Curtis WestbayEnglish immersion is the single greatest thing we can do to improve college admission outcomes.
A basic statistics lesson from someone who majored in dead languages
Many of our students at BIPH are interested in mathematics; some are interested in statistics. Personally, I am not. But statistics and statistical analysis are non-negotiable in a college admission department, and ours is no exception. My undergraduate degree (Classics, i.e. Latin and ancient Greek) is about as far from math or statistics as can be, and I am by no means a statistician. But I understand the basics. For those of you who may not be familiar, allow me to give a layperson's explanation of the correlation coefficient.
Imagine you have two variables, x and y, measured on a two-dimensional plane. Let's start with an easy pair to envision: height and shoe size. For the x-y coordinate pairs, as height increases, generally speaking, so does shoe size. Of course, there are the occasional outliers: short people with large feet, tall people with small feet. But for the most part, a larger x value is tied to a larger y value. This relationship, with a large enough data set, is probably highly predictable. That is to say, with enough data points, a mathematical model could be created that would allow you to accurately estimate someone's shoe size if you had their height, and vice versa. When x increases as y increases, this is called a positive correlation. When we can draw a line through the data set and the individual x-y pairs don't fall very far away from the line, on average, this is said to be a strong correlation.
Then, there are certain variables which relate to one another weakly or not at all. Maybe the auditorium is full of students and we want to see if there is any relationship between how far they sit from the front of the room and how high their grades are. Though some people may formulate a theory that the high-achieving, go-getter types of students might sit at the front of the room, there is probably no correlation between these two factors.
The strength of the correlation between two factors can be measured in terms of the correlation coefficient r. A data set that describes two factors with a perfectly strong correlation will fall perfectly on a straight line. If every x-y pair falls on a straight line, r = 1 or -1. Any value r with an absolute value less than .4 is a weak correlation. Anything with an absolute value greater than .7 is a strong correlation.
So, why am I telling you all of this? Why is a former Latin teacher talking about statistics?
There is a -.91 correlation coefficient between the ToEFL scores of BASIS International Schools, China graduates and the rank of their top American college acceptance. (Forty-three of the 46 graduates have gone to college, or will go to college, in the United States. Note: there’s an extremely strong negative correlation because as score increases, rank “decreases.” For a school ranked in the top 10– small values between 1 and 10– the expected ToEFL score approaches the maximal value of 120.)
English proficiency contributes heavily to other components of the application
Many students think that they can cram for the ToEFL and show English proficiency. Make no mistake about it— you probably can cram your way to solid test scores. The problem with this approach is that it fails to recognize how English proficiency is laid bare by other components in the college application. Nevertheless, if a student struggles with English, they will very likely struggle with the ToEFL. If they struggle with the ToEFL, the problems will probably not end there.
The correlation coefficient between SAT and ToEFL is .85.
The correlation coefficient between GPA and ToEFL is .83.
Those are the "big 3," the quantitative factors that will form the basis of initial admission decisions at American, U.K., Canadian colleges, etc. There's no shortcut. English proficiency is the greatest predictor of performance in terms of GPA, SAT, and ToEFL scores, and those three data points are the greatest predictors of college admission outcomes.
College Essays
This is an obvious area where students with low English proficiency will not perform well. Many students try to write their essays in Chinese and then translate them to English, but the two languages are... different. It's hard to explain, but even when they are expertly translated, an essay that doesn't grasp the advanced features of the English language will feel poorly worded, contrived, forced, and inelegant. While our counselors will help students with college essay writing during a required daily seminar in Grade 12, we cannot write their essays for them and we cannot replace the student's unique voice. There is no substitute for English proficiency when a student must write in English.
Activities
A truly excellent activity list will contain many activities that, at least indirectly, show a student's English fluency. To be clear, activities that are done in English will carry more weight in the college application. Students will struggle to find success in competitive activities, especially academic ones, with low English proficiency. This isn't necessarily the result of some bias against non-English activities, though it should be said that whenever students do well in an activity conducted in Chinese, it may have varying degrees of impact on the college application. It is because application readers abroad are deeply familiar with many, many English activities, especially those run through a vetted organization. It's highly unlikely that they are as familiar with Chinese institutions that run student activities, let alone the standards for success in them.
Interviews
In the best case scenario for elite universities, a student will receive a request for an interview. Students who are asked to interview are serious candidates being strongly considered for admission. In this situation, there will be nowhere to hide inadequate English proficiency. An extemporaneous, unplanned interview with a native English speaker will quickly expose a student's low English proficiency. But even if a student isn't targeting an extremely competitive university like those in the top 20 U.S. News and World Report university rankings, an interview is a good thing to be able to offer. Schools in the top 50 of these rankings often want to receive a third-party interview recording through a company like InitialView. These interviews will not be scrutinized as closely as a requested, mandatory interview, but they may be the deciding factor for a student who has reached the final stages of application review.
English immersion at BIPH
This year at BASIS International School Park Lane Harbour, we are implementing an English immersion policy for all students. The policy is quite simple: students are required to speak English whenever they are in academic buildings or inside the gymnasium building. The specific consequences for violations of the policy have been spelled out for you elsewhere, so I won't rehash them here. This policy is meant to improve the English fluency of all students on our campus, and accordingly, it will be strictly enforced by our faculty and administrators.
This policy was originally implemented at our sister school in Shenzhen and was written by me. A few months after I arrived in Shenzhen, it became clear that the students there would be limited by their level of English fluency in their college applications if we didn't change course. And make no mistake about it, students do sacrifice certain things when they engage in English immersion. They will probably feel less articulate in their native languages. They will certainly feel frustrated when they can't find the right English words in academic and social conversations. They will feel less confident than they have before. At first.
Then, one day, they will speak English effortlessly without noticing that it became so easy for them. They will connect with their teachers in ways that produce detailed, memorable letters of recommendation. They will go to college and not only thrive in class, but when meeting new people from all over the world. Avoiding English immersion is a half-measure. And half-measures don't produce great college results— either in terms of acceptances or graduation rates.
This policy, which BASIS International School Shenzhen has had in place for two full school years, has confirmed my belief that this is something that a school where college admission results matter cannot do without. Last year, 92% of the graduates who applied to top 50 schools in the U.S. News and World Report top university rankings were accepted by at least one of those schools. I may have majored in Latin, but in this case, the statistics are so clear that even I can understand them.