Writing Student Bios
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Customizable flyer to promote hosted students to potential host families.
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Writing Student Bios
Those of you who have been involved with finding host families in the past know that providing fully screened families with succinct, positive information about available students is essential.
If we effectively highlight the attributes and personalities of these amazing students, it will truly allow our “product” to sell itself. The following is a brief summary of how you can approach writing short bios for your students.
Traditionally, our student bios have followed a three-paragraph format:
• The first paragraph is a list of the activities that the student is involved in.
• The second paragraph describes the student’s character, usually with quotes from parents and/or teachers.
• The final paragraph provides “background” such as where the student lives and what their career ambitions are.
Here’s an example of a bio which follows the format outlined above:
Helga loves to play handball and practices 4-6 times a week. She enjoys school, particularly English and Math, and works hard to get good grades. She goes to the gym about three times a week.
Helga's mother describes her as being quite popular and independent, but also very trustworthy. She handles difficult situations very well, particularly when her grandmother passed away recently. Her teacher says she is a hard worker and very pleasant.
Helga lives with her mother and three siblings. In the future she hopes to either become a business woman and run her own company, or become a fashion designer with her own line of clothing.
These three-paragraph bios are wonderful, and have worked for us in the past. If you have enough time, this would be a good format to use.
We have also come up with a few ideas for shorter bios that could accommodate the amount of time that our volunteer bio writers have available. Below you’ll find an example of a one-paragraph bio.
Karoline is a positive and friendly girl who describes herself as a “humanistic ethicist.” It is this unique outlook on the world that endears her to her family and friends, with whom she loves spending time. She likes to exercise regularly, and spends the rest of her time on her schoolwork, at which she excels. She is focused on the future, and would like to be a lawyer or a police officer. Karoline cannot live with dogs.
This format allows us to give potential host families a good idea of the student’s interests and personality.
In addition to this one-paragraph bio, simply quoting from the student’s Introduction to Host Family letter or from the Parents Statement can be a powerful way to showcase a student’s attributes. For example, this extended quote from a Japanese student’s letter is great:
As I am both active and friendly, I am always ready to make friends with anyone. I think maybe this will be one of the reasons my host family would chose me as an exchange student. And I think the best point of being an AFSer is you can make another new family. And during an international home stay, you can experience and enjoy a wonderful new life in other country. I want to learn about the American culture and their way of living through a life with a host family and a community. And I also would like to represent Japan to show what a Japanese high school student is like to a host family and a community.
Just by pasting that quote in after a bio, you can give prospective host families and look at the student’s personality, and provide compelling reasons for the family to embark on this experience. Not all student letters will contain bits as good as that one, but there is almost invariably something impressive, cute, or humorous in there. Find it!
Finally, remember that these are all suggestions. If you are taking the time to write bios for students coming to your region, you should use a format that you like and one that you think will be effective.
Where to Find Information on Students
The student applications on Global Link contain all of the information you will need to write effective bios. For bio-writing purposes, the most useful pages of the application are:
Pages 1 and 2 entitled Basic Personal Information and Placement Information: Here, you will the students vital statistics, info about the parents and siblings, allergy information, etc.
Letters: Each application will include a letter written by the student to their future host family, as well as a letter from the parents and/or teachers if included. As mentioned above, these are by far the best sources of information for bios.
CSIET and State Department Rules
The Council on Standards of International Education and Travel is an organization that monitors foreign exchange programs in the United States. They have established rules that we do not want to break. The State Department monitors this as well, so we need to be very aware of the following:
1. Do not use a student’s full name. Use the student’s first name or a nickname.
2. Do not include what town the student is from. Of course, we want to list their country. It is not OK to write, “Shinji is from the city of Itoigawa, in the Niigata Prefecture of Japan.”
3. Do not list a student’s birth date. Of course, we want to let potential families know how old the student is, but we cannot divulge the student’s date of birth.
4. We cannot promote students on the basis of athletic ability! It is OK to write, “Juan plays basketball every day.” It is not OK to write, “Juan has played center for Chile’s national team for the last three years.” We do not want schools and families choosing our students for the wrong reasons.
5. Do not include height, weight, etc. This is related to #4.
Guidelines For Writing Bios
DO’S
• Check spelling
• Use proper grammar
• Watch capitalization
• Proofread
• Mention if any family member participated in AFS
• Pet/animal interests, academic interests, and religious preferences are important
• Include if the student lives with only one parent
• Talk about all interests and how frequently the student participates
• Quote teachers, family, and friends
• Make the student come alive!!!!!
DON’Ts
• Don’t mention allergies that aren’t severe such as hayfever
• Don’t say that student can’t live with dogs/cats/pets if it is just a preference. Only mention if student has severe allergy or very frightened.
• Don’t mention preferences such as “live in 2 parent family or in a city”
• Don’t use first person
• Don’t use information from the confidential form that isn't in the student-written part of the application. If the student didn't chose to mention in the application that she rides horses twice / week, it could be because she was warned that horsey girls almost always get rural placements and she wants something different. If the student didn't chose to mention that he practices piano 3 hours / week, it could be because he is tired of the piano and wants a year off while he's away from parents.
Examples
3 paragraph
Ester, from Spain, enjoys going out with friends, listening to music, and going to the movies occasionally. She loves all kinds of sports, swimming and soccer being her favorites, although she also likes tennis and running. Ester's parents describe her as being friendly, tidy, independent, and hardworking. Her teacher says she is "generous and light-hearted... a motivated student who likes being challenged." Ester lives with her parents and older brother, who spent a year in the US as an AFS participant. She has traveled abroad in the past with her family, and has spent time in Italy and England through school programs.
Michela, or "Miki" to her friends and family, is described by all as "generous, warm and ambitious." These qualities are shown in her close relationship with her family, especially her mother. She says, "My parent's opinion is very important to me." She also enjoys spending time with her friends, and has a Saturday afternoon shopping ritual with her closest girlfriends. She also keeps quite busy with swimming, skiing, and going to the gym three times a week. Miki has high hopes for the future, including attending University of Milan to become a doctor and living in Spain for a year in college. A bit shy at first, her teacher says that shouldn't fool you. She is "a strong-willed and determined young lady.
1 paragraph
Kozue, from Japan, is a black belt in karate who loves sports, cooking, and reading. She keeps herself very busy: she is in charge of making lunch for the family every morning, and has recently taken up the flute with her school’s brass band. She would like to improve her English, as she believes it will help her fulfill her ambition of becoming a police officer. Learning Spanish is next on her list.
Gilles, from the Netherlands, loves the arts, but especially drama. He says he started a drama course in order “to fight (my) timidity.” Four years later, he is still active in drama, and loves the social aspect of it. He loves spending time and “exchanging ideas” with his friends. His mother is a veterinarian, and he lives with 36 dogs, 25 cats, sheep, birds and horses. We’re not making that up!
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