<p>The path to US college acceptance, however, increasingly compels students to sacrifice their integrity. For the right price, unscrupulous college prep agencies offer ghostwritten essays in flawless English, fake awards, manipulated transcripts and even whiz kids for hire wholl pose as the applicant for SAT exams.</p>
<p>A 250-student survey by ***** China, a Beijing wing of the California-based ***** education consultancy, suggests 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.</p>
<p>It has taken awhile, but the US universities are on to the whole Chinese scam and are setting up systems to deal with it, from personal interviews to writing on the spot. However, as the article notes, many universities just turn a blind eye as they need the dollars the tuition bring in. What the universities should do is peg foreign student tuition at about $100,000 per year and so even if the cheaters get in, they really are paying dearly for the privilege and truly subsidizing the non-cheaters. Eventually, a Chinese with a US degree will be looked upon much like an URM with a degree – both had special advantages unrelated to academic quality that allowed them to get those degrees – and skepticism will rule. In otherwords, the degree will become devalued merely because of who posseses it.</p>
<p>That statement is a little harsh to me. Do I feel that there are some people that have an “advantage” during the admission process that others do not have? Yes. Do I look at 2 people from different backgrounds with the same degree from the same school and feel like one is worth more than the other? Never. </p>
<p>The students still have to make the grade at the university to get the degree, regardless of how they were admitted.</p>
<p>Even if you’re not, the international application rate would drop by half if they take away aid and hike the tuition. And then it’ll be like colonial times, when only the rich kids studied abroad because they were rich, and most real talent remained wasted in our home-spun educational farce.</p>