Are you interested in a longer experience in Austria, including living with an Austrian host family and attending a German-language high school for a semester or a year? International Academic Competitions Founder and Executive Director David Madden experienced exactly that from August 1998-February 1999 with AFS, the world’s largest and most-renowned exchange student organization. David lived with an amazing Austrian family in Vienna whom he still visits several times a year, became fluent in German with a Viennese accent, and gained admission to Princeton University while in Austria (the Princeton University Dean of Admissions was quoted in the AFS brochure as saying that “ideally every incoming college freshman would have had the chance to be an exchange student.”) David later majored in International Relations and minored in German, before obtaining a Master’s degree International Relations in a dual-language program at the Free University of Berlin. He considers his time as an AFS exchange student in Vienna to have been incalculably important in his intellectual, social, and personal development, and as perfect preparation for a life full of international enterprise and adventure.
If you are interested in AFS programs in Austria (or other countries), please see AFS’s websites here and here for more information and email David at david@iacompetitions.com for further advice on how to apply (including information on scholarships for AFS programs).