When should I Apply? - Page 3

Cutie_NYA · (#21)

Does anyone know about how much it cost to go to japan with AFS and everything else!?

No one has answered me on that one yet please reply!

nico · (#22)

Roughly $11,500, and I'm 99% sure it's going to change by the time you apply.

Just a word of advice...
Check the AFS USA website next time.
Not just with AFS USA. Any other organization, unless it's something like Rotary and there's none of that information on the website. In most cases, though, prices should be there, as should age requirements and similar things.

I don't want to seem rude, especially because this forum is designed for us to help each other, but when it comes to things like this, I feel like it's not extremely difficult to search something on Google.

All it takes is typing in, "AFS USA Japan" and clicking on the second link.

Sorry, I couldn't help but put it out there.

tokyoviktoria · (#23)

Originally Posted by Cutie_NYA

Does anyone know about how much it cost to go to japan with AFS and everything else!?

No one has answered me on that one yet please reply!

Ah, I know Nico already answered this, but not only do you have to pay $11,000 for the entry fee, you have to pay for a passport&visa ($110) airplane ticket to L.A. (they pay for your Japan ticket... Actually it's included in the $11,000, but you'll pay about $350 for your ticket)
Then you have to actually invest in learning the language. I talked to my Aunt about this (who is obsessed with the Japanese culture as well) and she said that her Sensei (who teaches her caligraphy) had his grandson go to Tokyo as an exchange student with Americans who didn't speak any at all (Level Zero, and they didn't learn a single thing. Yeah, you can learn the names of dishes, or items, but that doesn't help, especially with communicating and bums out your chance to make friends, too. Other than the other exchangers.

Also, AFS requires you to pay a $900 application fee for whenever you've completed the FULL application. So right now, you're betting on paying at least $12,400. I'm 14 and going into 9th grade. I tried rushing to go in the 2011-2012 year (7 months from now) and just decided it's not possible. There is no way I'll be able to get that much money in that amount of time. So I'm waiting for 2012-2013 (1 year and 7 and a half months from now) and I'll turn 16 years old 20 days before departure.

During this time, I'll be having a part time job and working 4 hours mon-fri at $7 an hour, and on Saturday I'll be working for 10 hours. Sunday will be my break day. I can get a job where I live, and because my mom is on Medical Disability. So for you, I'd say focus on your grades. Seriously. If you can get a financial aid scholarship because of your good grades, you'll be able to relax and just breathe.

Also, during this time, practice your Japanese! You should learn how to read and write Japanese, even if you don't know what you're saying. There (from what I've heard) are 3 stages. Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. They should be learned in that order. Then, when you can actually read and say out loud when you see (in a manga book printed in Japanese or magazine) you can translate those words to English. It'll help a lot. Trust me.

For learning Hiragana (first phase) click here;
http://japanese.about.com/library/blhira.htm
Click lesson one, and you'll learn the vowels (a, e, i, o, and u). The vowels are not pronounced how they look (in most cases). The "a" is pronounced "ah" and the "i" is pronounced "ee". So when you go to this page,

-Click lesson 1
-When you see the page giving a small description of Hiragana, click next lesson.
- You'll see the basic Hiragana chart, hit next lesson.
- From this point on, you'll learn the vowels. I'm copying the picture, it's extremely important. If you look, it shows you the "stroke order" which is the most important part about learning Japanese. It's completely wrong if you don't do it in the write order, so make sure you watch the arrows and steps.
**If you need help pronouncing it, there should be a little text below the picture saying "Listen to the pronounciation of "a"" or whatever it is you're on. Click it, it should be in blue, and download it on your computer. It's safe, don't worry, I've been downloading it on mine. And it was approved by McAfee Site Advisor. I downloaded mine into a folder that I made in my music folder : P So then just click on it and it'll repeat it over and over and over again lol. But you'll understand it!

http://www.parisinjapan.blogspot.com/
^ on this girl's blog, near the bottom-ish, she has the Hiragana and Katakana charts and what the pronounciations of them are on there. Remember, it's different from what we say, so I reccomend doing the lessons first which may take awhile, but is actually relatively easy.

(speaking Japanese isn't being able to say "konichiwwaa" or "kawaii" like a lot of people think (otaku/weeaboos specifically, no offense to them). It'll honestly get you no where.)
Take a look at this stuff, it's pretty fascinating, and working your brain seems hard, but it's actually a lot of fun! Sorry for the longggg message/comment though haha!

Cutie_NYA · (#24)

Originally Posted by tokyoviktoria

Ah, I know Nico already answered this, but not only do you have to pay $11,000 for the entry fee, you have to pay for a passport&visa ($110) airplane ticket to L.A. (they pay for your Japan ticket... Actually it's included in the $11,000, but you'll pay about $350 for your ticket)
Then you have to actually invest in learning the language. I talked to my Aunt about this (who is obsessed with the Japanese culture as well) and she said that her Sensei (who teaches her caligraphy) had his grandson go to Tokyo as an exchange student with Americans who didn't speak any at all (Level Zero, and they didn't learn a single thing. Yeah, you can learn the names of dishes, or items, but that doesn't help, especially with communicating and bums out your chance to make friends, too. Other than the other exchangers.

Also, AFS requires you to pay a $900 application fee for whenever you've completed the FULL application. So right now, you're betting on paying at least $12,400. I'm 14 and going into 9th grade. I tried rushing to go in the 2011-2012 year (7 months from now) and just decided it's not possible. There is no way I'll be able to get that much money in that amount of time. So I'm waiting for 2012-2013 (1 year and 7 and a half months from now) and I'll turn 16 years old 20 days before departure.

During this time, I'll be having a part time job and working 4 hours mon-fri at $7 an hour, and on Saturday I'll be working for 10 hours. Sunday will be my break day. I can get a job where I live, and because my mom is on Medical Disability. So for you, I'd say focus on your grades. Seriously. If you can get a financial aid scholarship because of your good grades, you'll be able to relax and just breathe.

Also, during this time, practice your Japanese! You should learn how to read and write Japanese, even if you don't know what you're saying. There (from what I've heard) are 3 stages. Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. They should be learned in that order. Then, when you can actually read and say out loud when you see (in a manga book printed in Japanese or magazine) you can translate those words to English. It'll help a lot. Trust me.

For learning Hiragana (first phase) click here;
http://japanese.about.com/library/blhira.htm
Click lesson one, and you'll learn the vowels (a, e, i, o, and u). The vowels are not pronounced how they look (in most cases). The "a" is pronounced "ah" and the "i" is pronounced "ee". So when you go to this page,

-Click lesson 1
-When you see the page giving a small description of Hiragana, click next lesson.
- You'll see the basic Hiragana chart, hit next lesson.
- From this point on, you'll learn the vowels. I'm copying the picture, it's extremely important. If you look, it shows you the "stroke order" which is the most important part about learning Japanese. It's completely wrong if you don't do it in the write order, so make sure you watch the arrows and steps.
**If you need help pronouncing it, there should be a little text below the picture saying "Listen to the pronounciation of "a"" or whatever it is you're on. Click it, it should be in blue, and download it on your computer. It's safe, don't worry, I've been downloading it on mine. And it was approved by McAfee Site Advisor. I downloaded mine into a folder that I made in my music folder : P So then just click on it and it'll repeat it over and over and over again lol. But you'll understand it!

http://www.parisinjapan.blogspot.com/
^ on this girl's blog, near the bottom-ish, she has the Hiragana and Katakana charts and what the pronounciations of them are on there. Remember, it's different from what we say, so I reccomend doing the lessons first which may take awhile, but is actually relatively easy.

(speaking Japanese isn't being able to say "konichiwwaa" or "kawaii" like a lot of people think (otaku/weeaboos specifically, no offense to them). It'll honestly get you no where.)
Take a look at this stuff, it's pretty fascinating, and working your brain seems hard, but it's actually a lot of fun! Sorry for the longggg message/comment though haha!

Thanks a bunch that really helps!!! I'm learning basic japanese this summer with rossetta stone the when I'm in high school I'm going to take classes

Cutie_NYA · (#25)

Originally Posted by tokyoviktoria

Ah, I know Nico already answered this, but not only do you have to pay $11,000 for the entry fee, you have to pay for a passport&visa ($110) airplane ticket to L.A. (they pay for your Japan ticket... Actually it's included in the $11,000, but you'll pay about $350 for your ticket)
Then you have to actually invest in learning the language. I talked to my Aunt about this (who is obsessed with the Japanese culture as well) and she said that her Sensei (who teaches her caligraphy) had his grandson go to Tokyo as an exchange student with Americans who didn't speak any at all (Level Zero, and they didn't learn a single thing. Yeah, you can learn the names of dishes, or items, but that doesn't help, especially with communicating and bums out your chance to make friends, too. Other than the other exchangers.

Also, AFS requires you to pay a $900 application fee for whenever you've completed the FULL application. So right now, you're betting on paying at least $12,400. I'm 14 and going into 9th grade. I tried rushing to go in the 2011-2012 year (7 months from now) and just decided it's not possible. There is no way I'll be able to get that much money in that amount of time. So I'm waiting for 2012-2013 (1 year and 7 and a half months from now) and I'll turn 16 years old 20 days before departure.

During this time, I'll be having a part time job and working 4 hours mon-fri at $7 an hour, and on Saturday I'll be working for 10 hours. Sunday will be my break day. I can get a job where I live, and because my mom is on Medical Disability. So for you, I'd say focus on your grades. Seriously. If you can get a financial aid scholarship because of your good grades, you'll be able to relax and just breathe.

Also, during this time, practice your Japanese! You should learn how to read and write Japanese, even if you don't know what you're saying. There (from what I've heard) are 3 stages. Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. They should be learned in that order. Then, when you can actually read and say out loud when you see (in a manga book printed in Japanese or magazine) you can translate those words to English. It'll help a lot. Trust me.

For learning Hiragana (first phase) click here;
http://japanese.about.com/library/blhira.htm
Click lesson one, and you'll learn the vowels (a, e, i, o, and u). The vowels are not pronounced how they look (in most cases). The "a" is pronounced "ah" and the "i" is pronounced "ee". So when you go to this page,

-Click lesson 1
-When you see the page giving a small description of Hiragana, click next lesson.
- You'll see the basic Hiragana chart, hit next lesson.
- From this point on, you'll learn the vowels. I'm copying the picture, it's extremely important. If you look, it shows you the "stroke order" which is the most important part about learning Japanese. It's completely wrong if you don't do it in the write order, so make sure you watch the arrows and steps.
**If you need help pronouncing it, there should be a little text below the picture saying "Listen to the pronounciation of "a"" or whatever it is you're on. Click it, it should be in blue, and download it on your computer. It's safe, don't worry, I've been downloading it on mine. And it was approved by McAfee Site Advisor. I downloaded mine into a folder that I made in my music folder : P So then just click on it and it'll repeat it over and over and over again lol. But you'll understand it!

http://www.parisinjapan.blogspot.com/
^ on this girl's blog, near the bottom-ish, she has the Hiragana and Katakana charts and what the pronounciations of them are on there. Remember, it's different from what we say, so I reccomend doing the lessons first which may take awhile, but is actually relatively easy.

(speaking Japanese isn't being able to say "konichiwwaa" or "kawaii" like a lot of people think (otaku/weeaboos specifically, no offense to them). It'll honestly get you no where.)
Take a look at this stuff, it's pretty fascinating, and working your brain seems hard, but it's actually a lot of fun! Sorry for the longggg message/comment though haha!

Originally Posted by nico

Roughly $11,500, and I'm 99% sure it's going to change by the time you apply.

Just a word of advice...
Check the AFS USA website next time.
Not just with AFS USA. Any other organization, unless it's something like Rotary and there's none of that information on the website. In most cases, though, prices should be there, as should age requirements and similar things.

I don't want to seem rude, especially because this forum is designed for us to help each other, but when it comes to things like this, I feel like it's not extremely difficult to search something on Google.

All it takes is typing in, "AFS USA Japan" and clicking on the second link.

Sorry, I couldn't help but put it out there.

Ya it's okay I'm a retarded person so i couldnt find anything... Maybe cuz I'm a blonde? idk anyway thanks for the info it really helped!!!

Cutie_NYA · (#26)

was that price for a year trip??????

nico · (#27)

Yep, that's for a year.

tokyoviktoria · (#28)

Originally Posted by Cutie_NYA

was that price for a year trip??????

LOL, I'm blonde too

Haha.
$11,000 is a year trip. Plus $75 for the pre-liminary application (I'm not sure if you did that one yet, it gets your name in the system) and $900 for the actual application (when you turn it in). You also need $350 for a plane ticket to L.A. (that's the current price, have no idea what a price 3-4 years from now is) and then $110 for your passport&visa. Then, of course, you'll be spending about $75 in items that you'll bring, and you should bring some spare money in case of an airport emergency ($25-$30). Soooo.... Yeah!

Rosetta Stone is extremely expensive, to buy all 3 sets (you'll need) it's $550!!! So I reccomend using those websites and learning the language like that, then you can progess to maybe buying just lesson 2 or lesson 3. They teach you words mostly, which I suppose can be good, but if you need to save money for awhile... Since the trip itself is extremely expensive...

I'm saving money up not just for the fee, but $500 for a new camera since I'll be taking TONS of pictures, and $270 for a Flip Cam to record things.

cmunch · (#29)

^ That $900 full application "fee", is just a deposit of the $11,500 year cost. When you turn in the full application, you'll be turning in $900 of that $11,500 cost

It's not a separate $900.

nico · (#30)

Originally Posted by cmunch

^ That $900 full application "fee", is just a deposit of the $11,500 year cost. When you turn in the full application, you'll be turning in $900 of that $11,500 cost

It's not a separate $900.

This.

This is true.

Also, costs will vary in the end, especially since you're in 7th grade and can't apply until you're in 9th (and even then I would recommend waiting).

The most important part is that full year tuition last year was $10,900, if i'm not mistaken, and this year's tuition is $11,500, meaning that there was something like a 5% increase in the price.