If you are a school that is hosting an AFS exchange student for the first time, we welcome you to the AFS family! We hope this is the first of many great years of bringing a new culture to your school community and we hope you will begin exploring the remainder of the resources available to you and your staff through this resource library. You should receive a certificate from a member of the AFS-USA staff in April or May of your first year hosting an AFS student as a form of our gratitude.
If the student that you are hosting happens to be a recipient of a U.S. Department of State scholarship, please read about the Medallion Member School program as you will be receiving both a digital medallion and a physical certificate to celebrate your participation in that program as well.
If your school hosted AFS students in the past, but it has been numerous years since you've had one of our students in your school, we hope you will proudly display your Welcome Back certificate of recognition that is emailed to the staff member who signs the school acceptance paperwork. The AFS-USA staff emails those certificates of recognition in April/May annually!
Assuming you've had a pleasant experience with an AFS student in your school this year, we'd like to invite you to consider making AFS a preferred or exclusive partner for your intercultural exchange needs to both streamline the communication for your staff and to ensure that you have a dedicated volunteer and/or staff liaison to help ensure compliance to all of your internal policies governing exchange students. Learn more about becoming an AFS-exclusive school here.