It never occurred to me that I should check out reviews for this program, and I regret that now. Our daughter was on a scholarship program with AFS to spend a hear of high school in Germany. There were warning signs from the beginning that we should have noticed. During our interview for a host family placement, we were told that our answers to questions such as "Do you prefer a city or village? What kind of activities do you do as a family? What are you family chores at home? were all wrong and that we should change our answers to better suit the program.
Once our daughter arrived in Germany it became clear there were problems with her host family. She ended up being moved around to 4 different families in total, including one that thought she was the au pair being assigned to them. During this whole time any problems were always blamed on her. I will admit she is not perfect and can be difficult, but not the extend that was portrayed. All of the meetings with her supposed advisor were sessions that they would just complain about her and she would get no say in the matter or chance to explain, contribute or ask any questions. Any family problems were things she had to deal with. Reports were also repeatedly mixed up, they would confuse hers with another child's report, so she had no idea what was going on and where some of these complaints were coming from. It took many phone calls and discussions to get cleared up, but it continued to happen with each family. She would be told she had to sign these "contracts" with wrong information on them and told you have to because you don't want to go home.
One liaison she met with at one the schools she attend told her she was a failure for not making the family work (the family were the mother also told her she was a failure for not having a boyfriend). Of course they denied this, but there were teachers and other students present that heard this. One family was given a list of all the problems AFS though were going on with our daughter before she moved in. Again they denied this, but the host family asked about the items on the list with others whom informed us about it.
In the end there was just no support for our daughter. After she tried to work with her AFS contact to fix things with her first family they basically told her to stop complaining and not say anything with the next 3 families. Anything she did do would be seen as complaining and not trying. Everything was very one sided, always the side against her. She was never allowed to really succeed and flourish on the program because she was always under this cloud of you do or say anything and you will be sent home.