Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1,278.
Applying to a Selective School.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1,278.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Go to ESLPOD.com for more information about our episodes.
This episode is a dialogue between Sam and Yasmeen going to a good school.
Let's get started.
I think our child should go to a public school.
I did.
I went to a private prep school and I think it gave me a leg up in life.
And that's great, but I think we should give our daughter every advantage we can.
What do you have in mind?
I have information here from a few of the most selective schools.
Some are parochial and some are secular.
Some are day schools and some are boarding schools.
I'm not sending my daughter to a boarding school, and that's final.
I'm not budging on that.
I want her coming home every day.
All right.
Wow.
Admission is really competitive.
These have very low admission rates.
Really?
Really.
They also require two aptitude tests in addition to transcripts letters of recommendation and an interview.
Do we really want to put our daughter through that and look at the tuition?
Is that for all four years?
No, for one year.
You're kidding!
I'm not.
Public school is sounding better and better, isn't it?
Sam begins our dialogue by saying, I think our child should go to a public school.
I did.
In the United States, a public P-U-B-L-I-C school is a school run by and paid for by the government.
When I say the government, I'm referring to the local government, usually.
But public schools, in all cases, are schools that are run by the government.
That's in American English.
In British English, a public school is what we would call a private school.
A private private school is a school that is not run by the government.
It might be run by a church or another organization.
It might be run by a business.
Private schools are any schools that are not run by the government.
In British English, a private school is called a public school and a public school is called a government school.
It's a little confusing.
In US English, however, public school refers to a school run by the government.
Private school refers to a school run by some organization or group or business other than the government.
Sam says that he wants his child to go to a public school.
Yasmin says, however, I went to a private prep school, and I think it gave me a leg up in life.
A prep school is also known as a preparatory school.
It's supposed to be a school that is more difficult, that prepares you better to go to college.
Yasmeen says she went to a private prep school, and that school gave her a leg up in life.
To be given a leg up in life means to have an advantage over other people, to have something that allows you to be more successful in life.
And certainly a good education can help you get a leg up in life, though not always.
Look at me.
Sam says, I got where I am without a fancy prep school.
Notice Sam uses the adjective fancy, F-A-N-C-Y.
Here fancy refers to something that is expensive or something that is for people with a lot of money.
We use that adjective fancy in other circumstances to mean slightly different things, but here I think Sam is using it almost as an insult to say that he doesn't need, nor does his daughter need, a fancy prep school.
Yasmin says and that's great meaning it's great Sam was able to do well without going to a prep school.
She says, however, that she thinks we should give our daughter every advantage we can.
Sam says.
Yasmine responds A selective S-E-L-E-C-T-I-V-E school is a school that is what we would describe as very competitive, meaning lots of people want to get into the school and it is difficult to get admitted to or be allowed to attend that school.
Selective schools usually only take a small percentage of the students who want to get into the school.
If a school is very good like say, Harvard or Yale, here in the United States, when referring to universities, Those schools would be described as selective, because many students want to go there, but only a few are able to actually attend.
Yasmin says some, meaning some of the schools, are parochial and some are secular.
A parochial school is a school for children that is owned and run by or operated by a church.
Typically,
The word parochial comes from the word parish, which usually refers to a local church, a church in a certain area, a Christian church typically, and most commonly a Catholic church.
A secular, S-E-C-U-L-A-R, school is a school that is not related to any religion or church.
It is what we might describe as non-religious, not religious.
Yasmin says some are day schools and some are boarding schools.
A day D-A-Y school is a school that you send your child to during the day and then your child comes back to your house and lives with you typically.
A day school, that is, doesn't provide a place for students to sleep and eat at.
If it did, we would call that a boarding school.
Boarding schools are places that have rooms where students live during the school year.
And you, of course, send your child to a boarding school and you don't see your child until the end of that particular term or semester.
Boarding schools are not very popular in the United States, though there are still boarding schools here in the US.
They are more popular, at least among very rich families, in places such as England.
In the U.S., there is a tradition of boarding schools, especially on the eastern coast of the U.S.
They're not as common here in California, but they do still exist.
Sam says I'm not sending my daughter to a boarding school and that's final meaning he's not going to change his mind.
Yasmin responds, but some of the most exclusive schools are boarding schools.
Exclusive, E-X-C-L-U-S-I-V-E, means available only to a small number of people and very desirable.
Exclusive means refers to a group, a club or a school that only a small number of people can be a part of.
Sam says, I'm not budging on that.
To budge, B-U-D-G-E, means to change your opinion or your position about something.
Sam is not budging on his opinion, meaning he's not going to change his opinion about sending his daughter to a boarding school.
He is not going to do that.
He says, Yasmine says, Let's look at the admission criteria for the remaining schools.
ADMISSION CRITERIA are the requirements that a student must meet or must have in order to get into or be admitted to a school.
If you want to go to Harvard or Berkeley here in the US, you must meet their admission criteria, which usually includes having very good grades, having good test scores and so forth.
Yasmin and Sam are looking at the admission criteria for these schools for their daughter.
Yasmin says wow, admission is really competitive.
Competitive c-o-m-p-e-t-i-t-i-v-e means many people are trying to get something or do something.
Uh, competitive school is a school to which many students are applying.
Many students want to go to that school.
A school that is competitive is usually a school that is also selective, meaning the school only takes a certain number of students.
Yasmeen notes that the schools she and Sam are looking at have very low admission rates, RATES.
The admission rate of a school is the percentage of students that it accepts of the students who apply.
So if a school has a 10 admission rate, that means that for every 100 students that want to go to that school, the school only accepts 10.
Sam says, really?
Yasmin says, really?
Referring to the low admission rates.
She says they also require two aptitude tests for, in addition to transcripts, letters of recommendation and an interview.
The requirements then, for the schools that Sam and Yasmin are interested in are two aptitude tests transcripts, letters of recommendation and an interview.
An aptitude A-P-T-I-T-U-D-E test is a test that is supposed to test or give an indication of your ability to do something.
We used to distinguish between aptitude tests and achievement tests.
An achievement test is a test that looks at how much you know based on what you studied or what you have read.
An aptitude test is supposed to somehow indicate your ability to do something, even if you haven't studied it yet.
A lot of psychologists now question whether aptitude tests are really able to test someone's ability to do something in the future without actually having tried it.
But that's what aptitude is.
It's your ability to do something.
Aptitude is something that, at least according to some scientists, you are born with and therefore you cannot change.
In any case, these schools require two aptitude tests in addition to transcripts, T-R-A-N-S-C-R-I-P-T-S.
A transcript is an official piece of paper or document that lists or puts down all of the classes that you have taken as a student and the grade that you received or the mark that you received.
Letters of recommendation are letters written by people who know you as a student or in this case, your daughter, and can speak to or give information about how good a student she is.
An interview.
I-N-T-E-R-V-I-E-W is, of course, when someone sits down and asks you questions about things.
Sam says, do we really want to put our daughter through that?
To put someone through something means to make someone do something difficult or something that might require effort or even pain.
Sam then says The tuition T-U-I-T-I-O-N of a school is how much it costs to go there, what the price is.
Yasmin says, is that for all four years?
Meaning the tuition that they are looking at?
Sam says, no, for one year.
Many private schools in the US can be very expensive.
I mean in some schools here in Los Angeles.
It can cost 15000 a year to send your child to a selective school, often more than it costs to send someone to a year of college.
Yasmin and Sam are obviously very surprised at the cost the tuition of the schools they have been looking at for their daughter.
Yasmin says, is that for all four years?
And Sam says, no, for one year.
Yasmin then says, you're kidding, meaning you're joking.
Sam says, I'm not.
Public school is sounding better and better, isn't it?
He means maybe because these other schools are so expensive, it would be better to send their child and certainly cheaper to send their child to a public school.
Public schools are supposed to be free in the United States.
The government doesn't charge you or make you pay money to send your child to a public school.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
And that's great, but I think we should give our daughter every advantage we can.
I have information here from a few of the most selective schools.
Some are parochial, and some are secular.
Some are day schools, and some are boarding schools.
I'm not sending my daughter to a boarding school, and that's final.
But some of the most exclusive schools are boarding schools.
I'm not budging on that.
I want her coming home every day.
All right.
Let's look at the admission criteria for the remaining schools.
Wow.
Admission is really competitive.
These have very low admission rates.
Really?
Really.
They also require two aptitude tests in addition to transcripts letters of recommendation and an interview.
Do we really want to put our daughter through that?
And look at the tuition.
Is that for all four years?
No, for one year.
You're kidding.
I'm not.
Public school is sounding better and better, isn't it?
Knowing English will give you a leg up in life.
And the best way to improve your English is to listen to the wonderful scripts by our wonderful script writer, Dr Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcasts.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2016 by the Center for Educational Development.
