Exciting Homeschool News!

If your high schooler loves languages and is excited to experience another culture (and living with another family), here is how your high school student can apply to study abroad for free!

My daughter, DD, participated in CBYX from early August 2022 to June 22, 2023. She took it as a “gap” year, so to speak. Then this year she did dual enrollment at our local community college and applied to colleges. Her year abroad really impacted DD and she is now thinking she will double-major in international relations and German with a minor in statistics.  (DD is such a driven person!!)

My youngest daughter, ED, applied for all four of the scholarships below.  She was accepted to CBYX this spring and will be leaving in August 2024 and will return in June 2025. [That is why I will be offering some science and history classes both online (M/T) and in-person (W/F) here where I live!] She too will come back and continue homeschooling (probably also doing some dual enrollment) and then will apply for college. She was also accepted by the YES Abroad and FLEX Abroad and was also offered a scholarship to spend the year studying in Indonesia. It was a very difficult decision for her to decide which scholarship to accept, but she decided upon Germany. We started studying German as a foreign language in our homeschool when ED was about 7 years old. She is conversationally fluent in German and is excited to improve her German fluency.

By the way, my girls never attended traditional school here in the U.S.

Here are a couple more pictures from Germany:

Below are the four scholarship programs. These are merit-based scholarships. They are all quite difficult to get into (I think I saw that about 2-5% of students who apply are selected.)

CBYX– This is what my two daughters participated/will participate in. This is a joint program between the U.S. Congress and the German Bundestag. Students leave in June and attend a six-week language and orientation program with the other American students. Then students head off to all different parts of Germany to live with their host family. Students must have an interest in learning the German language no German language study/knowledge is required to apply, though my kids started studying German in elementary and were semi-fluent by high school.

We didn’t know about these other programs when my middle daughter applied. My youngest also applied to these programs. 

YES Abroad – This program sends students primarily to select countries with significant Muslim populations. This includes countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Morocco, Northern Macedonia, Senegal, Turkey, Bulgaria, Bosnia & Herzegovina.

FLEX Abroad – Future Leaders Abroad Program – FLEX Abroad provides a unique fully funded exchange experience for American high school students to build global awareness and intercultural competency. This experience positively impacts students’ personal growth and ensures global mutual understanding through direct interaction with another culture. Some countries where students could spend their year include Kazakhstan, Georgia, Romania, Poland and other places depending on the year.

NSLIY – National Security Language Initiative for Youth – The U.S. Department of State’s NSLI-Y program is part of a U.S. government initiative to foster international cooperation by ensuring that Americans have the linguistic skills and cultural knowledge necessary to effectively communicate. NSLI-Y provides overseas critical language study opportunities to American youth through merit-based scholarships to spark a lifetime interest in critical foreign languages and cultures. Some countries could include: Estonia, China, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Korea, Latvia, Morocco, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkey, and other locations around the world depending on the year.

To be eligible students must

• A U.S. citizen
• Aged 15 to 18 ½ on August 1 of the program departure year
• A current high school student at the time of application, with a GPA of 2.5 or higher on a 4.0 scale
• Comply with U.S. Department of State eligibility policy for American Outbound Youth Programs (click here to view that policy)

Our Experience Applying to CBYX – the program in Germany

The application process is rigorous, especially for homeschoolers. It was similar to the college application process, so both your child and you will have a lot to do! The initial application was due in October for CBYX and in December for the other three scholarships.

• My daughter had to write about five essays for CBYX and an addition half-dozen essays for the combined applications for YES-Abroad, FLEX-Abroad and NSLIY
• She had to submit two letters of recommendation.
• I had to create a high school transcript. I included a one-page transcript and included a description for each class.
• Parent description.  I had to write a letter that described in no more than 350 words the following topics
  • • How your child communicates with others including peers, parents and authority figures;
    • How your child reacts to discipline and authority;
    • The amount of independence you give your child;
    • How your child handles challenging, uncomfortable or difficult situations;
    • How your childhandles disagreement or disappointment;
    • your child’s reaction to being away from home and ability to adapt to new situations;
    • Your observation of your child’s interest in these exchange programs, study abroad and/or rigorous language study;
    • Why you believe your child is prepared for the challenges that may arise during a rigorous overseas immersion program; and
    • Why you think it is important for your child to participate in an exchange program.
• We had to send her passport off to be renewed, as hers would expire before the program ended.
• She needed medical forms filled out, so she needed a physical, TB test, and a signature from her dentist.
• Students find out if they make it through to the interview phase in late December. For CBYX, my daughter had to fly to Dallas, TX for in-person interviews (in late January, early February).  She also made it through to the interview phase for YES-Abroad and FLEX-Abroad.  For these, she had interviews via Zoom.
• This is kind of related… ED took the SATs this spring as a sophomore since she will be overseas next year (and probably won’t do a rigorous amount of math since class will be held in German).

That’s about it for now! Feel free to email me if you have any questions!