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<p>socio-economic-politic-educational conditions.</p>
<p>Germany is not a developing country. Germany has a well-developed social and economic condition like the US or higher in some areas.</p>
<p>The OP did not complain about western countries here.</p>
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<p>In some countries, transcripts and GPA don’t have any meaning because students don’t really care about them like in the US. The things they care most are: passing the HS graduation exam and passing the college entrance tests. Colleges don’t ask for transcripts. They only ask for HS graduation certificate.</p>
<p>Cellardweller, you entered a U.S. university as a grad student. The dynamics are quite different for undergrad v grad students. Grad students focus on their principal discipline, and much of their work is performed independently. And if they are lucky enough financially to not have to work as a teaching assistant, grad students (especially in the STEM disciplines) can get by fairly well without having to perform verbally in the classroom. </p>
<p>U.S. undergrads have a wide discipline curriculum that requires comparatively more English verbal participation. Your statement that “Until recently, international undergrads in the US were few and far between” is inaccurate. My undergrad university (not on the low end of the food chain) had a sizable community of students from Hong Kong who were smart and fluent (not merely proficient!) in English (albeit, the funny British kind), and that was decades ago when a 1.2 Mb floppy disk was a high tech.</p>
<p>My question is: is cheating actually more prevalent, or are we just more aware of it now?</p>
<p>If someone applies to a college in UK from US, they don’t seem to care for anyone’s high school transcript because they seem to think it is worthless.</p>
<p>I’m from a country where I KNOW the grades are inflated on the transcript because our standards are so-called higher than the US. In another lifetime when I was applying to college as a foreign student, my eyes literally popped out of my head when I saw my transcript. My 80’s were 90’s and my 90’s were 100. I thought after all these years, things would have changed, and I discovered they have not.
The SAT’s here are administered by some people who really don’t care other than they get paid for being present. A lot of others either don’t know the various methods of cheating or don’t care to be vigilant.</p>
<p>GMT, my reference was in regards to undergraduates from China specifically. Until about 2003, Chinese students (from mainland China) were virtually all graduate students. Since that time, the number of undergraduates has progressively overtaken the number of graduate students. Graduate students mostly went to large research universities with big international student communities, undergrads apply more broadly including to LACs. Mount Holyoke for instance, went from less than 10 Chinese students in 2001 to more than 116 by 2008. </p>
<p>Contrasting education of undergraduate and graduate students is a distinction without a difference. Graduate students have at least as much need to interact with other students as undergrads if not more. Many are TAs and RAs. A large number come for business school which is all about interaction. Engineering is all project and collaboration based. Cultural adjustment is not a new problem, it is just on a larger scale than before. The current phase also involves institutions not equipped to deal with such a large influx of international students. </p>
<p>There is no evidence of cheating by Chinese applicants in admission to the most selective colleges in the US. Elite colleges send entire teams to China to recruit some of the best and brightest from top high schools. They set up contests and interview the applicants directly. If any cheating occurs, it is at institutions which already admit most applicants. These students which are all full-pay end up subsidizing scholarships for US students. </p>
<p>[Colleges</a> scour China for top students - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2008/11/09/colleges_scour_china_for_top_students/]Colleges”>http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2008/11/09/colleges_scour_china_for_top_students/)</p>
<p>Yes, the bottom line for the school’s that admit the cheaters en mass is money. The elite colleges generally have fat endowments, so they are not desperate.</p>
<p>Now that you clarify it, there were no undergrads from China at my college way back when…</p>
<p>Another perspective:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1284260-faking-adhd-gets-you-into-harvard.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1284260-faking-adhd-gets-you-into-harvard.html</a></p>
<p>And another one:</p>
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<p>[Exclusive:</a> Doctor cheating warnings expand to dermatology - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/03/health/doctor-cheating-dermatology/index.html?hpt=hp_t2]Exclusive:”>http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/03/health/doctor-cheating-dermatology/index.html?hpt=hp_t2)</p>
<p>Since the thread has touched on how US BS can be a way for foreign students to learn English and find a way into US colleges:
[[Exclusive</a>] SSAT test results void due to cheating <img src=“http://110.45.173.104/www/news/images/ic_korean.gif”>](<a href=“[Exclusive] SSAT test results void due to cheatings - The Korea Times”>[Exclusive] SSAT test results void due to cheatings - The Korea Times)</p>
<p>This is about several incidents of cheating on the SSAT in Korea. The test was cancelled when the cheating was reported.</p>
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<p>Once more, this might be a difference in terminology. If one wants evidence to be in the form of unchallenged proof, you might have a point. After all, we would assume that schools that uncover cheating would react with vigor. On the other hand, if evidence has the form "il n’y a pas de fum</p>
<p>[Cheat</a> - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary](<a href=“http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cheat]Cheat”>Cheat Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster)</p>
<p>Anyone here fluent in Mandarin or Korean or Japanese or Tagalog or Indian or anything Asian language care to tell us what this gaming of standardized tests and applications is called in that language? And the exact translation of the word(s)???</p>
<p>It appears that there are differences in cultural “practices”, in values of ends justifying the means vs the USA, naive idealistic idiots that we are.</p>
<p>En francais:
[url=<a href=“http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricherie]Tricherie”>Tricherie — Wikipédia]Tricherie</a> - Wikip</p>
<p>Another one in French:
[tromper</a> - Wiktionary](<a href=“http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tromper]tromper”>tromper - Wiktionary)</p>
<p>In Deutsch:
Betrugen: to cheat (trans)</p>
<p>Trug {m} swindle
Trug {m} delusiveness
Trug {m} deception
Trug {m} [der Phantasie] delusion
Trug {m} [der Sinne] illusion
Trugbild {n} phantom
Trugbild {n} delusion
Trugbild {n} phantasm
Trugbild {n} ignis fatuus
Trugbild {n} will-o’-the-wisp [fig.]
Trugbild {n} phantasmagoria
Trugbild {n} [der Sinne] illusion
Trugdolde {f} cyme
trügen to deceive
trügen to be deceptive
trügerisch meretricious
trügerisch treacherous
trügerisch delusory
trügerisch elusive
trügerisch elusorily
trügerisch elusory
trügerisch fallacious
trügerisch fallaciously
trügerisch illusionary
trügerisch phantasmic
trügerisch specious
trügerisch elusively
trügerisch speciously
trügerisch deceitful
trügerisch delusive
trügerisch illusive
trügerisch phantasmal
trügerisch trappy
trügerisch misleadingly
trügerisch deceptive
trügerisch deceptively
trügerische Hoffnung {f} illusion
trügerische Hoffnung {f} false dawn
trügerische Hoffnungen {pl} deceitful hopes
trügerischer more treacherous
trügerischer Schein {m} speciousness
Trügerischer Spiegel Mirror Image [Sandra Brown]
trügerischste most treacherous
Truggebilde {n} phantasmagoria
Truggebilde {n} delusion
Trughabicht {m} imitator sparrowhawk [Accipiter imitator]
trughaft [veraltet] delusive
Trugratten {pl} octodontids [family Octodontidae]
Trugschluss {m} wrong conclusion
Trugschluss {m} erroneous belief
Trugschluss {m} deception
Trugschluss {m} fallacy
Trugschluss {m} sophism
Trugschluss {m} deceptive cadence
Trugschluss {m} interrupted cadence
Trugschluss {m} false syllogism
Trugschluss {m} false conclusion
Trugschluss {m} false cadence
trugschlüssig fallacious
Trugstelze {f} torrent-lark [Grallina bruijni]
Trugwahrnehmungen {pl} false perceptions
Trugwaldsänger {m} olive warbler [Peucedramus taeniatus]</p>
<p>Can’t believe I’ve been missing a thread with xiggi’s fiery french!</p>
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<p>No, you couldn’t. Nor could clarkandfire. For one, how will you get 1000s of students to test your questions for difficulty, appropriateness, and clarity of wording? It isn’t easy to make easy math problems that distinguish between weak and very weak students without making them too easy. It isn’t easy to make hard math problems that distinguish between very good and extremely good students without making them too hard.</p>
<p>The CB reuses tests to save money, of course. There’s no laziness; I’m sure the ETS would be happy to provide more if asked. I wouldn’t mind seeing fewer test months and all tests released.</p>
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<p>The average SAT scores of U.S. citizens did fall. Why is the title representative of sloppy reporting? Or are you assuming that the reporter just got lucky?</p>
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<p>I said I could CREATE one. Testing and refining it is a completely different matter.</p>
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<p>English is my second language, and I would really like to meet someone who learned it in a year… What you describe above was common for many European countries with easy to get in universities back then (Italy…) but if anyone can learn Italian in a year even 24/7 I’d like to meet them.</p>
<p>I had no trouble whatsoever adjusting to English from my native Elbonian (somewhere in Europe :-)). But, I had 6 years of HS English (awesome teacher, btw), 3 years of English night school, and (drum roll) the benefit of growing up with subtitled TV (not dubbed). I could read and write very well even fresh off the boat (FOB), while I could not say the same for many FOB’s with lots more English into their curriculum (India, Malaysia…)</p>
<p>I would not say ‘cheating’ for the SAT, but ‘gaming’ would be more like it. Is there much difference between buying SAT software that drills you to no end or getting old tests?</p>
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<p>It’s been going on for ever - in different forms…</p>
<p>When I was at Cajun State, grad computer science students used to earn beer money by doing assignments on the side for rich foreign kids… Various international student associations maintained elaborate magnetic tape libraries with assignments… fraternities had test libraries… Heck, I was a TA for a semester and there was some clever cheating and some not so clever - at the end, the department skrewed everyone by cutting down assignment values to laughable amounts.</p>
<p>Admissions, about as bad. I had a TOEFL of 610 and saw many an English-speaking (British Commonwealth) type student who could not speak to save his/her life with a TOEFL of 600 (most schools wanted 550). Cajun State had a couple thousand foreign students, at the time mostly South Americans & Middle Easterns… </p>
<p>Also, even without cheating, comparing international HS grades is futile - in my home country maybe a handful of kids (nearly always girls :)) graduated with a 4.0 (or whatever). From HS to college level a B (80%) was an awesome grade, but passing was 50% - not 70%.</p>
<p>^ I had many friends received scholarships given by the French, German, Japanese governments,… They did not know the languages. They spent 9 months then took classes in colleges. They languages were taught by the special language institutes at those countries.</p>
<p>American students spend 1 semester in American colleges to finish one language class. And they spend 8-10 weeks in foreign countries during the summer to finish 2 language classes. It’s very common. So if students spend 8 months in foreign countries they can finish 8 language classes equivalent to 8 semester classes in American colleges. Of couse they have to be relativeley smart students and work hard.</p>
