S4E16: Seattle Colleges Conversations with! Director and co-owner of ALPS Language School, Kerry Philben

In this our 16th (sixteenth) episode of Season 4, Seattle Colleges host Evan Franulovich interviews Director and Co-owner of ALPS Language School, Kerry Philben, about her school and how it can be a part of an international student's educational pathway.

1:19 - Meet Kerry!

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Transcript

Evan Franulovich  0:05  
Welcome to Seattle Colleges International Programs and our show Conversations with! where we talk to people that help you understand how you too, can be an international student in the United States and why Seattle Colleges should be your first choice. We'll talk to students and staff and agents and government folks, all kinds of people about what you can expect when you're getting ready to apply or travel here, what you'll experience while you're with us, and how it can all lead to an amazing life. Don't forget to check out the Seattle Colleges International Programs website at intl.seattlecolleges.edu where you can find a treasure trove of information about the school, the programs here and best of all, fill out and submit your application. Again, that's intl.seattlecolleges.edu

Evan Franulovich  0:52  
Hey everybody. Welcome back to Seattle Colleges Conversations With! here in Seattle, Washington. The beautiful state of Washington, want to welcome not a student today. Why don't you tell everybody who you are and why you're here?

Kerry Philben  1:22  
Hey, everybody. My name is Kerry Philben, and I'm the director and co owner of Alps Language School, which is an independent English language school right up the street from Seattle Central College in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle.

Evan Franulovich  1:38  
Right, the beautiful Capitol Hill neighborhood. You just have one location?

Kerry Philben  1:43  
Yeah. Yeah, we're just a small independent business. So we have one school, not that big. It's maybe five, seven minute walk. 

Evan Franulovich  1:53  
It's really close. 

Kerry Philben  1:54  
We're on the same street.

Evan Franulovich  1:56  
And right next to it's a really good, didn't you say you like a bagel place or something? There's really good food place.

Kerry Philben  2:02  
There's a lot of great like restaurants and cafes in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. So we're right by Vivace, which is, I think, one of the best coffee shops in Seattle. People know Starbucks. When students come, I always tell them, 'Go up the block and try Vivace'. Yeah, it's kind of this authentic Italian espresso experience and they're really friendly there. So yeah, I sent students up there. And then there's a lot of little restaurants and cafes around too that you can walk to from school, like from Seattle Central or from Alps.

Evan Franulovich  2:40  
It's a cool neighborhood, really great place to be, in my opinion. Do you live in this area?

Kerry Philben  2:45  
Yeah, I do. So I walk to work. I live about 25 minutes walk from Alps, from my school. About 20 minutes from Seattle Central. I live in a neighborhood called First Hill, which is where most of the hospitals in Seattle are, but there's also a lot of residential apartments. I like it because I'm getting a little older, and I like it a little bit quieter. Capitol Hill, where we are, is more like cool nightlife, but first hill is where you move when you're getting older. Yeah, so I live in a little apartment.

Evan Franulovich  3:24  
All right, cool. Well, you know, we got to learn about who you are and where you came from. Did you grow up in Seattle? Is this your home turf?

Kerry Philben  3:34  
No, I've been in Seattle for about seven and a half years now. I was born in Los Angeles, and then we moved around a bit for my mom's job when I was a kid. So I spent kind of the first half of my childhood in the Midwest, in Nebraska and Iowa, right in the center of the US. And then when I was eight or nine, we moved to Northern California to a small town called Redding, and I lived there until I went to college. Yeah, after I finished high school, I went to college in Chicago, and I went to graduate school on the East Coast. Lived on the East Coast for about 10 years, and then I moved to Seattle after that. So I've lived in a lot of different areas and regions in the US, but I think I might be in Seattle for for life. I love Seattle.

Evan Franulovich  4:36  
Yeah, because you've seen a lot of the country now. So you think Seattle's the place?

Kerry Philben  4:41  
I think Seattle is just unbeatable in terms of natural beauty, you know. Like, it's so close to Seattle you can drive. Like, seriously, 30 minutes in any direction and see the most beautiful scenery. There's great hiking, there's ocean, there's mountains, there's forests, and it's all just right here. It's really easy to get to, like, there's even public transit. There's a bus that will take you from, you know the next block, right between our schools. A bus that will take you out to hiking trails in the summer, and you know, you catch it on the weekends. It costs $2 you know, and you don't need a car. That's really nice. You can access these beautiful, just gorgeous, natural places with or without a car really easily. So I really love that. And you might be surprised to hear this, but I love Seattle's weather.

Evan Franulovich  5:44  
I like Seattle's weather.

Kerry Philben  5:46  
Yeah. So what do you like? 

Evan Franulovich  5:48  
Well, I like it because, it's you know, different seasons for sure. You know, you get a little bit of everything. It does rain in the winter, but I don't mind the rain. Personally. I love reading a book or watching a movie or something when it's wet outside, and then when the sun does come out. Oh, my God, it's just glorious. Summers are beautiful.

Kerry Philben  6:08  
Well I think, Seattle's kind of secret is that it actually doesn't rain as much as they say in the movies.

Evan Franulovich  6:12  
Right? Exactly. 

Kerry Philben  6:16  
We have like, these beautiful summers that are, like, five months long, where it is sunny every dayand it is very rarely hot. 

Evan Franulovich  6:27  
Very rare.

Kerry Philben  6:27  
Like, it's warm but never uncomfortably hot, and it's just like gorgeous sun. And you know, you just spend the whole summer outside. I don't I don't like hot weather, which is a big reason I wanted to come here. But I also don't like snow and ice. I don't like driving in snow and ice, because remember, I grew up in California. I don't really know.

Evan Franulovich  6:51  
Yeah, well, Redding. I guess Redding doesn't get snow.

Kerry Philben  6:55  
It gets snow kind of like Seattle, maybe once a year, and everyone completely goes crazy.

Evan Franulovich  7:04  
Well, so let's go back. You said that you were back on the east part of the country for your undergraduate work and for your graduate work.

Kerry Philben  7:14  
So I did my undergraduate work in Chicago. 

Evan Franulovich  7:17  
Oh, that's right.

Kerry Philben  7:18  
Yeah and then I was on the East Coast for graduate work.

Evan Franulovich  7:21  
Okay, and then what did you study? What were your majors when you went to school? 

Kerry Philben  7:24  
Okay, so I was a music major in undergrad, so I played the bassoon. 

Evan Franulovich  7:38  
What? Nobody plays the bassoon. There's a few.

Kerry Philben  7:42  
Now you know somebody. 

Evan Franulovich  7:43  
Cool.

Kerry Philben  7:44  
Yeah. So I was a music major, and I was also a Russian major, so I studied Russian language and literature. So I studied abroad in Russia, and I then I spent a lot of time practicing the bassoon playing in orchestras. 

Evan Franulovich  8:06  
That's very cool. 

Kerry Philben  8:07  
And I want to say, before I went to Chicago for my undergrad, I did a year at a community college. 

Evan Franulovich  8:17  
Yay, community colleges. 

Kerry Philben  8:19  
In Redding. So it was called Shasta College and I really loved my time at community college, and it's really made me a huge cheerleader for the community college experience. I love telling our students about, you know what a community college is, and all the great benefits it has. Because, like, I experienced it, and it's something that I don't know if you encounter this a lot. I don't get the impression that a lot of international students are really familiar with what a community college is, or how it's different from a four-year college or university.

Evan Franulovich  8:59  
I can't speak for my other recruiter colleagues, but I spend a lot of time on the road explaining what a community college is. Well, I mean. I went, you went. I mean, half of all Americans kind of started a community college, or almost half. So, yeah. It's a great way to go. It's affordable. Classes are flexible,

Kerry Philben  9:17  
Yeah, and it serves so many different kinds of people, you know, like, it serves career changers. It serves people who are working. It serves people who are like, going back to school after having families. 

Evan Franulovich  9:31  
Yeah.

Kerry Philben  9:33  
And for me, it served a really unique purpose. My high school did not send a lot of people to college. So not a lot of people at my high school were planning to go to university. My high school didn't have very many, like, college preparatory classes. I wanted to go to college, and I needed those classes in order to be able to apply to college. Like, I wanted to take math classes and science classes, and stuff like that. So I got those through the community college. After three years at high school, I went to community college so that I could apply to universities and go get a bachelor's degree and be a competitive applicant. I know that Seattle Colleges does similar things, right? With High School Completion.

Evan Franulovich  10:25  
Yes. We have a lot of students that are at the high school levels that are coming here to take classes. So some students, when they graduate from high school, these are domestic students. I'm talking about locals. Sometimes they're graduating and they already have practically their first two years of university done, which is awesome. International students, though, have the High School Completion Program here in the state of Washington available to them. As long as you're 16 years of age at, you know, the beginning of your classes. You can come, just forget about finishing High School in your home country. Come here and do it. So, yeah, it's a great way to go. 

Kerry Philben  10:58  
Yeah. I mean, I love that that's available to international students and honestly, I refer you a lot of students. 

Evan Franulovich  11:06  
Thank you, we appreciate that, 

Kerry Philben  11:08  
Because we're a school for adults who take students 18 and over.

Evan Franulovich  11:13  
You do have to be 18?

Kerry Philben  11:14  
You have to be 18 to study English at our school. But you know, sometimes we get people who say, 'Oh, I'm 16 and I want to come'. I'm like, 'Not only can you take, you can complete your high school diploma here'.

Evan Franulovich  11:28  
Right? So I'm curious why you chose Russian?

Kerry Philben  11:33  
I really wanted to read the literature in the original. I really liked Russian novels like. You know, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy novels, and I thought, I want to learn this language so I can read these books in their original language. 

Evan Franulovich  11:53  
Cool.

Kerry Philben  11:54  
And I'm not particularly good at languages. It took me 10 years, but I'm gonna say it was worth it.

Evan Franulovich  12:03  
For sure, and do you still use it from time to time? Like, there are quite a few Russian speakers in Seattle area?

Kerry Philben  12:09  
Not as much as I'd like. I use it. I use it in my job. Sometimes when a Russian speaking student comes in, you know, I explain Alps programs and stuff. But our school actually has this policy where we're in English only zone. You have to speak only English inside the building. It helps you practice English, improve faster. You know, we're also really diverse, with students from about 60 different countries here. Yeah, so we want you to make friends and meet people from other countries. So I don't speak as much Russian at school as you might think, but I still read quite a bit in Russian. Every so often I'll chat with a prospective student in Russian or something.

Evan Franulovich  13:02  
Yeah, we have a lot of students who speak Russian that aren't necessarily from Russia. Like we've had students from Turkmenistan and some of the other stands that speak Russian. Ukrainians often speak Russian. So, yeah, it's really good, useful language. Why did you choose the did you apply to multiple universities, or why did you choose the university you did for your undergrad?

Kerry Philben  13:25  
Yeah, that's a that's a good question. I did apply to multiple universities because I was applying to universities that had competitive admissions. That just means, I wasn't sure I'd get in. And some universities I got accepted, and other universities I didn't get accepted. So I I applied to several different universities just because I wanted to have an option at least I wasn't I wasn't sure if I would get in. I chose my university because it had a combination of strengths in the areas I was most interested in. So I had always been a musician, and I knew I wanted to study music seriously. There are not very many colleges and universities in the US where you can study music seriously. 

Evan Franulovich  14:30  
Okay.

Kerry Philben  14:31  
But I also wanted to do kind of traditional academic study. I wasn't very sure about what I wanted my major to be, but I knew that I didn't just want to study music. I didn't just want to go to a conservatory. I wanted a degree in something else. So Juilliard was out. Yeah, so Juilliard does a great job at preparing you to be a musician, an actor, a dancer, but it's not a university. That was important to me and also important to my family. 

Evan Franulovich  15:02  
Okay, sure.

Kerry Philben  15:03  
So there was some, there was some family pressure there.

Evan Franulovich  15:06  
That's good, yeah yeah.

Kerry Philben  15:06  
I'm glad I listened now, but yeah, the university I chose was. 

Evan Franulovich  15:10  
What's the name of it?

Kerry Philben  15:12  
Northwestern University. 

Evan Franulovich  15:16  
Oh, Northwestern okey.

Kerry Philben  15:20  
Yeah, that was a university that had a top notch music school, and it was a good university where I could study an academic major as well, and they accepted me. Those were the things that had to happen for me to study there.

Evan Franulovich  15:39  
Cool and then your master's degree was at what university?

Kerry Philben  15:42  
It was at Yale University. 

Evan Franulovich  15:44  
What, at Yale? And it was in?

Kerry Philben  15:48  
Russian.

Evan Franulovich  15:49  
It was in Russian, okay. So you did music then Russian. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Okay, now I'm tracking right there. Well, you know, everybody always asks about Ivy League schools or Stanford. What was your experience like at Yale, did you enjoy it?

Kerry Philben  16:02  
I did. It was really unique. I really enjoyed my time there, and I'm happy I went there. It was an incredibly wealthy school. I had never been around that many rich people before, so it was like, materially wealthy. It was also a school where there were a lot of intellectual resources, you know. Some of the most brilliant professors in the world, just top of their field. 

Evan Franulovich  16:46  
Right.

Kerry Philben  16:48  
So there were a lot of resources. It was interesting, and I am really happy I went there. But I also don't think that the Ivy League is the 'be all, end all' that so many people make it out to be. I get that perception from a lot of my students. Like, I don't, you know, advertise like, I don't want to. If it comes up then, sometimes students are like, how did you do it? My thought has always been, Yale is wonderful but the other schools I went to were also really wonderful. They were wonderful for me, like they fit what I needed, you know. What I could achieve, and they really helped me grow. So I am very, very grateful to the education I received from Yale. 

Evan Franulovich  17:58  
Cool.

Kerry Philben  17:59  
But I'm equally grateful to the education I got from Shasta College, the community college I went to and Northwestern, you know, where I did my undergrad. Those were all incredibly valuable educational institutions, and I think I got really high quality education from each of them. 

Evan Franulovich  18:17  
Cool. Well, I am going to be talking about Alps soon. This is a really interesting background. When you went from Shasta to Northwestern, transferring credits. Not a problem?

Kerry Philben  18:29  
Yeah, I transferred quite a few credits. I transferred what at most community colleges are called 'General education credits', but at Northwestern, they had a different name. They call them 'Distribution credits'. Some of the science, English and math classes that I took at Shasta College satisfied my requirements for kind of introductory level classes at Northwestern. 

Evan Franulovich  18:56  
Nice. 

Kerry Philben  18:56  
And, yeah, I think that's a great thing about community college.

Evan Franulovich  19:00  
Me too. Well, it sounds like a really interesting educational background. And before we start talking about Alps, which is really why we're here, I want to do a little getting to know you. This is just a way for people to kind of, I mean, they already know about your educational background, but let's find out about these things. All you got to do is tell me which one you prefer, and it tells a lot about who you are. Ready? Coffee or tea?

Kerry Philben  19:25  
Coffee.

Evan Franulovich  19:26  
Me too. 

Kerry Philben  19:28  
Do you have a favorite coffee shop in Seattle? 

Evan Franulovich  19:30  
I don't. I need to check out the one you're talking about, though, because.

Kerry Philben  19:36  
It's so close.

Evan Franulovich  19:37  
It's so close. There used to be, I mean, I usually gravitate towards Starbucks just because there's one on every corner, and it's really simple and easy, but there aren't really too many Starbucks in Capitol Hill that I know of. Except at like, QFC, inside a grocery store. But like, a standalone there's not. They closed two of them that I know of.

Kerry Philben  19:58  
Yeah.

Evan Franulovich  19:59  
It's weird, Seattle. All right, mountains or beach?

Kerry Philben  20:04  
Oh, mountains usually. I don't like hot weather, and most beaches are hot.

Evan Franulovich  20:10  
Well, we were just talking before we rolled which is funny. Her parents live in my hometown. it's crazy.

Kerry Philben  20:16  
It is not a large hometown.

Evan Franulovich  20:19  
I'm from Florence, Oregon, for those of you who haven't heard that before. Yeah, it's what, four to 10,000 people, maybe in the whole area.

Kerry Philben  20:28  
But there are great beaches there, and they're not hot. 

Evan Franulovich  20:31  
And the coastal mountains are there's, it got a lot to offer. It's really great. 

Kerry Philben  20:35  
It's beautiful. 

Evan Franulovich  20:36  
Yeah, I went to Siuslaw High School. All right. early bird or night owl?

Kerry Philben  20:41  
Early bird.

Evan Franulovich  20:42  
Oh, we don't hear that too often. 

Kerry Philben  20:46  
I'm not a student.

Evan Franulovich  20:46  
Books or movies? You're not a student, that's right. Books or movies?

Kerry Philben  20:49  
Oh, books.

Evan Franulovich  20:52  
I knew you were gonna say, you sound like a book person. Texting or phone calls?

Kerry Philben  20:58  
Oh, depends. These are all kind of depends questions, but I'm gonna say texting.

Evan Franulovich  21:08  
It's funny, you know. I've asked a number of students this question, and a lot of them have said phone calls, which really surprised me. 

Kerry Philben  21:14  
Yeah.

Evan Franulovich  21:15  
I mean, I probably text more than I phone call. 

Kerry Philben  21:17  
I'm old, so I don't know, but I figured that the younger generation would prefer texting.

Evan Franulovich  21:23  
That has not been the case. Maybe they're revolting.

Kerry Philben  21:26  
Pendulum swinging. 

Evan Franulovich  21:27  
That's right, exactly. Happily, cats or dogs?

Kerry Philben  21:31  
Dogs.

Evan Franulovich  21:32  
Do you have one? 

Kerry Philben  21:33  
Yes. 

Evan Franulovich  21:33  
Wow. What kind of dog do you have? 

Kerry Philben  21:35  
Yellow. 

Evan Franulovich  21:36  
Like a lab?

Kerry Philben  21:37  
I don't know. 

Evan Franulovich  21:39  
Just yellow?

Kerry Philben  21:39  
Yeah, yeah, it's a stray but.

Evan Franulovich  21:42  
I love that. City or country?

Kerry Philben  21:46  
City.

Evan Franulovich  21:47  
Definitely city. Adventure or chill at home?

Kerry Philben  21:52  
Adventure.

Evan Franulovich  21:53  
Okay, summer or winter?

Kerry Philben  21:56  
Summer in Seattle.

Evan Franulovich  21:57  
Yeah.

Kerry Philben  21:58  
Winter everywhere else. 

Evan Franulovich  21:59  
Okay, cool. Cooking at home or eating out?

Kerry Philben  22:04  
Eating out even though it's not very good for me.

Evan Franulovich  22:08  
But it taste so good and I'm lazy, I just don't like to cook very much so. I like eating but it's a lot of money to eat out.

Kerry Philben  22:16  
Seattle's a great food town. 

Evan Franulovich  22:18  
It is a great food town. 

Kerry Philben  22:19  
Students, ask him in the comments about cheap places to eat, because I know he knows.

Evan Franulovich  22:25  
I know a few, but it's really expensive to eat out all the time. 

Kerry Philben  22:29  
Yeah. 

Evan Franulovich  22:29  
I mean, you can eat out once in a while, which is great, but yeah. I mean, if all else fails, you can go to Dick's burgers. Which is just down the street.

Kerry Philben  22:37  
Or you can go to the Seattle Colleges place.

Evan Franulovich  22:43  
Oh yes, that's true. 

Kerry Philben  22:45  
Evan invited me and some of the other Alps staff last week.

Evan Franulovich  22:50  
Gina, credit for inviting you. She's like our social coordinator.

Kerry Philben  22:55  
Evan was there. 

Evan Franulovich  22:56  
I was there.

Kerry Philben  22:56  
We went to the the restaurant. It's like a training restaurant for Seattle Central's culinary arts students, where they practice making these incredible fine dining dishes. 

Evan Franulovich  23:11  
Fine dining 

Kerry Philben  23:13  
A fancy restaurant and we had an incredible lunch.

Evan Franulovich  23:17  
It was really good.

Kerry Philben  23:19  
Awesome. 

Evan Franulovich  23:20  
I never eat that fancy.

Kerry Philben  23:22  
Well, yeah. So it's this fancy meal, but because they're students, they sell it at a really discounted rate. You were telling me that they also have this takeout counter where the students make food that other Seattle Central students can buy. And I was like I want to come here.

Evan Franulovich  23:44  
Yeah, it's really great. It's nice to have the culinary school here, for sure. We had a couple of choices. I had salmon and it came with some rice and some beets, I think. Then I had a beet salad and we had some stuff at the beginning. What did you have? You had the quail?

Kerry Philben  24:05  
I had the beet salad, and then I had lamb chops.

Evan Franulovich  24:08  
Lamb chops.

Kerry Philben  24:09  
Which were very fancily prepared. Everything just tasted great and looked amazing, and we saw a student who used to be at Alps. He came to my school and learned English, and then he went to Seattle Central and joined the culinary arts program. This is amazing.

Evan Franulovich  24:30  
He's agreed to be on the podcast, so we're gonna see him really soon.

Kerry Philben  24:34  
Yeah, I really love seeing former students out. Either in college or, you know, just in the community. Kind of working or living their lives.

Evan Franulovich  24:46  
For sure.

Kerry Philben  24:46  
 And yeah, that was just so cool. 

Evan Franulovich  24:49  
It's very cool. 

Kerry Philben  24:50  
Yes, thank you. And thank you, Gina, for inviting.

Evan Franulovich  24:53  
Gina. Shout out to Gina. So I taught at a English School for Adults when I lived in China, and I loved it. I loved teaching adults because they're interesting, they've got lives already. I mean, kids are fun, but I really like adults because they got things going on and that's all you do as adults. So let's get into Alps now, now that we're there. So you the listener, might be like, 'Why is he interviewing a school that kind of competes with Seattle Colleges?", because we have our own institute of English as well, but we don't really compete, I don't think. It doesn't feel like we're competing at all.

Kerry Philben  25:29  
No, I mean, we're kind of different, different animals. 

Evan Franulovich  25:34  
Yes, for sure.

Kerry Philben  25:35  
Like there's a bit of overlap, but we have this really fruitful partnership.

Evan Franulovich  25:43  
I agree.

Kerry Philben  25:43  
And we have had it for a long time. I think it benefits both of our schools to have this partnership in it. Most importantly, it benefits the students.

Evan Franulovich  25:54  
For sure. Yeah, we've had students show up, and for some reason it doesn't work out. You know, it doesn't work out, they can get in for that quarter, or whatever the case. We often will send them down to you guys, and they go with their map down the street, and they find your door. Next thing we know, is a quarter or two have gone by, and then they show back up here at Seattle Colleges. 

Kerry Philben  26:17  
Or sometimes you just call me and I walk down. Like Alps is a really small school guys. So if you send us an email, I'm the one who will answer really fast. 

Evan Franulovich  26:27  
She'll get it.

Kerry Philben  26:29  
If you call us on the phone, it's probably me or one of my colleagues. You have definitely just called before, and I have walked down the street to come, like, shake a student's hand and say, 'Hey, let's fix this'.

Evan Franulovich  26:43  
Well, she says, 'It's a small school', but you have a lot of students. I mean, how many students do you guys have on average at any one time?

Kerry Philben  26:50  
At any one time? This year we've probably had 70-75 students at any one time, and we run year round. We accept students every month of the year, we're basically only closed for a day or two on major holidays. So, you know, we'll close like a day or two for Christmas instead of two weeks, like a college.

Evan Franulovich  27:15  
Thanksgiving you're probably closed, I'm guessing? 

Kerry Philben  27:17  
Yeah. So for example, next week is a big holiday, Thanksgiving. Which is on a Thursday, so we're closed Thursday and Friday. 

Evan Franulovich  27:25  
Cool, that's pretty awesome, 

Kerry Philben  27:25  
But you know, we'll have class Monday to Wednesday, and then you run it again the next week.

Evan Franulovich  27:30  
So before we get too much into the details of what you guys teach and how you teach it, let's talk about nations represented. How many different countries have you guys had?

Kerry Philben  27:44  
Well, I mean, the school has been around for 33 years. 

Evan Franulovich  27:49  
33 years?

Kerry Philben  27:50  
I haven't been there the whole time. I'm not that old, but I do not know how many nations we've had over 33 years, but we are a really, really diverse school. We usually have students from like 55-60 different countries every year, any one point in time. We typically have students from probably 25 to 35 different countries, and remember, we have like 75 students at a time. So it is really, really diverse. It's definitely a very international experience being in an Alps classroom. We don't have a majority from any one area the world or any one country, and we don't have, like, even a significant minority. It's very unusual for us to even have like, 10% of our students from one country.

Evan Franulovich  28:53  
Interesting. 

Kerry Philben  28:53  
So it's really, really diverse, and that's something that I just love about Alps.

Evan Franulovich  28:58  
That's cool, and your student body is made up, not just of international students, which is who we're talking to, but also domestic?

Kerry Philben  29:07  
So at Alps, we can host you if you want to come on a student visa, like the F1 visa and the I-20. We can do that, and typically, about half of our students at any one time are here on student visas. We also welcome students on a lot of different visa types. So we have tourists, people on B visas or sometimes with like a visa waiver. They're just traveling on their passport from countries that allow that. They can come to Alps and take, like, short part time classes for fun. And we see a lot of students like that, people's brothers and sisters visiting them, and they're like 'You need something to do while I'm at work'. 

Evan Franulovich  29:56  
That's cool.

Kerry Philben  29:57  
So they come and do that. We get people who come and study for a short time while they're on vacation from work in their home country and stuff like that. And then we also have a lot of what we call like our local students. Those are people who are either here on a work visa or an immigrant visa, or maybe they have a green card, and sometimes they're US citizens who, just like did not grow up speaking English. They grew up abroad, or they're dual citizens of another country, and they grew up in the other country and didn't really learn English. So we have a lot of we have a lot of what we call tech spouses. So Seattle, as you probably know, is home to the headquarters of Microsoft and Amazon. We have big offices here for, you know, Google, Facebook,Nintendo and Starbucks. So a lot of international employees come to work at these big companies, and they bring their families. Usually, you know, the worker is at work, but the spouse, the husband, the wife, the boyfriend, the girlfriend, does not speak English, does not have any friends, does not have anything to do all day. So a lot of them come to our school and learn English. But also, I really, really love that they're able to form social networks. You know, we see a lot of really close friendships forms at Alps. Where it's like, I came to Seattle, I didn't know anybody, I met all these people at Alps while I was learning English. And then, now I've got my crew new circle. I love that about our school.

Evan Franulovich  32:01  
It's really cool.

Kerry Philben  32:02  
 Yeah, it's one of my favorite things.

Evan Franulovich  32:04  
So you say F1 students, are they just applying directly to your school then? How do they do that? Where's your website?

Kerry Philben  32:16  
So our F1 students, like our international students with student visas come from a few different places. A lot of people just say, 'I'm going to come to Seattle and learn English', and they find us mostly through our website. Like, to be honest, we are really small, so we don't have an Evan like you. We don't have a recruiter that we send out to travel, to go to recruitment fairs. We rely on, mostly like our website, our word of mouth. So, like, people's brothers, sisters, cousins, went to Alps, and they're like, 'You should go, I learned English" and then we also rely on our partners. So our partner schools often help us recruit students, not not Seattle Colleges so much, but we also partner with a few other. Like local Seattle area colleges and universities that don't have their own ESL programs, and we basically just co market, so we kind of piggyback on their recruiter and send them out with some helps brochures when they're selling their university. 

Evan Franulovich  33:36  
Yeah, that's great.

Kerry Philben  33:38  
Yeah. So we get students from kind of a variety of different places.

Evan Franulovich  33:43  
And they can, you know, she was saying there's other colleges and universities in the Seattle area. They are in Capitol Hill, but it's easy to get around. You talked about public transportation. How close are you to the subway line?

Kerry Philben  33:57  
Yeah, we're a five minute walk from the subway, which is called the light rail here, because it's not all underground. It's really easy to get to both our schools on public transit, because Seattle Central's here, Alps is here, the train station is here, right in the middle. And both of our schools are really close to major bus lines in Seattle.

Evan Franulovich  34:27  
Goes right down that street.

Kerry Philben  34:30  
For a U.S. city, Seattle has very good public transit, I'd say.

Evan Franulovich  34:35  
It's really good.

Kerry Philben  34:36  
Yeah, it's, it's one of the better systems of, you know, any US city I've lived in. It's pretty easy to get around. The busses come pretty frequently, but the train is just so great.

Evan Franulovich  34:49  
Right. The train is really great. So students, when they come to our school, you know, they have housing options. You know, we have student dorms, they do apartments, they do home state programs. What are your guys's housing options?

Kerry Philben  35:02  
Yeah. So we have, we have a bunch of different housing options. We have this page on our website that just lists, what do you want? Here's how to book.  So we have a chart on there that kind of helps you do a quick comparison. Like, what's the estimated monthly cost? Is there, like, a minimum stay, if I'm going to be here for a month? Is this an option or not, or is there minimum, like, three months? You know, how far is it?, typically from our school on public transit. And just kind of helps you compare stuff like that. We have a lot of details about just the specifics of the different options. What do they look like? How do you book it, and what do you do next if you decide you want to stay there? 

Evan Franulovich  35:53  
Cool.

Kerry Philben  35:54  
Some, a lot of our students get apartments or homestays. Some of them stay with relatives because they have, like, friends or family in Seattle, so they already have housing taken care of. But on our website, yeah, we have homestays, apartments, short-term apartments. So, there's this company in Seattle called Apodments, have you heard of them?

Evan Franulovich  36:26  
They have, like, a common kitchen area. One of our students from my Argentina was living in one of those.

Kerry Philben  36:32  
Yeah. So I think it's a great student housing option. 

Evan Franulovich  36:36  
Pretty affordable.

Kerry Philben  36:37  
They're all in, like, new buildings in the center. There's maybe 20 different buildings that this company owns, and they're all new buildings, like new construction. You rent like a tiny little apartment, like it's probably like the size of your bedroom, but it's furnished, so it already has furniture. 

Evan Franulovich  36:59  
That's cool.

Kerry Philben  37:00  
A lot of, you know, American apartments do not come with furniture, so it's furnished. They all have private bathrooms. They all have a little tiny kitchen in there, but they have a big common kitchen that's shared. And they do short-term leases, like you can do a three month or a six month rental period, which is really good, because a lot of American leases are minimum 12 months.

Evan Franulovich  37:27  
Right.

Kerry Philben  37:27  
And, the the last thing is they're affordable, which is great. 

Evan Franulovich  37:31  
This is really great.

Kerry Philben  37:32  
Tiny. Tiny, but a lot of good options, if you can handle the tininess. A lot of good points about it. Yeah, Alps Students can also stay in in the Cornish Commons dorm, which is the dorm for City University. 

Evan Franulovich  37:51  
Oh, I didn't know that.

Kerry Philben  37:52  
Yep.

Evan Franulovich  37:54  
Which is just down the hill, right? 

Kerry Philben  37:56  
Yeah, so it's kind of walking distance from here. It's probably a 20 minute walk. Other than that, some of our students do student housing in the American Hotel, which is a hostel. It's like a hostel during the summer, but during the fall, winter and spring months, they'll do monthly student housing. 

Evan Franulovich  38:24  
I had no idea, I've never heard of this.

Kerry Philben  38:27  
Yeah, the manager there is really nice, I went down and took a tour. To be honest guys, it's not luxury, but it is a great cheap housing option in Seattle, if you're looking for a cheap option. 

Evan Franulovich  38:41  
And what's the name of it? American? 

Kerry Philben  38:42  
The American Hotel. 

Evan Franulovich  38:44  
American Hotel.

Kerry Philben  38:44  
Yeah, and then the last type of housing I would say that's kind of common with our students, is an extended stay hotel. 

Evan Franulovich  38:54  
Oh, sure.

Kerry Philben  38:55  
Yeah, so there's a few hotels that will do discounted monthly rates, and the cost of that kind of varies with this season. It tends to be very affordable in the winter and crazy expensive during our tourist season in the summer.

Evan Franulovich  39:10  
Wow, so many options.

Kerry Philben  39:12  
Yeah. We don't arrange housing for you, bt as you can tell, I've answered a lot of questions over the years. Students are like, 'Are you sure this is how I do it?' Or 'I'm going to stay for a month, is this a good idea?', and we're really happy to provide advice.

Evan Franulovich  39:32  
Well, that's why I love these conversations, because I just learned a lot that I don't tell my students. So I'm going to start telling people about these options. These are really great options. Okay, so let's just talk about, when you open your door. What time in the morning can a student show up and go inside and start hanging out if they want?

Kerry Philben  39:50  
So Alps offers classes between 8:30 and five o'clock. 

Evan Franulovich  39:57  
Oh, pretty early. 

Kerry Philben  39:58  
Yeah. So not all students start at 8:30. We have a few different courses you can take, and they have a few different schedules, but our earliest classes start at 8:30am. My colleague Alex gets to school early, so he arrives at usually about 7:30 and, you know, unlocks the door early. I usually get to work at about eight, and, you know, the teachers start to roll in and get ready for class and stuff. And one really great thing Alex does is make coffee. You know, Seattle's a coffee city. So, you know, Alps provides coffee for students. 

Evan Franulovich  40:42  
That's really nice. 

Kerry Philben  40:44  
It's not good coffee.

Evan Franulovich  40:47  
You want the good coffee, then go next door.

Kerry Philben  40:48  
Yes, yeah. So students come in, have a cup of coffee, you know, get ready for class. Maybe ask their teacher a question before class, or something. Or, you know, if they have something to ask me about, I'm right there.

Evan Franulovich  41:03  
So when I worked for EF, there were kind of two components. They had the classroom component and but then they had computers that students could use. And there was an, not an online necessarily, but it was like a computer component where they go on and do lessons. Do you guys have that same kind of set up? Nope, it's just classes?

Kerry Philben  41:24  
Yeah. The thing that makes Alps unique among the English schools I've seen and that I've worked at, is that we are so focused on getting students to produce English and interact with each other. 

Evan Franulovich  41:46  
That's just awesome.

Kerry Philben  41:46  
Yes, we have this really strong focus on, like 'You will speak'. 

Evan Franulovich  41:51  
English.

Kerry Philben  41:52  
I mean, not in an intimidating way, but you know, like, it's what you're here for.

Evan Franulovich  41:58  
And you're paying for.

Kerry Philben  42:00  
Yeah,  especially now that machine translation is so good, we really want people to feel comfortable and confident speaking and feel confident that they understand what they're hearing. So we don't really have any lab classes, it is all just small group, super interactive classes where you are talking all the time and you're getting a lot of real time feedback and correction from your teachers.

Evan Franulovich  42:34  
Gotcha now, you said small so when I taught at EF I think the maximum number of people we would get into a room, I think was six, maybe eight. It was very small. Is that the same at your school? What do you have for a small?

Kerry Philben  42:48  
I actually just calculated our average class size. Our average class size as of this month, is 5.6. 

Evan Franulovich  42:58  
That's great.

Kerry Philben  43:00  
Yeah. We do have some classes that are a little bigger than that. That's not a maximum, obviously, but our average class size is quite small. We really want to have a lot of individual attention on students. Alps is not the first English school I've worked at, but as the director of this school and one of the owners. I've thought a lot about, 'How do I want to shape it?', 'What kind of experience do I want to provide?', 'What's the mission of the school going to be?'. And for me, that's just so important that we remain small enough that I know every student's name, not just that I know their names, but I know what's happening with their family. I know their goals. I know what's important to them. I want our school to stay small enough that that's still possible, and that means small classes, but also kind of a small school.

Evan Franulovich  44:06  
Right on. 

Kerry Philben  44:07  
Yeah, So say, we're small by choice.

Evan Franulovich  44:12  
We also had something. We had our classes, we had really intimate classes. Then a little bigger, like you're talking about, but then we had something called 'English corner'. I don't know if you guys had something, but it's basically where the instructors will choose a topic and anybody can just show up. Maybe we're talking about Magic, the Gathering cards, or maybe we talk about football in the United States. It's just an opportunity for a lot of people to get together. The instructor kind of talks about a subject, but then gets the students to talk amongst themselves. Do you guys have something like that as well?

Kerry Philben  44:49  
We don't, typically, but we have a couple different similar things that I want to talk about. One is that our school has organized activities program. It is a combination of social and tourist stuff. The social part is usually like a happy hour or a meet up at a cafe or at, like a bar or a brewery. All adults and a little bit of alcohol.

Evan Franulovich  45:27  
Gotta be 21 in the United States.

Kerry Philben  45:29  
If you're 21, but yeah, so we have those meetups. Those are typically every week, and Alps organizes and pick some and  sends a teacher with you. The teacher facilitates the conversation and stuff like that. And then the kind of the other half of our activity program is just doing cool tourist stuff around Seattle. Like taking the ferry over to Bainbridge Island. So you take a boat across Seattle to across the body of water that's right next to Seattle, and you go to this cute little tourist town on an island, or you go to the Seattle Art Museum. On an afternoon when the weather is nice we do stuff like go to the beach at Golden gardens and have a picnic. So those kind of like touristy things where we really show off  our city and the great stuff that's happening there. So shout out to one of our other partners, City University. For the past couple years we've been tagging along on their summer trip. 

Evan Franulovich  46:44  
Oh cool.

Kerry Philben  46:44  
 So students go up there, and that's always a really special trip. 

Evan Franulovich  46:49  
Definitely.

Kerry Philben  46:50  
Huge mountain that's really close to Seattle, gorgeous National Park.

Evan Franulovich  46:55  
A lot of our international students don't have a car, so they look for those kinds of opportunities. That's really great. So it sounds like you have a lot of great stuff going on, but let's just talk about a class. I want to take a class. I'm guessing you get a wide variety of abilities. You know, we had everything from absolute beginners to advanced groups. You must do some sort of assessment? Tell us about that.

Kerry Philben  47:21  
Yeah, we totally do.  Alps has six different levels. 

Evan Franulovich  47:26  
Okay.

Kerry Philben  47:26  
Level one is really, 'Hello, my name is'.

Evan Franulovich  47:31  
Yes.

Kerry Philben  47:31  
I have taught students the English alphabet before because they they use a non Latin alphabet. So level one really is super beginner.

Evan Franulovich  47:44  
Okay.

Kerry Philben  47:45  
And then level six, which we call your master's level, is super advanced. It's typically students preparing for master's degrees in the US who really need that kind of high level professional and academic vocabulary. Most students are ready for the job market after they finish level four at Alps.

Evan Franulovich  48:09  
So pretty high intermediate maybe?

Kerry Philben  48:09  
Like, high intermediate, and then most students are ready for university or college after level five. 

Evan Franulovich  48:15  
Okay.

Kerry Philben  48:16  
So not everybody starts at level one, and not everybody finishes the last level. We have a lot of students who come in for like, six months and do two levels, kind of in and out. When you first apply to Alps, we do what's called a placement test. It's a test that you can't pass or fail to determine your starting level. 

Evan Franulovich  48:41  
Sure.

Kerry Philben  48:41  
We can either do it online, via zoom or in-person at school. 

Evan Franulovich  48:49  
Great. 

Kerry Philben  48:49  
Most of them we do via zoom because our students aren't in Seattle.

Evan Franulovich  48:53  
Sure, yeah.

Kerry Philben  48:54  
We have you schedule it, and it's an individual thing. It's just you and a real, live Alps teacher. Sometimes students get really nervous about it because they think it's like, the TOEFL or the IELTS and if you don't get a score, everything is ruined. But seriously, we're in English school. You're going into English class. 

Evan Franulovich  49:21  
Don't worry.

Kerry Philben  49:21  
So it's not something to stress out about. And also, we do a pretty good job, but occasionally we do placement testing for a student who is really jet lagged.

Evan Franulovich  49:38  
Not thinking as clearly.

Kerry Philben  49:40  
And the student is like, 'What?' and then after a couple days, it becomes apparent that they're actually higher. So we really want your classes to be useful. 

Evan Franulovich  49:56  
Absolutely.

Kerry Philben  49:56  
So in cases like that we retest you and put you in a different level when you need to be. 

Evan Franulovich  50:04  
Gotcha. Yeah, that's really great. And then after they have done what they want to do, a lot of times, they're taking English classes because they want to get into a university or a master's degree program. Are they're asked to take some sort of a English proficiency exam, do you guys offer like a IELTS or a TOEFL or some other type?

Kerry Philben  50:25  
We offer something way better. We offer awesome partnerships with Seattle area colleges like Seattle Colleges and Universities, where you do not have to take a TOEFL or an IELTS score. You can complete the required level at Alps, and that satisfies the English proficiency requirement. We have partnerships like that with most of the Seattle area colleges and universities and the exact level that you need to complete, or the classes you need to take. It varies by college and university, because every college has their own rules, their own English proficiency requirement. A big part of my job, and then my colleague Jared's job, our Academic Coordinator, is to help our students navigate that. If you enroll in classes at Alps and you say, 'I want to go to college afterwards. What do I need to do?'. Part of our job is to advise you, to help you research a school, find a school, to connect you with Gina if you're going to Seattle Colleges and yeah. It's kind of an extra bonus service that our school offers. 

Evan Franulovich  51:54  
That's cool.

Kerry Philben  51:54  
We realize that basically no one is just learning English because it's a fun thing to learn, although that is also true. You're learning it because you want to get somewhere else. Our goal really, is to help you get to that next place you know. Is that university, is that Seattle Central, is that a job, is that a promotion at your job back home because you have better English like these are all things that we want to know and we want to help you out with.

Evan Franulovich  52:31  
So in order to get in, they have to fill out an application, I'm guessing, of some sort. Can you say, can you tell us what's in the application packet? We have like five different things that they have to do. What do you guys have?

Kerry Philben  52:44  
It depends on if you're gonna come with a student visa and you need an I-20 or not. 

Evan Franulovich  52:51  
Let's go there first. 

Kerry Philben  52:52  
I'll talk about what you need to do if you need an I-20. 

Evan Franulovich  52:55  
All right.

Kerry Philben  52:56  
You fill out an application form on our website. It's fairly simple, and we actually have it available in about 10 different languages. Sorry guys, it's Google Translate so may not be perfect but there's a little flag on the bottom of our website. 

Evan Franulovich  53:15  
Sure.

Kerry Philben  53:15  
You can kind of pick your language. It just asks for things like, what's your name, when were you born, what's your address? Nothing tough on there. 

Evan Franulovich  53:25  
Sure.

Kerry Philben  53:25  
One of the questions on there is 'Why do you want to study English?', and sometimes I get kind of crazy chat GPT answers on here. Like, people think it's a test they need to pass. So they'll paste in this chat GPT paragraph. I do not care what you write. I want to know your actual goal so that I can help direct you to the right course and start talking to you about, 'How long is it gonna take you to get to Seattle College?'. 

Evan Franulovich  53:57  
Yes. 

Kerry Philben  53:58  
So that's the only difficult question.

Evan Franulovich  54:01  
Right.

Kerry Philben  54:04  
So, yeah. We we just want to know, what do you need English for? So we can help you. That's the application form, that takes most students, I would say, 10 minutes maximum. You pay an application fee.

Evan Franulovich  54:22  
Which is? How much?

Kerry Philben  54:23  
It is $150 right now, you send us a copy of the photo page of your passport. You can take a scan, or you can take a picture with your phone, and then you just send it to us by email or by whatsapp. We have a school WhatsApp if you want to send it right from your phone. The last thing we need is a bank statement, and this is pretty similar to what you require at Seattle Colleges or any place where you're going to get an F1 visa. Basically the U.S. government wants you to prove that you have enough money to support yourself and your studies in the U.S. without working, and the way they do that is they say, 'Show us a pile of money'.

Evan Franulovich  55:14  
That pile varies from an institution.

Kerry Philben  55:17  
It varies from institution to institution. At Alps, the pile of money depends on how long you're going to study.

Evan Franulovich  55:25  
Makes sense. 

Kerry Philben  55:25  
If you're going to study one month, you don't have to show very much.

Evan Franulovich  55:29  
Rright.

Kerry Philben  55:29  
If you're going to study for a year, you have to show a bigger pile of money.

Evan Franulovich  55:32  
Makes sense, right? One of the things I hear a lot when I'm out there, and I'd be curious what your experience has been, or what your impression is. Is that if I go to a language school, it's going to be really tough to get a visa. What's the current landscape like?

Kerry Philben  55:47  
I mean, people say that because there's a grain of truth to it. It's part of my job to kind of have my finger on the pulse of this. I do a lot of research. I ask a CVP, I try to talk to visa officers and former visa officers whenever I can, and say, 'Look, what's the current deal?', 'What should my students know?', 'What should they say in an interview?'. What I hear, and what you probably hear too, is that, objectively, yes, it is more difficult to get approved for a visa with an I-20 from a community college or language school than it is with, say, an I-20 from.

Evan Franulovich  56:48  
Maybe University of Washington?

Kerry Philben  56:53  
The reason for that is that some visa officers think if it's not a selective school, if it's not competitive, then it's my job as the visa officer to determine whether the student should be admitted and is a bona fide student. They put more scrutiny on it. And fair or not, that is what happens. My advice for students, which comes directly from advice that I received from former visa consular officers, is it's so important that you proactively tell your honest story. So I'll go through that. First is proactive. I don't know if you do like Visa counseling or mock visa interviews with students. 

Evan Franulovich  57:53  
We don't do much of that. 

Kerry Philben  57:54  
No, but visa interviews are really, really short. 

Evan Franulovich  58:01  
Yes.

Kerry Philben  58:01  
A lot of times students go in and they think, I'm gonna have this lengthy amount of time where the visa officer will draw out, like, Nah, you're gonna have, like, two minutes.

Evan Franulovich  58:12  
Man, maybe. 

Kerry Philben  58:13  
You got to get it all out there, right away. So you have to proactively tell your story. The first question is probably something like, 'So why do you want to study at Seattle Central College in Seattle?', and you have to answer that completely proactively, right away.

Evan Franulovich  58:32  
intelligently. 

Kerry Philben  58:34  
It can't be a one word answer. It can't be, you know, like, well, I'm 

Evan Franulovich  58:39  
Chat GPT.

Kerry Philben  58:40  
So you have to think about, like, what is your actual reason? Do you know why you chose that school? Do you know where you're going to live, how you're going to pay for it, and do you know how it's going to benefit you? Like, what are you going to get out of it? There's no one correct answer, because students study for so many reasons. Like there's so many programs, there's so many student backgrounds, and there's so many student goals. Everybody's an individual. There's no one correct answer, but you have to really think about, 'What am I doing?'. 

Evan Franulovich  59:22  
Right. 

Kerry Philben  59:22  
What am I doing? Why am I doing this? And you have to be ready to say that kind of unreally short notice. The the other piece of advice is, everyone is an individual again, and everybody has an individual story. That means that at a visa interview, they're going to consider your individual case. They're going to look at you as an individual.

Evan Franulovich  59:51  
Right.

Kerry Philben  59:52  
They're going to look at your individual educational background. They're going to look at your financial background, because the pile of money for the I-20 is a thing. And they're gonna make the best call that they can about whether they think you are a bonafide student, you know. Which just means, are you a genuine student who is going to come study, follow the rules and, then depart at the end, because student visa is a non immigrant visa. You are not staying here forever.

Evan Franulovich  1:00:31  
And I would agree with just about all of that. I would say, guys, we have students at Alps. We have students in Seattle Colleges. People are getting their visas. Don't let it deter you too much. If your real goal in life is to start maybe at Alps or start at Seattle Colleges and then eventually transfer onto a university, it's a great way to go. You just have to understand it, be able to communicate about it in a real, genuine way.

Kerry Philben  1:00:56  
Yeah, I actually want to add a couple of things to that. Ffirst is, is it impossible to get a visa? For a community college, for a language school? Absolutely not. Otherwise I wouldn't have a job.

Evan Franulovich  1:01:15  
Right, exactly.

Kerry Philben  1:01:17  
Nothing in life is a guarantee. And I'm not going to lie, it may be more difficult to get approved with Community College or language school I-20 than with a super prestigious four-year university I-20, but it is certainly not impossible.

Evan Franulovich  1:01:35  
Right.

Kerry Philben  1:01:36  
There's one more, kind of hot visa tip for language school students. That is, be prepared to discuss your whole educational plan in the U.S. 

Evan Franulovich  1:01:51  
Exactly.

Kerry Philben  1:01:52  
So if you are coming with like an outside 20, like you're going to study language for maybe, like three months you need to do, like, one level. You're just about ready. Don't go to the visa interview and say, 'Well, I'm gonna study English for three months'. Tell them about your whole plan. Like, 'I'm gonna study English for three months, then I'm going into the Seattle Colleges culinary arts program, then I'm going to do a PT, and then, then maybe I'll go to the Culinary Institute of America'

Evan Franulovich  1:02:27  
Right.

Kerry Philben  1:02:27  
Or something like that. Just what's your whole plan in the U.S.? Help the visa officer understand what your entire plan is. So not just, 'Well, I'm gonna do a couple years at a community college', but what's doing after that? Maybe I'm gonna go to UW and finish my bachelor's degree after that.

Evan Franulovich  1:02:55  
And guys, the reasons don't have to be rocket science. If the reason you want to come to Seattle and study is because your family is here. You have relatives to live with that's logical and makes sense. Let them know that maybe you just like the fact that Seattle is such a tech hub and that's where your interest really lies. That kind of makes sense. You just have to have things that make sense and that are logical. They do really look at you as an individual. Do some research. Give it some thought. 

Kerry Philben  1:03:23  
And if your plan in the U.S. does include college or university after studying English. Something that you can do at Alps is you can get what's called a conditional acceptance letter. You can get one from Seattle Colleges. On the Alps application, you can request a conditional acceptance letter from one of our college or university partners. 

Evan Franulovich  1:03:50  
It's a great idea. 

Kerry Philben  1:03:51  
When we send your I-20. We send your I-20, we send your Alps acceptance letter that says, 'Welcome to Alps. We're glad you're going to come study English with us', and we send this conditional acceptance letter from Seattle Colleges that says, 'Hey, you know this person is guaranteed admission after they fulfill the English requirement at Alps'. It's signed by your Dean. It's an official Seattle Colleges acceptance letter. Showing that acceptance letter shows that you have planned, that you know what you're going to do afterwards. You know what you need to do to get to the next step in college. If your plans include college or university after language study, then I really recommend a conditional acceptance letter. 

Evan Franulovich  1:04:45  
That's a really great idea. 

Kerry Philben  1:04:46  
It's worked pretty well for a lot of our students.

Evan Franulovich  1:04:50  
And if you don't need English lessons at all and you're just coming to community college to start your first two years of university work, well you can write down up to two of our tag partners. These are universities that we have partnerships with. We get a letter of acceptance, not only from Seattle Colleges, but also from our tag partner. That's really nice, because you can show that educational plan in its entirety. There's no guarantee, but it definitely helps you kind of illustrate your plan. I think it's a great thing to do. I didn't know that you guys did that. That's cool. 

Kerry Philben  1:05:22  
I didn't know that you could get the tag partner one.

Evan Franulovich  1:05:27  
Unfortunately, we are over time. But I mean, I could ask you about a million other questions, and you probably have a lot more questions too about Alps. Can you tell everybody your website so they can go find you?

Kerry Philben  1:05:41  
Sure it's alps.edu. A like Apple, L like Lima ,P like Paul,  S like Sam, dot edu or if you just Google Alps language school, that's us.

Evan Franulovich  1:06:00  
Right, and if you just send an email to info@alps.edu, you will receive it, I'm guessing?

Kerry Philben  1:06:07  
Yes, you will probably receive a personal reply from me. 

Evan Franulovich  1:06:11  
'Hello'. Yeah, it's a great way to go guys, you have a lot of options. Please explore it. So glad you came down for this podcast interview. 

Kerry Philben  1:06:22  
Thank you so much for having me. 

Evan Franulovich  1:06:22  
Yeah. Absolutely. We will look forward to hosting future Alps graduates here at Seattle Colleges, guys, we're just down the street. You can explore both options. Start at one, come down here at the after, and then go to UW for your undergrad, and then go to somewhere else for your graduate. I mean, you could spend a lot of time here.

Kerry Philben  1:06:43  
Yeah, we have, I want to say, probably 25 or 30 students every year who go from Alps to Seattle Colleges. Whether that's Seattle Central, North Seattle or South Seattle. It's one of our most popular pathways. 

Evan Franulovich  1:07:00  
They will bring you down here as a group. Like just the other day, we had a group of Alps students wandering the hallways getting a tour from our international ambassadors, which was really great. I said hello to them and they're always really enthusiastic. So that's cool, and you get pizza. Gina makes sure they feed you.

Kerry Philben  1:07:21  
Yep.

Evan Franulovich  1:07:21  
It's pretty cool. Well, have a great weekend. Thanks again for coming.

Kerry Philben  1:07:25  
Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. Always happy to brag about my little language school.

Evan Franulovich  1:07:32  
Long overdue. You guys, thanks for being here. We're here every Wednesday. Please share, like subscribe. Tell everyone you know about us. It's great information, no matter what you want to do when you come to study in the United States. And we just want to be good resource for you. So all right, have a good weekend.

Kerry Philben  1:07:53  
Thanks for having me. 

Evan Franulovich  1:07:54  
Bye, bye guys.

Evan Franulovich  1:07:58  
Conversations with! is painstakingly crafted for you by the Seattle Colleges International Programs department and supported by the lovely folks here on our campus. This show is produced and edited by me, Evan Franulovich. We welcome your emails and questions about coming to Seattle Colleges. Please reach out to us via our website or just give us a rating and a review on Apple podcasts as this helps others discover the show. Also, don't forget to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or YouTube at Seattle Colleges Intl. And be sure to check out all the shows here on Conversations with! Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.