The Chinese elite send their children to boarding schools in the U.S.
If you combine this article with another in the Wall Street Journal today here, you come up with what could be a a great business model for someone: Find a city with a lot of beautiful, vacant older buildings like St. Louis, buy up a gorgeous old Catholic school with grounds and dormitory rooms and grandeur. Develop a Mandarin immersion curriculum boarding school that seeks out two types of students: Americans who want to learn Chinese and Chinese who want to learn English. Let the Chinese pay more, to help underwrite the costs of American students whose families aren’t thrilled at the idea of sending their kids to boarding school but who don’t have Mandarin immersion options where they live. If you really wanted to make parents calmer, you could make it single-sex. You could make a totally amazing school that would have true immersion.
Seeking College Edge, Chinese Pupils Arrive in New York Earlier
Meng Yuan, 18, who is from Shanghai and calls herself Monroe, attends a private school in Manhattan.
By KYLE SPENCER
Published: May 12, 2013Weiling Zhang, a sophomore at the Léman Manhattan Preparatory School, yearned to communicate with more conviction and verve than her peers back home — the “American way,” she said.
Ángel Franco/The New York Times
Léman Manhattan Preparatory School students, including Meng Yuan, second from right.
Yijia Shi, a freshman, wanted to increase her chances of an acceptance letter from Brown University. And Meng Yuan, a junior, was seeking Western-style independence, not to mention better shopping. When she is not heading to track practice or doing her homework, she is combing Bergdorf Goodman for Louis Vuitton limited edition handbags and relishing in the $295 tasting menu at the celebrated Columbus Circle restaurant Per Se.
Please read more here.
Mandarin Immersion Parents Council 