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Getting Into an American College: The Application Process

Written by Nancy Steinbach

October 25th, 2006

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

This week, we talk about the application process for American colleges and universities. This is part eight in our Foreign Student Series.

Earlier, we explained how to begin a search for schools by going to one of the American educational advising centers around the world. We also discussed the rules for entering in the United States. And we talked about programs that can be completed online.

But if your goal is to come to the United States to study, then it is time to make a list of colleges or universities that interest you. Be sure to choose more than one. Directors of foreign student admissions say students should apply to at least three schools.

Some students want to attend a small college. Others want to go to a big university. If a really big university appeals to you, then there are ones like Ohio State. That university in Columbus, Ohio, in the Midwest, has almost fifty-two thousand students. There are students this year from around one hundred fifty countries.

Ohio State provides international students with an application on its Web site. You can pay the application charge online with a credit card. Or you can print the forms and mail them with the payment.

Many colleges and universities have their applications and also their catalogs online. A catalog is the publication in which a school tells about its programs.

You should start on your applications at least two years before you want to begin studies.

Completing a college application can take some time. But answering all the questions is not enough. Another important step is taking admissions tests. The SAT is the college entry test that American high school students most commonly take. Another one is the ACT.

Colleges and universities may also require international students to take the TOEFL -- the Test of English as a Foreign Language.

We will begin discussing these tests next week.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. If you have a general question for our Foreign Student Series, write to special@voanews.com.

You can find our earlier reports, and download MP3 files, at voaspecialenglish.com. Another site you might want to visit is educationusa dot state dot g-o-v. This is a State Department Web site for international students. Again, the address is educationusa dot state dot gov. I’m Bob Doughty.

1941: Attack on Pearl Harbor Ends American Effort to Avoid War

Written by David Jarmul

October 26th, 2006

VOICE ONE:

THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English by the Voice of America.

(MUSIC)

History usually is a process of slow change. Customs and traditions flow slowly from day to day. However, certain single events also can change the course of history. Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo was such an event. So was the first airplane flight by the American inventors, the Wright Brothers. Or the meeting between the Spanish explorer Cortez and the Aztec king, Montezuma.

All these events were single moments that changed history. And so it was, too, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December seventh, nineteen forty-one.

The surprise attack on America's large naval base in Hawaii was a great military success for the government in Tokyo. However, the attack on Pearl Harbor had more than a military meaning. It also represented the passing of a period in American history.

The attack would force Americans to fight in World War Two. More important, it would make them recognize their position as one of the leading and powerful nations of the world.

VOICE TWO:

In future weeks, we will discuss the military and political events of World War Two. But let us take a moment today to look back at the years before the battle.

We already have seen how the attack ended the historic American tradition of avoiding world conflict. However, Pearl Harbor also marked the end of a shorter period in the nation's history. This period began with the end of World War One and ended with Pearl Harbor. It lasted only twenty-three years, from nineteen eighteen to nineteen forty-one. But it was filled with important changes in American politics, culture, and traditions.

VOICE ONE:

Let us start our review of these years with politics.

In nineteen twenty, the voters of the United States elected Republican Warren Harding to the presidency. The voters were tired of the progressive policies of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. They were especially tired of Wilson's desire for the United States to play an active part in the new League of Nations.

Harding was a conservative Republican. And so were the two presidents who followed him, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.

VOICE TWO:

All three of these presidents generally followed conservative economic policies. And they did not take an active part in world affairs.

Americans turned away from Republican rule in the election of nineteen thirty-two. They elected the Democratic presidential candidate, Franklin Roosevelt. And they continued to re-elect him. In this way, the conservative Republican policies of the nineteen twenties changed to the more progressive policies of Democrat Franklin Roosevelt in the nineteen thirties.

VOICE ONE:

This change happened mainly because of economic troubles.

The nineteen twenties were a time of growth and business strength. President Calvin Coolidge said during his term that the business of America was business. This generally was the same belief of the other Republican presidents during the period, Warren Harding and Herbert Hoover.

There was a good reason for this. The economy expanded greatly during the nineteen twenties. Many Americans made a great deal of money on the stock market. And wages for workers increased as well.

However, economic growth ended suddenly with the stock market crash of October, nineteen twenty-nine.

In that month, the stocks for many leading companies fell sharply. And they continued to fall in the months that followed. Many Americans lost great amounts of money. And the public at large lost faith in the economy. Soon, the economy was in ruins, and businesses were closing their doors.

VOICE TWO:

President Hoover tried to solve the crisis. But he was not willing to take the strong actions that were needed to end it. As time passed, many Americans began to blame Hoover for the terrible economic depression.

Democrat Franklin Roosevelt was elected mainly because he promised to try new solutions to end the Great Depression. Soon after he was elected, Roosevelt launched a number of imaginative economic policies to solve the crisis.

Roosevelt's policies helped to reduce the amount of human suffering. But the Great Depression finally ended only with America's entry into World War Two.

VOICE ONE:

Roosevelt's victory in nineteen thirty-two also helped change the balance of power in American politics. Roosevelt brought new kinds of Americans to positions of power: labor union leaders. Roman Catholics. Jews. Blacks. Americans from families that had come from such nations as Italy, Ireland, or Russia.

These Americans repaid Roosevelt by giving the Democratic Party their votes.

VOICE TWO:

The nineteen twenties and thirties also brought basic changes in how Americans dealt with many of their social and economic problems.

The nineteen twenties generally were a period of economic growth with little government intervention in the day-to-day lives of the people. But the terrible conditions of the Great Depression during the nineteen thirties forced Roosevelt and the federal government to experiment with new policies.

The government began to take an active role in offering relief to the poor. It started programs to give food and money to poor people. And it created jobs for workers.

The government grew in other ways. It created major programs for farmers. It set regulations for the stock market. It built dams, roads, and airports.

American government looked much different at the end of this period between the world wars than it did at the beginning. Government had become larger and more important. It dealt with many more issues in people's lives than it ever had before.

VOICE ONE:

Social protest increased during the nineteen twenties and thirties. Some black Americans began to speak out more actively about unfair laws and customs. Blacks in great numbers moved from the southern part of the country to northern and central cities.

The nineteen twenties and thirties also were an exciting time of change for women. Women began to wear less traditional kinds of clothes. Washing machines and other inventions allowed them to spend less time doing housework. Women could smoke or drink in public, at least in large cities. And many women held jobs.

Of course, the women's movement was not new. Long years of work by such women's leaders as Elizabeth Stanton and Susan Anthony had helped women win the right to vote in nineteen twenty.

VOICE TWO:

The nineteen twenties and thirties also were important periods in the arts.

Writers such as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill, and others made this what many called the "Golden Age" of American writing. Frank Lloyd Wright and other architects designed great buildings. Film actors like Clark Gable, and radio entertainers like Jack Benny, did more than make Americans laugh or cry. They also helped unite the country. Millions of Americans could watch or listen to the same show at the same time.

VOICE ONE:

Politics. The economy. Social traditions. Art. All these changed for Americans during the nineteen-twenties and thirties. And many of these changes also had effects in foreign countries beyond America's borders.

However, the change that had the most meaning for the rest of the world was the change produced by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

America's modern history as a great superpower begins with its reaction to the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was a sudden event in the flow of history. It was a day on which a young land suddenly became fully grown.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

You have been listening to THE MAKING OF A NATION, a program in Special English by the Voice of America. Your narrators were Harry Monroe and Jack Weitzel. Our program was written by David Jarmul. The Voice of America invites you to listen again next week to THE MAKING OF A NATION.

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