Anonymous
Post 01/23/2024 06:07     Subject: Yu Ying parents, what are the school pros and cons?
OP, with a 3-year-old kid you think that YY is the cat's meow and are thrilled to get a spot! By the upper grades, you've had a reality check. By DCI, you've had to face up to the fact that YY-DCI academics are nothing special. There isn't enough academic challenge in the DCI MS for the brightest and hardest-working students (many of the kids would be at BASIS or the Latins if they'd got spots). The result is that most of the high-achieving 8th graders try to leave for Walls, Banneker, privates. There is Chinese challenge at DCI, but it's rare for students to speak the language well or attend immersion camps like Concordia.
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2024 22:59     Subject: Re:Yu Ying parents, what are the school pros and cons?
Anonymous wrote:
Hate to break it to you, but most of the kids we met at YY 8 or 9 years ago and keep up with now no longer study Chinese as teens.


Hate to break it back to you, but there's a large group of DCI students who are going to Taiwan for an exchange program in a few weeks and will be taking the AP Chinese test in May. Also, DCPS's own data show a huge majority of YY kids go on to DCI...and we know lots of kids who have gone to Concordia language camps.

Try again. AP Chinese is the AP exam of 32 with the highest % of takers scoring 5s, around 60%, triple the rate for AP Spanish. The Chinese exam just isn't tough, mostly tests basic travel vocab. IB Diploma Higher Level Chinese, now that's tough. How many DCI Chinese track students will be taking the IBD HL Chinese exam in June? According to my sources: a handful.
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2024 15:03     Subject: Re:Yu Ying parents, what are the school pros and cons?
OP, main con: the only DCI students who speak halfway decent Chinese are the ones who had Chinese au pairs at home for many years while at YY and have attended weekend heritage school in MoCo since they were small. We kid you not.
Anonymous
Post 01/22/2024 14:18     Subject: Re:Yu Ying parents, what are the school pros and cons?
It's not a large group and most of the teens involved speak remarkably basic Chinese considering that they've studied the language through full immersion in the YY ECE years and partial immersion in the upper grades and at DCI for over a decade. Untrue that many DCI students attend the (v. pricey) Concordia MN camps, particularly YY grads. Just a couple DCI students attended Concordia last summer for Chinese. Ask the camp. I wish things were different, v. different.

-Signed YY and DCI parent who speaks fluent Mandarin and can't wait to be done with DC public schools


Anonymous
Post 01/22/2024 13:07     Subject: Re:Yu Ying parents, what are the school pros and cons?
Hate to break it to you, but most of the kids we met at YY 8 or 9 years ago and keep up with now no longer study Chinese as teens.


Hate to break it back to you, but there's a large group of DCI students who are going to Taiwan for an exchange program in a few weeks and will be taking the AP Chinese test in May. Also, DCPS's own data show a huge majority of YY kids go on to DCI...and we know lots of kids who have gone to Concordia language camps.
Anonymous
Post 01/21/2024 15:58     Subject: Yu Ying parents, what are the school pros and cons?
Not smart to put your kid in 50% immersion for up to 8 years without caring if they retain the language. Pathetic.
Anonymous
Post 01/21/2024 15:13     Subject: Yu Ying parents, what are the school pros and cons?
Anonymous wrote:Hate to break it to you, but most of the kids we met at YY 8 or 9 years ago and keep up with now no longer study Chinese as teens. They're at schools that don't teach appropriately advanced Chinese, or don't teach Chinese at all, like BASIS, the original Latin, private schools or out of the DC area. Most are not at DCI and if they are at DCI, they're in pre-AP Chinese classes w/out peers who speak good Chinese. If they do study Chinese, they're spoken Mandarin doesn't seem to have advanced much past the YY 5th grade level. We know DC kids who speak good Mandarin, but they're not YY grads. These kids either grew up in the homes of native speakers or attend pricey Chinese immersion camps in the summers, e.g. Concordia in MN ($6,000/month) the DCI crowd doesn't bother with. Knowing all this, I'm no longer convinced that the YY and DCI 1-way immersion model, where kids only learn Chinese from teachers, is the right way to go. If you like YY for other reasons, go for it. You might want to process this info right now, OP.


From best I can tell the average YY parent was more concerned about avoiding their neighborhood DCPS school than raising a Mandarin fluent child. Now if their kid ended up speaking Chinese, that’s a bonus, but it was never the primary reason.
Anonymous
Post 01/21/2024 12:15     Subject: Yu Ying parents, what are the school pros and cons?
Anonymous wrote:+1

Try mathnasium
Anonymous
Post 01/21/2024 09:08     Subject: Yu Ying parents, what are the school pros and cons?
Hate to break it to you, but most of the kids we met at YY 8 or 9 years ago and keep up with now no longer study Chinese as teens. They're at schools that don't teach appropriately advanced Chinese, or don't teach Chinese at all, like BASIS, the original Latin, private schools or out of the DC area. Most are not at DCI and if they are at DCI, they're in pre-AP Chinese classes w/out peers who speak good Chinese. If they do study Chinese, they're spoken Mandarin doesn't seem to have advanced much past the YY 5th grade level. We know DC kids who speak good Mandarin, but they're not YY grads. These kids either grew up in the homes of native speakers or attend pricey Chinese immersion camps in the summers, e.g. Concordia in MN ($6,000/month) the DCI crowd doesn't bother with. Knowing all this, I'm no longer convinced that the YY and DCI 1-way immersion model, where kids only learn Chinese from teachers, is the right way to go. If you like YY for other reasons, go for it. You might want to process this info right now, OP.
Anonymous
Post 01/21/2024 02:11     Subject: Yu Ying parents, what are the school pros and cons?
Hi there, almost 9 years later, I’m finding myself looking at putting Yu Ying on my lottery list. I’d love to hear previous posters’ perspectives after some time has passed.