One student took the TOEFL for the others
Seems cheating on the TOEFL can be a federal immigration crime (defraud the US, due to being accepted into a US college and gaining an F-1 student Visa).
Whoa! Serious stuff. Wondering whether the judge will agree on it is defrauding the US. Also wondering whether a similar cheating on SAT will lead to the same charge.
Agree that cheating should have stern consequences.
For a time when I was the director of graduate studies in my department we suspended considering ANY applicants from China in the wake of known issues with the reliability of TOEFL scores. We did not consider that there were imposters who took the exams, but rather that the correct answers were given or the test results manipulated for a significant number of students.
On top of this, we had found from experience that the TOEFL scores for students whom we admitted from China were not very predictive of the students’ actual facility with the English language. This was relevant not only for predicting the ability of these graduate students to conduct their own educations but also for their ability to work as teaching assistants – one of the main ways in which we funded graduate students.
My university automatically tested the English speaking ability of all international students who were being considered as teaching assistants. The university has a long-established program of training international graduate students in English. Sometimes this meant that for their first year in the doctoral program these students had a “free ride,” since they couldn’t be assigned duties in the classroom.
As an aside, I would say that international students who originate in former colonies of English-speaking countries had much more exposure to English language than students from other countries. So, for example, the English-language test scores of students from India or Saudi Arabia were more reliable than those from China or Korea. This factor has become less important over time with the now widespread access to electronic media in English.
??? @mackinaw, Saudi Arabia was never a British colony, though the Arabian peninsula was arguably in the British (later American) sphere of influence.
Some universities have started asking international students to take a supplemental Duolingo test, which is taken on a computer with a webcam in addition to sending TOEFL scores. There was a thread this year in the UCLA forum where applicants were dismayed about this.
About five years ago, University of San Francisco professors threatened to go on strike because they got tired of the university admitting so many Chinese students who couldn’t speak English. I think the school did start making the Chinese students take supplementary tests, along with offering extra English classes to students once they arrived at the university.
It must have been awkward to be a Chinese student at the University of San Francisco at the time…
“For a time when I was the director of graduate studies in my department we suspended considering ANY applicants from China”
We did the same thing. Later we weighted more on the quality of the university that they graduated from in China.
Aren’t the students supposed to have a face to face interview at the consulate or embassy to get their F-1 visas? The consular officer should note which applicants have limited to no English proficienty at the interview, and be able to deny the visas to those who can’t handle a basic converasation in English.
This strikes me as such a foolish scheme. Cheating on the ACT/SAT at least makes logical sense. In the same major, a student who can pass classes at a top-100 university can probably pass them at a top-10 university. And there are good students out there who do badly on these tests. But I’ve never heard a critique that the TOEFL is mislabeling strong English speakers. If you don’t have the English skills, you won’t be able to manage at an English-speaking university.
I have some rudimentary Japanese, and I can’t imagine trying to survive at a Japanese university, no matter how good I am at the underlying subject. Are the students deluding themselves into thinking they’ll just pick it up in the first few weeks?
Or the students just plan on cheating their way through the American school. There seem to be precedents of that. The cheating culture in Asia is just embarrassing.
I know a college where it is said that a Chinese student won’t take a class without another one in it. That way they can tutor each other and give each other support, like forming a study group. I don’t label that cheating but it does inhibit full immersion into the campus experience.
The embassy does not examine the English proficiency of the visa applicants. Students can get F-1 visa with little English as long as they have the I-20 form provided by the schools. There are schools that allow students to take English classes before applying to or attending college. Also there are for profit sanctuary schools that provide I-20 form without teaching much.
“The cheating culture in Asia is just embarrassing.” Not just Asia… a local university where I live had a very, very hard time with cheating Russians… There, cheating was simply accepted and almost admired - it showed an ability to deal with “the system” which in Russia is unfair from the get go. The Russians had a tough time understanding American dismay of their cheating. Eventually, the program was shut down - for a variety of reasons, but the cheating was the nail in the coffin.
I cannot help but thinking someone in this country knows how to deal with the system without paying taxes and is admired by some.
Isn’t cheating a new phenomenon in Asia after western culture gained influence without corresponding system in place?
How is it institutes of higher learning cant figure out if an admit cannot speak English before cashing the tuition check?
@eiguapo1, If the application is in English, and the TOEFL score is acceptable/good, how is the school to know without doing an in-person interview? Even interviews over Skype have been subject to cheating – either someone else did the interview for the student, of there was a translator out of view of the camera.
@eiholi, no doubt there are many people who admire cheaters in this society, as well. But cheating in some parts of the world is on a scale hard to imagine here in the US
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh_MfFXle5E