Not very many teenagers would willingly switch schools. Imagine, though, doing so in a foreign language. Then, when you come home, it's not to your own parents, but to people you've only barely met. Your sports teams? On another continent. Your best friend? Thousands of miles away. Your bedroom, favorite food, little brother, favorite clothing store? All out of reach.

• WHY IN THE WORLD would someone choose to live like that?

Surprisingly, thousands of teenagers around the world can't wait to do so. More, in fact, than are able to.

Each year, Utah hosts hundreds of eager youngsters from every continent and clime. For them, it's a perfect opportunity to improve their English and get a taste of real American culture.

Miriam Sachs came to Utah in August from her home near Munich, Germany, excited about the opportunity to immerse herself in a new culture.

"You're getting way more independence because you're alone in a foreign country," Sachs said. "At the beginning, I wasn't that good at talking, but it didn't take a long time and I already had friends in school."

At her current school, American Fork High School, she is able to choose from a variety of niche-oriented electives, something her German school did not offer.

"When I first came here and I had to choose my classes, I didn't know what to choose from," Sachs said. "Here, you can take classes that agree with what you're interested in."

Hee Ae "Heather" Chae, another American Fork student, said she, too, was glad to have elective choices. She wants to dance professionally someday -- something she believed impossible in her native country, Korea.

"My dream was to be a dance director, but my mom didn't like it ... so I gave up and turned my dream to be an accountant," Chae said. "People (in Korea) don't see students very nice -- the students who like dancing, like me, or who are dedicated in snowboarding or something like that. Most of the families don't like that."

Since beginning her exchange in January, Chae has begun to imagine dancing as a bigger part of her future. She plans to audition for the school's dance team in the fall.

The benefits of exchange programs extend beyond the students, however. For Utahns, hosting incoming foreign exchange students is like having a world sampler platter delivered right to their doors.

Wendy Leake has been a "host mom" to four foreign students, acting as a temporary parent and providing a secure home environment.

She stumbled into hosting three years ago when her aunt called, searching for a home to place one of four French exchange students. The boy, Audren, stayed with her for a month, successfully whetting her appetite for further involvement.

"I thought it would be stressful, and in a way, it was," Leake said, "but there was way more joy than stress -- it was so much fun!"

She now works as a local representative for the Nacel Open Door exchange program, overseeing the activities of other students and parents and facilitating future exchanges with schools.

This is difficult, considering the 328-student cap placed on state-funded tuition for foreign exchange students, which is one of the lowest limits in the country.

Kathy Firmage has taken charge of foreign exchange affairs in Provo School District since 1984 and has witnessed first-hand how foreign exchange has fluctuated.

Although Provo School District uniquely accepts students with F-1 visas -- for high school exchange students, limited to one year and requiring the student to pay all tuition costs -- there are many districts that don't accept these kinds of visas because of the extra burden it places on the district.

"To be responsible for the F-1 responsibilities is just -- I don't even know if I would call it frustrating -- it's just another added thing to do," Firmage said.

In contrast, the federally funded, issued and tracked J-1 visa students are almost always welcome in school districts.

This kind of student is also limited to a one-year stay, but has tuition costs covered by the state in which the exchange takes place.

In 2003, however, the state of Utah stopped accepting J-1 visas. During that time, the number of foreign exchange students dropped by more than 300.

"A lot less students came to the state," said Gregg Roberts of the Utah State Office of Education. "Districts are not going to take sudents for free, so ... when they were no longer getting subsidized for the WPU (weighted pupil unit) of the students, as with the J-1, they decided it wasn't feasible to take students with no funding."

Roberts explained that the decision to no longer accept J-1 visas was meant to counteract a budget crisis, but lawmakers eventually decided having the students mixed into Utah high schools was worth the cost, and reinstated the funding in 2007.

"As long as it's a manageable number, I think it's a positive international education experience for our students," Roberts said. "We want them to become globally aware, and I think, outside of them traveling overseas, this is an excellent opportunity for them to meet students from around the world."

Former Utahn Mary Grow preferred traveling overseas, however, and when she discovered an opportunity to do so, was eager to try.

"I don't think I was completely satisfied with my exposure to things in a small town in Utah," said Grow, now a resident of Baltimore. "So I wanted to get out and see more."

She applied for the Rotary International Youth Exchange program and was sent, on scholarship, to Gstrow, Germany.

"I think it's really important to understand other cultures," Grow said. "I'd been exposed to my family and friends, and what they did, and they were all quite similar. I didn't realize the differences that people had in their home situations and in their economic situations and just in all these different aspects -- political ideas -- I mean there were so many ideas that I had never been fully exposed to. ... It wasn't just like sitting in a class learning about it -- I was able to interact with people that were in those situations."

Grow said very few of her friends did foreign exchange programs, either because they hadn't heard of it or just weren't interested.

Gail LeLaCheur, state coordinator for exchange program Nacel Open Door, said Utah high school students may choose not to do foreign exchange because they are required to know at least some of the local language.

"There's a language requirement for certain countries and you have to meet that specification, so if the student hasn't taken any foreign languages they can't go," LeLaCheur said. "Then, on top of that, they keep cutting back on language [education] for our students."

In the five years LeLaCheur has worked for Nacel Open Door, she said she hasn't sent a single student overseas, but hopes that in the future, more students and parents will look favorably on the option.