Update-- Our student has been with us for 1 week now. We're having doubts and will be talking with the coordinator in the next couple of days to review. If we're not a good match, the coordinator will take her, so there is some consolation her year may not be ruined. Its possible she may just want to return to Italy, but this could also be homesickness.
@Trifle I'll be sending you a message and hopefully we can discuss details and your experiences. As nice as our coordinator is, I feel your lifestyle and outlook is closer to ours, plus its always good to have another perspective.
Regardless of how much preparation has gone into this, there are a number of miscommunications and differing expectations. Here are some things that have raised red flags--
1) Our student is learning of our frugality- our love of thrift stores, expiring grocery discounts, joy of free lumber, and discarded items. She seems ok with it, but not sure how much she approves or is just being polite. Yesterday, she just had a two hour argument with her mom about spending allowance. Her mom is capping her budget at $300/month for personal use-- makeup, going out with friends, Starbucks, hair/nails, gym membership, etc. The student is freaking out and putting up a fit because this isn't nearly enough money in her opinion. She asked us what we thought. We both said $300 is very generous and have no idea what we would even spend it on to exceed that amount.
2) Small detail, but relevant because its only been 1 week. Before arriving, we asked both the student and parents what kinds of foods she doesn't like. They both previously said she eats everything, but there is always something, so we pressed for more. Again, both insist she eats anything you put in front of her, and there is nothing she doesn't like. From trial and error, we've found she doesn't like mushrooms, beets, corn on the cob (we were surprised they eat this in Italy and hoped it would be new to her) and possibly corn in general, and beans. Beans are a part of probably 20% of our dinners. Not insurmountable, but was surprised at such a basic food. We're curious what other foods will come up as time goes on.
3) Her application describes her hometown as small and rural, with nothing to do. The closest major city is supposedly several hours away. The reality is that she lives in an extremely dense area, 30 minutes from the center of Naples. Her neighborhood and surrounding area for miles consist of 3-5 story buildings with no trees in sight. Before arriving, we talked with the parents about how much shock it will be to move to our town, if she thinks she lives in a small place. They insist their town is small. I had to send google map screenshots of where we live versus where they are, both set to the same scale, to get them to understand. One shows a sea of dense streets and concrete, covering almost the whole screen for about a hundred square miles. The other shows two suburban towns among a vast forest.
4) The application talked about wanting to travel and mentioned places the student has gone. They are international, but all within relatively short flights from Italy. The reality is that among those places, she has also been to New York City twice, as well as Japan. She wants to travel within the US and perhaps Mexico or Canada. We discussed our potential travel plans--- Mexico over winter break and Disney after graduation, among some more local trips. These don't seem particularly impressive (perhaps given our shoe string budget), and the family is discussing going to Paris (which might be against rules according to the organization) for winter break instead, as well as the parents meeting her in Boston after school finishes.
5) The application discussed her love of science and dream of going to school to be an aerospace engineer. She goes to a high level science high school and had most of her exchange fees paid through an academic scholarship. We thought that with my mechanical engineering degree and my wife with a phd in biochemistry, we would have some connection, but that seems to be really lacking. She insists she wants to do everything she can to be a competitive applicant to a US university, but has absolutely no interest in the extracurriculars that point in that direction. No interest in the robotics team, drones, or the Perseid meteor showers happening as I type. Nothing that I see about her makes me think 'engineer', which is a real shame because we picked her partly because of our backgrounds and the proximity to the excellent engineering university here.
6) The student's parents have been divorced for 7 years, so she has been living with the mom since she was 9 years old. The dad lives nearby and she sees him everyday. We're not sure if that is why she avoids me or if its actually my personality, but so far, we've been having a very awkward time together. She enjoys being around my wife, but is clearly uncomfortable with me. The first few days went well, but not so much in the past few. In general, the student has been excited when we bring her places and introduce new things. We ask her lots of questions, but she hasn't asked anything personal about ourselves. She certainly is comfortable around the house and definitely shows no hesitation to make herself at home.
If she decides to move in with the coordinator, they will probably align closer in lifestyle and personalities, but that certainly won't fix the issue of living in a truly small town. In the worst case scenario, she still has a few weeks before school starts in Italy, so she could go back and not mess up her school year. Also, choosing classes here has been very difficult since Italy has a school by school approval process to decide which classes will be given credit, so its completely at the discretion of the principal. At this point, she has selected three AP classes in her schedule to get credit back home, which does not sound fun for a cultural exchange year.
