ASSE International Student Exchange Program

This organization is one to stay away from if you are considering hosting an exchange student. They say they will work with families if any issues arise, but that is 100% a lie! After having our student for less than 4 months, there was an issue between the student and my spouse that could have EASILY been fixed, but instead, the rep. told us NOT to talk to the student about it until they could be present for the meeting - a week and a half later. This gave the student time to sit and stew about what happened, spend hours on the phone with their parents complaining about it to the point where they had decided they wanted to go to a new family without ever saying anything to us about it. When we had the meeting, we had NO idea the student had gotten to that point. We were hoping to come to a solution and then move on, but no - the rep. did NOTHING to encourage the student to stay and try to work things out - ZERO! My child and I were devastated as we got along well with the exchange student. My advice - run, don't walk away from this company and go with another agency that has a better reputation. It's easy enough to Google "best foreign exchange student companies" like I wish I had done prior to taking to going through ASSE.

This exchange program ruined my life.
Amid the COVID 19 pandemic ASSE and it’s international partners failed to communicate with me (the student) or my parents. This program offered (in email, there is proof) a deferral of my program and are now refusing to honer our agreement.
Additionally they placed me with a family who believed that my sexual orientation was not real as well as making me spend the night in a hotel with a very creepy one of their international partners.
The money that my family spent to give me a experience of a life time is now wasted, and if it weren’t it could have been vital for collage or another one of my passions.
My advice, don’t trust them, they will lie and go back on their promises.

This is an excellent company to use for foreign exchange. They have a screening process that all of their applicants go through and many opportunities for students to travel to a variety of countries. One of my students recently went on foreign exchange to Spain on a full ride scholarship that even included her airfare for flights to and from the country! She had some rocky times in working through cultural differences, but overall her experience was incredible. I would recommend this company and its affiliated programs to anyone looking to broaden the horizons of themselves, their families, or their students.

We hosted our first foreign exchange student through this company. It was one of the most awful experiences ever. The student was a liar and manipulative. In fact, the head of ASSE Michigan said she was one of the most manipulative people she had ever encountered. This student broke at least 12 of the clearly stated rules in the handbook. There are only 15 rules all together. The company was informed of her misbehavior every step of the way. We tried everything to help this child transition to life here. The company did nothing to help with that. It was horrendous. DO NOT EVER USE THIS COMPANY FOR A FOREIGN EXCHANGE EXPERIENCE. Awful customer service, awful treatment of host families, and awful help with student transitioning.