I am applying for a $20k scholarship for spending a year in Japan. For this scholarship I have to apply for a primary and secondary program in case I don't get into one or the other (Boren Scholarship if anyone is interested). The program has to have a heavy focus on language and I plan on taking that to the extreme with both being fully immersive and language only. So as of now I have somewhat decided on:
The Yamasa Institute (http://www.yamasa.org/acjs/index.html)
and KCP International (http://www.kcpinternational.com/)

I was hoping to get opinions from the community. Does anyone have experience with either of these two programs? I could do Yamasa for 12 months, but could only do 9 at KCP for interference issues with university start dates back here in the U.S. The cost of the programs themselves seems to be about the same despite the time difference. Also if you have had great experience with another language institute then let me know.

As a start, I recall some information about Yamasa in this thread. There might be other threads as well.

Yamasa's pretty good. Unless you know the other one's fantastic, I'd go for Y just for the extra three months in Japan :-)

@pm215: That was definitely my thought, but I just wanted to hear if anyone had had a fantastic time with something else/bad time with one of these. It isn't always easy locating the good programs online. Also, any program that I can start and end between may and the end of July I could do for a year.

Isn't start/end being may-july going to be awkward for visa purposes? IIRC the relevant kind of student visa has very specific start dates... Check the yamasa web pages, they've got all the details.

Yes it is, but I have no choice if I want to stay for a year. I would have to use a travel visa for the first term, fly out of the country, and fly back in to get my student visa. As far as these 2 places are concerned, I have done my research. That being said of course, any comments would be appreciated no matter how mundane.

I'd choose Yamasa simply because of its reputation. It's the Columbia Business School of language schools. It has a certain oomph.

Great, I appreciate the advice. Yamasa will now definitely be my first choice for the scholarship application. So next question: With Yamasa as my primary choice, what should be my secondary? I would prefer a program that has a start date during the summer so that I can do a full year over there.