I agree with every review that claims how life changing it is to host a student; it truly is a rewarding experience. However, my experience with ICES has been remarkably poor and I highly recommend parents look elsewhere before entrusting this organization with the welfare and safety of their children.
We had a student from a separate exchange program and decided to take in an ICES student mid-year after learning of her situation. Her original host was an older woman who used her for free labor and barely fed her. After these allegations came up, ICES was slow in investigating and incompetent in coordinating the transition in host families. It was a stressful 2 months for us, the student, and her parents as we went back and forth with ICES unable to get documents signed, move dates set, etc... Even at the highest levels of the ICES organization, they were either unwilling or lacked the competence to handle the situation.
If we only had struggles at the coordinator level, I may not hold it against the entire organization, but we dealt with multiple supervisors and directors as well. After this experience, I will never deal with ICES again and would never entrust this organization with the welfare of my child.
Hosting for our family has been amazing through ICES. Our children love having the kids and they and us and learned so much about other countries and cultures. What a great way to learn and explore without leaving home. We can’t also wait til we can venture to visit our kids overseas. They are forever our sons and daughters. ICES has been an amazing experience with staff and the students we’ve had. Highly recommend!
I am a field manager with ICES. This company stands for greatness. They do it right. They support the families who so graciously volunteer their homes and families to help make the kids dreams come true. We work hard to place the students in homes and communities where they will get a great look at real American culture while learning English and making friends for life. We are there to support the kids and families when questions and problems arise. We love filling hearts and creating smiles all over the world.
I have hosted 12 students and love the experience. If you have a chance to change a life by hosting an exchange student please think about it.
We love hosting through ICES foreign exchange. We have hosted 16 students in all with 11 of them being through ICES. They become part of your family. They do a great job of supporting you through the year giving the kids Great opportunities to hang out with and meet kids from all over the world through fun activities.
In the past 4 years, I've worked with International Cultural Exchange Services and been consistently impressed by the quality of support provided to foreign exchange students and host families. They place a huge emphasis on making a good match between families and students and being there to help every step of the way to help create lifetime relationships.