Benefits for student participants

(draft only -- needs significant revision)
The page on AFS Wiki called The AFS Value Package also addresses the benefits of studying abroad.

Language: you can learn more during a year of immersion than with almost any duration of taking classes, even intensive studies at a domestic university
Intercultural thinking: It's tough to explain this to someone who hasn't experienced it, but it’s the ability to see almost any question from another cultural perspective. Intercultural thinking can help in surprising situations:
- Creativity and Negotiating ability: Scientific studies suggest both are improved by living abroad.
- Interviews: the ability to be a “cultural chameleon” and adopt the style of the person you’re talking with helps you break down barriers to communication
Career opportunities

Colleges see it as proof that you’re willing to tackle difficult challenges and that you can overcome them
- Exchange students have the proven ability to adapt to life away from home. One of the many challenges for college freshmen is adapting to life without mom and dad and a familiar community. Some students flail around for a year or more, just adapting to the change. But if you can adapt to life in a radically different culture, family, and language, then adapting to life at college will probably be easy in comparison. Having gone through AFS makes you less of a risk for a college in this respect.
- Colleges know you’ll come out of the experience being more mature than your peers.
Scholarship opportunities upon completion
- Many colleges offer scholarships only to students who speak a foreign language