Posted by baker on December 16, 2007, 9:14 pm, in reply to "Questions about a longer stay.."
Hi Kaitlin,
I'm curious what country you're from. We've never had a Kaitlin in the program so I can't place the nationality.
We love to have volunteers stay longer than 8 weeks. In fact, most actually stay 12 weeks and about 10 percent stay longer. We've had quite a few volunteers stay 6 months and even a few have stayed for 11 or 12 months (Hi Dani!).
The $50 per week fee is designed to encourage volunteers to stay at least 12 weeks because I firmly believe that they gain the most from a longer experience and I know for certain that ACE benefits greatly from the consistency of long term volunteers. In the summer we have a lot of people who come for just 8 weeks, which thoroughly changes the atmosphere of the program. It is still postive, just much harder to manage than during the rest of the year.
Keep in mind that you cannot get a Visa Waiver for more than 90 days so you will have to apply for a B1 visa, requiring an interview at the embassy. But that is rarely a problems and when people have been rejected they have almost always come from Eastern European countries.
Don't forget that ACE has a huge community on Facebook so you will get a ton of answers to questions if you log on.
I hope to see you in April,
-chris
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