This morning my upstairs neighbor helped me write an important letter. She has moved back to Paris only recently, having married a foreigner and spent most of her adult life in another country. She was telling me about how hard it is to get into the top schools in Paris. She said that she had applied to one very academic Catholic school for her bright 13-year-old son and they asked for:
--a photograph of the boy
--a lettre de motivation from the parents explaining with conviction why they want a Catholic education for their child ("Don't mention that it's only the academic reputation of the school you like, or t'es fichu! You're screwed!")
--a two-page form from the parents including information on how they could help the school, and a section asking whether the child has any handicaps or dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia ("And if you say yes to any of those, t'es fichu!")
--the last year's report cards
--a recommendation
--a copy of the family's livret de famille, a sort of secular Family Bible which French people receive at marriage from the city government and which records every important detail ("That's so they can see if the parents are still married. If you're not, t'es fichu!")
--the boy's birth certificate
--the boy's baptismal certificate
--the boy's First Communion certificate
"Well, I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want Philippe," I said. "He's bright, he's charming, he's polite, he's athletic, he's from an aristocratic family, and he's very handsome!"
"His school report cards said he was bavard [talkative],'" said my neighbor. "I got a letter back with bavard circled, saying that they did not want turbulent elements in their school."
.......................................
I drove to Germany this afternoon, where I'm going to leave my little car safe in a garage until I come back from the wonderful Indian wedding. Germany, where if you're in the left lane and you see lights behind you, you'd better get over RIGHT NOW.
Hi !
Given the rapidly degenerating public school system, for the past several years Catholic schools have been turning away thousands upon thousands of requests for enrollment. The papers in September mentioned 70-75 thousand this year alone. There are waiting lists at each school. What this simply means is that they can afford nowadays to turn away talkative children (smile). Most Catholic schools like to see the livret de famille to see how many siblings there really are. Most Catholic schools will interview the parents: guess this one didn't make it to that stage !
L'Amerloque
From Sedulia:
Another reason is that the public schools have been on strike a lot, often at the last minute with little notice, in the past few years and that creates big problems for working parents.
Posted by: amerloque | 10 November 2005 at 10:24