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I was an Ayusa exchange student a while back, and let me tell you that this is the worst communication I’ve ever experienced with an organization. When I was placed in the US, I had a hard time connecting with people, I’ll be honest. Once it got better after a month or so, someone who goes over the evaluation conversations of Ayusa, sent MY MOM an email telling her lots of things that I’ve been doing wrong and claiming other things while they never contacted me first about it. Saying that I wanted to quit cheer for no reason, that I made my hostmom sit in the backseat, had no interests in my host family and other exchange student who lived next to me, that I closed myself off in my room and that I was being dramatic over a 15 min car drive (I can get panic attacks in small places, so that’s why. Even a 5 min car drive gave me a panic attack when I was there). Mind you, they have never emailed me first to confirm this all, they straight up emailed my organization and mother first. What a lack of communication and respect. I had to receive their email through my mom too. It actually made me so upset that I emailed back to explain everything, while I still think they should’ve contacted me first if they wanted to make these fake claims about me to make my people at home worry. Everything that was said in their email wasn’t true and never heard of, so I gave them the truth about everything and explaining everything they said I was doing. And they NEVER apologized. The lady who sent out that email later came to our place, and I’ll be honest, I was a little cold towards her. Genuinely because she didn’t apologize for making false claims and not contacting me about it first. It was brought up that I sometimes made my host mom late for school (never heard about this before, so also my host moms fault for not telling me it was a real issue. I apologized for it though.) and the lady from Ayusa jokingly said that if she were my host mom, she would’ve kicked me out immediately. She made more comments like that, so that’s also why I was being cold towards her. I was younger back then, but I still realize this isn’t how you treat your own exchange student. I wouldn’t recommend this organization to anyone, there’s a lot of other organizations that actually do make their own exchange students their number 1 priority. Ayusa failed me, and they never apologized to me for it. I’m not someone who leaves reviews at all, but I really wouldn’t want anyone to experience what I experienced because it messed me up so bad I left the US earlier to go back home. Be very picky and careful with your organizations.
This is our third year hosting a double placement with Ayusa. We have hosted six students with them from Egypt, Turkey, Japan, France, Spain and Italy. We already have our two students picked for next year from Germany and the Netherlands.We have been very happy with AYUSA, the support they give and the quality and selection of students. Our family has enjoyed hosting! All of our students become like family. So much so that our daughter went to Egypt last summer and stayed with our exchange student's family for a month.We have had a wonderful experience with Ayusa!
Our first exchange student was awesome and everything went great. Our second exchange student not so much. The student was placed with a new family with no explanation or reason why only after 2 months of being with us. Lack of communication and leadership. Never again will we host thru AYUSA or from that the Country the student came from.Just like Doug J stated. Its all about the money and how many kids they can cram in the CR's area because the CR might be a volunteer but they get paid for each student that is placed.
I’m an old exchange student, ayusa was my organisation it was during 2022-2023 except the fact that they organised trips which was so much fun i do not recommend this organisation at all. As a exchange student it will always be your fault even if you would live in a horrible situation with the family/ the houses of whatever it’s always gonna be your fault and you will have to change, if you complain to them if you’re ask them to change family they’ll threat you, they’ll told you that you have 2 week to change your comportement or you will be send back in your country. My host sister who was also an exchange student with ayusa had a lot of problem she didn’t do anything at all our cordinator local was inventing things about her this whole story made her feel so sad, you cannot count on them if your sad or whatever anyway FIND ANOTHER ORGANISATION
We hosted our first and only exchange student less than 3 weeks through Ayusa. Don’t waste your time or money. What came out, when the student was comfortable enough to say it, was that she didn’t have any interest in being in the middle of the country (she wanted to be on the west coast); with her mother’s encouragement, she deleted social media postings showing her drinking and vaping; and she had a very serious boyfriend and her parents had rented them a room for a weekend in a nearby country as a final send-off before she came to the USA. Her idea of American culture was limited to NYC. She looked down on everything – how young the other students appeared/acted, how easy school was, how fat Americans are, how loud we are, etc. The student didn’t want to do anything except message back home, including all days at school. She had to be nagged to get involved in anything at school. We reached out to Ayusa. The result was an extraction that rivaled Seal Team 6.
Over the years we have hosted a total of six exchange students, five of these we hosted through Ayusa. We reluctantly continued to use Ayusa because we were already established with them. However, we will not use them again. In general, our hosting exchange students has been a positive experience. However, the positive experience was despite Ayusa and simply because the majority of exchange students are serious students who want to experience the United States. After gaining more experience with how Ayusa operates, we would no longer recommend Ayusa to anyone. The main problems with Ayusa center on their true and only motive which is money. They do not properly vet exchange students which increases the risk of students that are not appropriate or ready for an exchange problem to still be accepted. Another big concern is that the pay reps that work for Ayusa receive is tied to how many students they recruit to be exchange students. We have now come across three examples of Ayusa telling complete lies to either us or our exchange students. These lies appear clearly are either because a local rep didn’t want to risk losing a placement and the nice commission that come with it or because a rep didn’t want to be bothered with looking into requested travel dates. The first lie we discovered was told to the family of an exchange student we hosted from Chile. The local rep in Chile told the family that if our student attended her senior year of high school that she would get a real high school diploma. That was a totally false statement that our Chilean student and her family didn’t learn the truth about until after she arrived. Her father was particularly upset about this because he never would had agreed to his daughter going in the program had he known she would still need to take her last year of high school upon returning to Chile. This lie, along with our student’s parents wanting her to return to Chile, was why she returned back to Chile after the first semester instead of completing the full year as originally planned. The only reason we can tell for Ayusa lying to that family was that the rep didn’t want to lose the commission for signing them up. Another lie told to both us and the family of a student we hosted from Holland concerned travel dates. What was worse about this is it was actually a regional coordinator for Ayusa that told the lie. We told this student from Holland that our County Fair was be in town and if she could arrive a few days early, she could go to that. When we approached Ayusa about her arriving a few days early, we were told “oh that’s not possible, we can’t do that”. Then about three weeks later, that same regional coordinator contacted us again telling us want a great idea it would be for this student to arrive a few days early. My wife gets the credit for immediately seeing through this. She checked the cost of the airline ticket, and saw that the date we suggested was significantly cheaper than the original date Ayusa was planning on having the student fly. As always, when it comes to Ayusa, it was all about the money, not what is best for the student. The third lie Ayusa told got wrapped up in a lie a French family told Ayusa when we hosted a student from France. This French girl’s profile said she didn’t want to be placed in a home with pets. Then later in the profile she said she was very allergic to cats. We have dogs, no cats. So we asked Ayusa to contact them to get clarification if the problem was just cats and if dogs would be fine. The response we got back was that the student would love being with dogs. That was a complete lie the girl’s father told Ayusa. Not only did this girl not like dogs, she had a strong fear of them. The student blamed her father for the lie. The father is who was contacted by Ayusa and asked. She said that when her father told them what he had told Ayusa, her mom and her called Ayusa and tried to clarify the situation. However, the rep there in France apparently said it would be fine and never passed on the clarification. Likely this was because the rep was more concerned about getting the commission. Out dogs are mostly inside dogs, so yes it was a big issue. In this case, initially I was not sure if our French student was telling the truth about trying to send a clarification or not. However, when considering the other lies we have seen personnel with Ayusa tell, I concluded the French family was probably telling the truth and it probably all was because of the Ayusa reps concern about losing a commission.
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Ayusa International is a non-profit high school exchange organization dedicated to developing the next generation of global leaders and world citizens. By connecting extraordinary international students with host families in the U.S., we cultivate leadership skills, develop intercultural awareness and enhance global knowledge not only through education but through experience.See more
