From Global Post Elite Asian students cheat like mad on US college applications
Just picked off my facebook feed from one of my Asian American student friends. Sounds like that same thing I saw before about those prep services in Asia that will help you with your application, get somebody to take the SAT and write essays for you and even come up with a fake resume of your activities, those Asian students who are too good to be true. Of course, Asian Americans would never resort to that. OK, maybe send our kids to that outfit in China that coaches kids who can barely speak english to get perfect SAT verbals, but not that other stuff. Don’t forget cram schools which some parents might consider unfair competition. This article says it’s not just Chinese, but other nations like Thailand as well. Now Asians need to help control the spin on this as it adds more fuel to the “reasons to hate / hate being an Asian” thread, but nothing we can’t handle as long as we know about it.
Some article highlights:
….“Oh my God, they can do everything for you,” said Nok, 17-year-old Thai senior in her final year at a private Bangkok high school. (She asked GlobalPost to alter her name for this article.) “They can take the SAT for you, no problem. Most students don’t really think it’s wron
uggests college application fraud among Chinese …students is extremely pervasive. According to the survey, roughly 90 percent of recommendation letters to foreign colleges are faked, 70 percent of college essays are ghostwritten and 50 percent of high school transcripts are falsified.
…Chinese, Indian and South Korean students comprise roughly half of America’s foreign college student population. Vietnam has sent 13 percent more students to the US within the last year, and Malaysia has added 8 percent, the institute reports.
“International students are seen as a source of revenue … and the trend has exploded in the past two years,” said Dale Gough, international education director for AACRAO, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.
….Foreign students, through tuition and living expenses, contribute $2.1 billion to the US economy, according to the US Commerce Department. “In short,” Gough said, “they help the bottom line.” (Note that other article complaining about Asian Asians squeezing out Asian and other Americans from state university systems)
…“Students who study in America are elite, the privileged,” said Nok. “It shows you’re smarter than the others.”
… like most Asian students, Nok has felt baffled and overwhelmed by America’s complex application system.
“Here, you take a big test one day and report the score. That’s how you figure out where you’ll go to college,” she said. “The Americans are different. They want to know the big picture. All these essays. All this stuff about your life.”
….Asian families unfamiliar with the process, he said, are justified in seeking an agency’s help with application strategies and tutoring to build the skills US colleges demand. But Russo’s refrain to parents, he said, is that kids who can’t write their own essays are likely to burn out once enrolled in America.
…..The allure of America’s universities, and the pressure-cooker drive to succeed among Asia’s expanding upper class, will continue to propel Asian students into American schools. Many Chinese teenagers applying abroad, Melcher said, are the sort of highly motivated students colleges desire.
“Chinese kids are typically great,” Melcher said. “They’re not at the tailgate parties drinking. They’re busting their butts. Failure is not an option.”
But college application fraud will continue, he said, so long as the risks are low and the rewards are so high. His consultancy suggests interviewing all Chinese students via online video chats, conducting spot tests in English, and hiring a mainland Chinese staffer in the college’s home office.
“Frankly, I feel really bad for Chinese families who are trying to be honest,” he said. “They’re driving 55 while everyone’s zooming past them. After a while, they throw up their hands and say, ‘Fine, I’ll speed up.’”
MIT electrical engineering computer science graduate has written conservative columns on politics, race / culture, science and education since the 70s in MIT The Tech and various publications in including New Republic and National Review. 
Thanks Arthur. I saw that story. It came in around the same time there was more talk about foreign students getting admitted over local Asian-Americans.
But, bottom line, what is your position that the foreign Asians are getting in over locals? It seems like it’s unfair. After all it is American tax dollars that subsidize these schools. Even the foreigners don’t pay full freight for what the education is actually costing. On the other hand, liberal folks who can never say no and exceed budgets have placed colleges in this untenable position of not having enough money to operate. They are just trying to survive. The State can’t be all things to all people. Thanks
By the way, there’s some text missing above at: “don’t really think it’s wron
[gap here]
uggests “
I’m not sure what the solution is. Traditionally, international students had the lowest admission rates and was the hardest to get in. The idea that they save the system by paying full price is a new idea, and even at UWash, half of those are from other parts of America, not overseas. I think the issue of pitting asians vs asian americans is mainly one of poetic irony and not any real problem though generationally, it was much easier for Asians when we were 3% of college applicants than when they are maybe half of applicants to Berkeley, not counting the foreign students. The traditional white-American attitude is if you get in fine, if not, go someplace else, you’ll do fine no matter where you go or what you choose, it’s not Harvard or bust unlike the stereotypical tiger mom. That’s how they dealt with UCB and Berkeley, they just went to the other UC campuses while the white elites celebrated diversity, they just went to Riverside and Santa Barbara and didn’t play that game.
Until the GREEDY College Admission offices put a stop to this cheating and over exaggeration of applications, this will of course go on. Let’s just call this new system, Affirmative International Financial Action. If anyone is to blame is the college board of regents for letting this go on. Until someone gets hurt or calls fraud, better make way for the spoiled foreign college kids from Asia.
Nothing surprising about this. Around the world private universities are generally regarded as the dumping ground of the children of the wealthy who cannot compete on their own talent or ability. Abroad, if you cannot get into the top public university of your country, you have basically 3 alternatives. Go to a less competetive public university, go to a private university or go abroad to a school like Harvard or an Ivy school. There is always a private university in the US who will accept you as long as you can pay the tuition. Generally, those who go abroad to study from China are the children of the wealthy or who have connections from the Communist party and are rejects from top schools like Beida or Tsinghua.. People can say whatever they want, they can say that they want to study abroad because of the rigid curriculum of Chinese universities or live in a foreign cultlure or whatever, Few of the top 1 % of Chinese students will bother going abroad to study, they mostly come from below the 90 % percentile. Human greed in involved here. The majortiy of the students I believe do not cheat but for those who cheat are facilitated by the need for money by the schools, the greed of the recruiters and the self -interest of the students themselves and private schools are the ones most likely to turn a blind eye on this .cheating.