<p>I came upon this thread and was shocked to see that students can have their final grades changed afterwards by taking multiple exams to "improve" the final grade. Apparently, some elite high schools want to increase the chances for their students' applicantions to U.S. colleges, and will use deceptive means to pad their students' records. Is this typical or atypical? Do the ends ever justify the means? It also makes me concerned that when those in a school administration blur moral boundaries they set a bad example for their students.
Wix.com</a> - Website built by ConcernedCitizen based on Our Band Book</p>
<p>You are totally misguided. I think those exams are practice tests. And why those high schools want to increas the chances for their students admission to US colleges? They focus on Chinese schools not America.</p>
<p>And the make-up tests it mentioned are actually when students failed the test and they have to retake it in order to graduate.</p>
<p>The ultimate final test GaoKao is arranged nation wide, and it’s impossible to change the grade since it is completely illegal.</p>
<p>I think that website is very biased! It take only the bad side and exaggrate the whole situation.</p>
<p>Thanks for letting me know. I personally do not have any experience with high schools in China but found the American teacher’s points persuasive as he contended the tests were given after students had received a final grade for the course. Perhaps this is an isolated case at one particular school.</p>
<p>Oh, you mean giveing the grade before the test. </p>
<p>Well, let me explain. </p>
<p>Grade which we used in A B C D is generally for performance grade. However score of courses are surely revealed surely after the test. I think that American teacher didn’t fully understand the whole scoring system.</p>
<p>Sadly, the answer is yes, and it is the same with almost all Chinese schools. Not every Chinese high school focus on getting their students into elite Chinese universities nowadays; there are so many schools out there that specializes in brain export.</p>
<p>@canvasgirl, I really think your statement is false.</p>
<p>When you say many, you really narrow the whole China into several big cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Chengdu, maybe some other too. But China is not just made up by those cities, and even in those cities, a very limit amount of schools try to “export” students. </p>
<p>When you look at most of the other part of China, most schools first priority is still to send their students into elite Chinese universities.</p>
<p>i would say that’s true. the grades that American colleges see are different from the “real” grades Chinese students have.
thing is chinese best hs are incredibly hard, its def MUCH harder than American colleges ranked after 30~40
there is no curve, and tons of students fail in exams in the senior 1 and senior 2 year (3 years in hs, senior 1, 2, 3)
if we calculate the gpa as > 80 = 3.0
there will be very few students who get more than 3.0
however, those students from the best schools are really smart, they took a test to get into the best hs when they are in ms.
so it would be very unfair that Chinese good students receive like 3.0 gpa, while american good students all get 3.9+</p>
<p>Yes, the chinese grades are WEIGHED to be converted into the US GPA. That’s perfectly fine.
However, the OP is asking whether they are FAKED or illegally CHANGED to make the students look better.</p>
<p>No, grades cannot be changed in China. However, elite colleges in China only look at one thing when they admit students: CEE scores (College Entrance Exam, or as Soundwave said, GaoKao). Lots of students fail lots of exams during their first two years in highschool and start blowing their brains out during the last year, eventually landing them into a decent college. Granted that most students in elite colleges have had good grades since middle school, there are still quite a few who make it in because of a few years’ diligence.</p>
<p>What I’m trying to say is that Chinese highschools have no need to change grades because they’re generally not considered by colleges. Also, what canvasgirl said isn’t necessarily wrong, since larger highschools in China have classes that specialize in sending students overseas, even in some of the lesser known cities. In these cases, grades are weighed, but not changed.</p>
<p>i grew up outside China but I do have some relatives & friends who have gone through the Chinese highschool experience. I know it’s possible to take a replacement exam if you got a F. I’m not sure if the new grade will replace your failing one. However, I don’t see anything wrong with that and it’s not limited to China either. I know my highschool in Germany had this option. There could be a number of reasons why someone would get a grade they didn’t deserve the first time.</p>
<p>Also, I would disagree with you that the Chinese “elite” highschools are actively trying to export their student. Most of the elite students I know would prefer the top domestic universities (HKU, Tsinghua, PKU etc.) over US universities at the undergrad level, not to mention the vast majority of Chinese students wouldn’t be able to afford an undergrad degree in the US. Those who do make it to the US for undergrad are with very few exeptions those who have very rich parents. They are also the type of students who tend to do poorly academic wise. Now what I do agree with you is that many of the super-rich get unfair advantages in terms of getting into a domestic university and perhaps even higher grade. However those things don’t only happen in China. I know G.W. Bush didn’t get into Yale on his own.</p>
<p>i am native to China and however the answer is true. The only thing that we truly believe and thus cannot be falsified is the GaoKao and other than that, you really have no reason to believe GPA or ranking or what so ever because they are generally not considered important as GaoKao so technically everything except than can be changed as students’ wish.</p>
<p>i guess this is the reason why most elite American Colleges require SAT/ACT result for admission evaluation. Their admission officers must have already known that because for big universities each year they have hundreds applicants from China, and they are all with 90/100 in their HS transcripts.</p>
<p>I think those who dare to apply elite American Colleges are great students who definitely can get that high score. </p>
<p>@cby1990, you really need to have prove to support your statement that students can ask schools to change their rank or GPA as their wishes. Besides, most schools in China don’t even use GPA.</p>
<p>I am from China going to Amherst this year. I think for students in a small number of schools it is possible to change grades by asking - which was a rumor I heard of when I was a junior. Well at least in my school it is impossible to change the number in the system but on a hindsight I think if someone first get the real transcript, forge one using the exact same format and different numbers, and somehow tricked teachers into sealing it in a haster without close inspection, then it is possible even in my school. I wouldn’t bother myself to do that - don’t need to.
So my conclusion is: A. a very small number of schools are actually willing to do that; B. really deceptive students can do that in other schools; C. I don’t know how many are doing this, but I have heard of someone doing it.
And I spent my junior high years in the specific school mentioned in the website. I saw none of cheats. But when I came to my current school my old classmates did mention that problem. Without evidence I can’t give a certain answer, but that school’s reputation is suffering to some level in my city (due to administration problem more likely), though this year they have students going to elite colleges (won’t specify).</p>
<p>pmyen. As a chinese student, I should defend ourself
yes, I admit that some chinese HS adopt that system and my HS does. In my HS, student can retake the final, but the grade is not completely replaced. Even if you pass the retake with 100 point, they will mark u only 60 on transcript. I don’t know abt that specific school you are talking abt, but I never heard any school allow student to replace the grade completely.</p>
<p>also, like superzhkch says, chinese HS is much harder than US HS or even than college. Most of our HS make their students to take bio,chem,phy,geogr,econ,political sci,…ect, regardless want you are gonna major in, you have to take all of them to graduate and it’s not selective. We have much higher pressure and workload in HS. Some teacher even teach some college stuffs to us, such as my HS math teacher taught us Calculus. All student who grad from chinese HS are fully or even overly prepared to take general college classes.</p>
<p>So it is totally unfair to look down our transcript.
Furthermore, most chinese HS students choose chinese college as their priority. Why do they wanna impress US college?</p>
<p>You do realize that it costs three times a yearly salary to get into a good US university right? Who can afford that? Almost no scholarship opportunities for international students. I’m a 4th year chinese student at a top 50 university in US. If I could go to a top chinese university I would not even have considered the US but due to some personal reasons I was not able to be admitted. The difference between a US university and a Chinese one is not the curriculum; in fact Chinese university curriculum is more rigorous though many students ditch class and get low grade because they don’t care anymore which doesn’t happen in US as much. But the classes themselves are more rigorous. The difference is in the quality of research and money which has little impact on undergraduates.</p>
<p>high school grades do not carry much meaning, only gaokao is worth anything, why would they falsify it? We don’t have concept of “GPA” as being worth anything, only 1 test matters. the website is totally fake, I couldn’t find anything on the website author, who does not seem to want to hold responsibility for his words.</p>
<p>edit* just like to add that chinese high school makes US high school ashamed. our classes have more homework and more hours. the SAT is a joke compared to gaokao, if it wasn’t for being in english even a 6th grader in china could ace the SAT.</p>
<p>Chinese education system is a total joke based on arbitrarily political lines and a maniac drive to keep its citizens under control. American public education system should be based on its own citizen’s demands and values. Chinese education system is a continuation of a lunatic AhQ style bigotry ever since Ming Emperor filled his palace with eunuchs and imperial examiners. </p>
<p>A vast majority of Chinese High School students do not receive a quality education despite being charged with more than 6000 Yuan in their high schools. The education they received there consists of brainwashing, tautologies, and a meaningless, mind-numbing repetitions. </p>
<p>Starting with Gao Er, that is, 2nd year of High school (Chinese HS is only 3 years), Chinese students are being taught to regurgitate precalculus level math incessantly, everyday, for 10 hours. Learning absolutely NOTHING new, these students are being forced to perform the mechanic repetitions best described as a mental work camp. </p>
<p>While its humanities curriculum is a totally bogus construct of the party in an effort to boast its damning policies. The level of Chinese a Chinese student would learn today at Chinese High School does not pass beyond some simple reading of Lu Xun, random Marxist theories, and a brief knowledge of classical Chinese. Compare to their American counterparts who survey its literary traditions from Beowulf to Catcher in the Rye, Chinese students’ literary taste goes from “让暴风雨来得更猛烈些吧 this phrase is written by _<em>__author in </em><em>years depicting </em> metaphor.” Sometimes I read the Gaokao Chinese questions and I think to myself, do these educational elites, jingying, think that all the Chinese students are idiots or something? </p>
<p>Of course, there are some very talented Chinese students; unfortunately, they are almost exclusively restricted to Tier 1 cities like Shanghai and Beijing, leaving millions of their compatriots in an abject, inhumane struggle against a system which had forced feed them with idiocies.</p>
<p>Of course they lie. The students will bribe the teachers/principals to change their grades for American universities. Their arguements are “the tests provided by Chinese schools are harder”. The principals and teachers will accommadate those students’ request, because if they are accepted by Ivy Leagues, the teachers can brag about their students’ great achivement. Anybody telling you they did not do it is lie. If you can read Chinese, go to their website. It’s plain and simple they recommend it to those students who want to apply for U.S. universities and get scholarship.</p>
<p>Look at what happened to this poor guy:
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/world/asia/27china.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/world/asia/27china.html</a></p>
<p>Regardless of the so call “accuracy” of Chinese transcript, I just want to ask:</p>
<p>Do general Chinese students perform well in US colleges?</p>
<p>I’m a sophomore hs student in China, and I’m planning to perceive undergrad in the US. Actually, so many students get admissions passed via agencies. Those agencies almost wrote 95% of their app docs including their essays. </p>
<p>Once talked to the boss of that kind of agency, I asked him what is the mid-year report. What he answered thrilled me! He said don’t even worry about it! Because every student in his agency wrote their report by themselves!! Schools just sign those reports blind.</p>
<p>I’m in one of the most prestigious hs in my city, but I heard we could still do that. For myself, even if I have to fill the report by myself, I will write what is true!</p>