Dear future host family and future school,

First of all I want to say thank you for giving me the opportunity to spend a year in the USA. 

It´s always been one of my bigges dreams to do an exchange year. In the following letter I want to tell you something about myself, my family, my school an why I want to go to the United States.

 My name is Jette and I´m a 15 years old girl living in a town with 17.000 inhabitans in Germany near the baltic sea.There I live together with my parents and my younger sister in a house with a green garden. Also I have two grandmas and one grandpa, who don’t live nearby, so I could see them only a few times a year. My mom works for a technical university and my dad for an international trading company, while my plans are graduating at my school and afterwords studying at the University, where I maybe want to study medicine

I would discribe me as a brave, smart and sporty person. Also I´m competitive, but sometimes I take things too seriously. In the first moments you will get to know me as rather shy and reserved, because I need some time to come out of myself. 

On a typical week day I wake up at 6:30 am. After breakfast I meet my best friend and together we ride to school. There we visit the 10th grade at the Gymnasium (the 2nd year in highschool) in our neighbourtown. Normally I have school for 6 to 7 hours. My favourite subjects are Maths, PE and Spanish. After school I go home, have lunch with my family and start doing homework. In my freetime and at the weekends I love reading, drawing, listening to music and writing storys.  
Also I´m part of our student council, where we come together every Thursday. My hobbies are playing badminton and piano as well as doing athletics and skiing.

In the summer holidays we often go hiking in the Alpes or skiing during wintertime. But we also visited other countries like Spain, Italy, South Africa and Indonesia. Unfortunately I have never been to the USA, the country, that has always fascinated me. I´m really happy to have the chance to spend a whole year there soon. In my opinion the US is one of the most exciting countries in the world. And by that I don't just mean the size and vastness of the USA, but also the breathtaking landscape and nature on the one hand and the metropolises like New York and San Francisco on the other. Added to this is the diversity of the population, wich comes from all regions of the world. I have heard from other exchange students that Americans are open and friendly people, with whom you can easily get in touch. In addition to improving my English, I would also like to get to know the famous "American way of life". 

I really hope that I will be able to become a part of my host family and live with them like a daugther. Maybe in exchange of them showing me the American culture, I could show them a bit of the German one. For example I can cook a typical German meal or bake a cake:). If they have children, I don't want any special treatment or something just because I'm an exchange student. I'd really enjoy it if they just look at me as another child.

What I hope from my high school is that the teachers will treat me like a "normal" student so that I can quickly integrate into the school community.

I'm looking forward to see you soon and thank you very much for letting me live with your family!

Kind regards or how we call it in Germany „Bis bald!" (See you soon)

Jette

Interested in hosting—whether 6-8 weeks or the entire school year?