Adelante Abroad LLCReviews of adelanteabroad.com

Adelante offered to pay me for a review, but I did not take them up on the offer. I mention this because it explains why there are so many positive reviews when Adelante is poorly organized and doesn't follow through on what they say. They stretched certain definitions, or made it seem like things would be different than they were. I would not recommend them. The “Comprehensive orientation meeting in country” that was promised in the orientation packet was a 20 minute zoom meeting. I never met the directora. We were told that classes started on Monday and given the address for a building with a room in it that Adelante had rented for the class. The “intensive spanish classes” were just me and the one other student doing the program with me at the time. But, we were at two completely different levels of Spanish learning, which was not taken into account. Over the course of my time with the program, multiple students arrived whose Spanish was not at a level proficient enough to get by in Chile, where, in my experience, most people don’t speak English. Adelante told us that knowing Spanish was not necessary because everyone at Adelante speaks English and could help. However, they did not help. I believe they would say anything to get you to sign up. Adelante completely fails to communicate anything with its students. I believe this is partially because Adelante is a side gig for most of the staff, and they themselves have no idea what is going on. One time I got an email from one member of Adelante’s staff saying that there were going to be more students coming, but that they would be in a different part of the city than me so I wouldn't meet them. I got another email from a different staff member saying that the students would in fact be staying in the same housing as me. (This housing was not an apartment or a homestay as advertised, it was a boarding house. Other Chilean people were also paying for rooms at this house, and there were no meals provided, at least not for me.) Some people have internships for three days a week, or on the weekends, while for other people (like myself) it was 9-5 Monday through Friday. Out of the three people who did the program at the same time as me, two of them had their internships switched the day before. For one of these people it was the same type of internship but with a different company, and for the other it was a different topic entirely. Another student got an email from Adelante letting her know that her internship started the following day, when her internship had actually started a week before. For two students, their classes and internships overlapped, so they either had to skip out on learning the language, or they had to skip the first days of their internship. In terms of transportation to internships, one student had to take a micro (minibus) to a different part of the city, then walk to the bus station to take a bus out of the city, and then carpool with someone to get to her internship. Adelante didn't help her figure this out. We were simply told to use the micro. It would’ve been helpful to know that you have to wave the bus down when you want to get on and tell them when you want to get off, as they don’t stop. The “events and excursions” that they claim to provide are two walking tours over the course of 8 weeks. Other things that they recommend on the website, like visits to Patagonia, are incredibly difficult to do as they require a plane ride and cost up to $1000. You can’t do this if your internship is full time, which you won’t know until the day of. Chileans I met were shocked that these kinds of trips were mentioned as a possibility, and at how little information was provided to me and how unorganized the program was. The people at Adelante are not unkind, but some are certainly petty. I was left ‘on read’ mid conversation when I said I didn’t have any photos of my internship to share, and they disclose mental health information in their public responses to negative reviews in order to discredit the writers. There are better options than Adelante. Edit: This review has honestly been on my mind. At the end of the day, I wish I would have chosen an organization that would follow up with me about my bad experience to try to make it better for future applicants instead of trying to discredit me and my complaints.

Thanks God for this amount of not smart ppl. They call their position volunteer. But you have to give them your time and services and experience and you have to pay them on top of all of that too. And ppl actually volunteer to get scammed! I mean they can go solo and have a great time and use that money to travel better. But hey! why not give your money to some agency so they can make you work for free!