Shared Goals and Best Practices

NWSE shares with your school a focus on positive educational outcomes and supports foreign language study. Our goals:

• To work with American schools toward educationally valuable, academically successful and enjoyable cultural experiences
• To select exchange students with the qualifications necessary to succeed academically and socially at their American schools
• To encourage and select qualified American high school students for educational exchange programs for an academic term overseas.
• To provide exchange students and host communities with opportunities to build positive relationships and learn about each other’s cultures, languages and life.
• To allow exchange students to immerse themselves in American culture by participating actively in the daily life and activities of their host family, school, and community.
• To comply with all school rules, policies and procedures.

NWSE carefully selects, prepares, and monitors students and host families:

• Exchange student applications submitted to your school include: detailed academic transcripts, essays, teacher recommendations, a physical examination, medical history, immunization records, and other important information.
• Each program candidate is interviewed in depth to assess their qualifications for the program.
• NWSE routinely conducts a second round of interviews to better assess the students’ personality, level of English and other qualifications…
• Students take the standardized English Language Test for International Students (ELTiS, unless exempted by NWSE). If a school requires the test for a student who was exempted, NWSE quickly arranges for the student to take the test. For more information about the ELTiS, please click here.
• All students participate in a pre-departure orientation in their home country.
• Upon program start, all students also take part in a post-arrival orientation.
• All host families are screened, at a minimum, through a detailed application, a background check, an in-home interview with the family, and references. Additional screening procedures may be performed on a case-by-case basis.
• A person other than the local Academic Coordinator double-checks the living conditions in the host family home.
• All host families participate in a program orientation.
• NWSE Academic Coordinators contact separately all exchange students and their host families at least once a month to help us monitor the students’ programs. They also contact schools at least twice per semester to keep track of the student’s academic performance and conduct at school.
• NWSE also performs additional spot checks with students and host families to help ensure program success.
• All NWSE exchange students arrive with health insurance that complies with program requirements.