing it by choice to my kid in junior year would give me total horrors. Gap year, fabulous, summer exchange, awesome, junior year? Nah.
I was 13 or 14 when I went on a 2 week exchange to France and that was fun. Not for a school year, not the year to apply to university.
My D’s public school is very supportive of her doing a junior year abroad. All of her credits will transfer and she will not have to take an extra year. You are right that junior year is particularly tricky–with having to take PSAT and SAT (unless she waits for fall of senior year) abroad. A friend’s daughter did the same, had no trouble with the standardized tests, and was admitted to all her colleges. I’m sorry to hear your school is so discouraging of this opportunity. I wouldn’t pass it up!