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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

We got into YY some years ago, after the school had begun, when the lottery wasn't nearly as competitive as I imagine it has become.  It's easy to get into College Gardens if your kid speaks decent Chinese (any major dialect) and you're ready to jump in at any point.  In the Rockville immersion programs, admins are accustomed to working w/native speakers, so they grasp that your dialect-speaking kid will pick up on the Mandarin fast, even if they don't start until 2nd, 3rd or 4th grade. They're not only willing to accept bilingual kids to replace dropouts, they're eager. The program provides directed dialect transition support (mostly Cantonese-speaking teachers coaching Cantonese-speaking students on Mandarin pronunciation using a mix of the two dialects, as in China itself). MoCo replaces dropouts with bilingual kids at every step of the way, and many non-native speakers don't stay; around a third leave by upper grades. But your kid can't just understand some Chinese to test in; they have to be able to speak rapidly for a good 20 minutes in an interview, with minimal code mixing.

YY actually offers more cultural bells and whistles than College Gardens, because the school is devoted to Chinese immersion while the latter is a small school-within-a-school program. That said, the kids written and spoken Chinese is a good deal better in MoCo. I put this down to involved families being more affluent overall, and native-speaking admins and extended families keeping standards high. Many parents can and do help with HW, and non-native speakers tend to form HW groups (hiring native-speaking tutors) or host au pairs from China. Many families also pay for immersion summer camps, including abroad, and the county helps low-income students attend. We car pool over.

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So College Gardens gives preference based on current speaking ability and family environment?[/quote]

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