<p>Maybe I need to hire one of their consultants to write this post for me!</p>
<p>Wrong because you don’t like the idea of admissions coaching services, or because the admissions coaching services used by Chinese students may be playing the game better than those used by American students? (A similar subject came up with SAT coaching classes in China by a company called New Oriental Education.)</p>
<p>I understand where you are coming from but I don’t think this is anything real new nor am I surprised one bit to read about this.</p>
<p>I didn’t know the extent to which these companies were helping the students. Building websites to showcase the kids? Hmmmm.</p>
<p>this is not even the tip of the iceberg. those parents have lots and lots of $ as in the millions (many from illegitimate means especially if the parent work for gov). those companies don’t just guide them, they also help forge activities, and with parents help, bribe and forge recommendations. since they are in china, it’s piratically impossible to tell which one is fake and colleges can’t really check on it. grades can also be easily bought especially since teachers don’t want trouble with powerful rich parents. this have been going on for the last 10 years. the main reason why those people want to come to US is because their kids would never been able to get into a chinese ivy which admission is based on one score on one test that you can only take once.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus I don’t like the part where they are writing their essays for them and “leaving in spelling errors” so that it looks like the student is actually writing the essay. They are blatantly cheating. SAT tutoring, advising, helping them to manage a foreign system, no problem, but doing the work for them is a total misrepresentation. If they want to advise them on what is likely to be a good essay topic, help train them in the writing skills to do it themselves…actually prepare them for the level of work they will have to be doing, fine. But don’t do it for them and represent it as their work. What will they do when they get to the school, cheat to keep their grades up?</p>
<p>With spell check why would they intentionally leave spelling mistakes? That is just sloppy. It would make more sense to have grammar indicate things not meant to indicate or something more subtle.</p>
<p>Not sure why they do it, but here is what they say in the article…“We really have to hold their hand and do everything along with them,” Mr. Ma said, including deliberately leaving spelling mistakes on college essays so they look authentic,…"</p>
<p>I know, I saying that it seems rather unauthentic to have spelling mistakes since they’re so easy to spot and fix. Having other mistakes, such as “correct” grammar but communicating something unintentional due to grammar, is a much more realistic “mistake” than spelling mistakes.</p>
<p>^^^ right, I agree with you. I guess if they are going to cheat they might as well be better at it!</p>
<p>Okay, so they cheat and get into one of the ‘prestige’ schools…but they can’t do the work, don’t have the background in the courses, and then what? Do they get kicked out?</p>
<p>I would guess that it is very difficult for say, Harvard, to mete out the “best” students from China (pop. 7 billion, sheesh), so whether top colleges “approve” of these services or not, they certainly make the adcoms’ jobs easier, and that is certainly a plus when you are talking about 35,000 applications that must be combed through.</p>
<p>Sounds like helicopter parenting in the worst way, except these companies get paid to do this.
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<p>Interesting article, thanks for posting. I hope someone follows these kids and reports on the outcome of their Ivy educations. Do they go back to China and help with the family business? Do they stay here and become productive high achieving professionals? In many ways I envy the importance these families place on education. If we had the same level of dedication and investment in our domestic education system I would feel more optimistic about the future of science and technology in this country.</p>
<p>Wow . . . they even gave one student the e-mail addresses of professors from Stanford? I wonder what percentage of the $15,000 went toward procuring that extra-valuable top-secret information?</p>
<p>Beating us at our own rigged game and now everyone wants to get mad haha.</p>
<p>Why not just forge the diploma?</p>
<p>I also have to wonder how far they will go with their “help”. One of the girls in the article had her SAT score improve by 410 points. Maybe one of their staff just takes her information and completes the SAT’s for her after she is done taking her information and writing her essay for her? 410 points seems like a pretty big jump. </p>
<p>I am also curious if the schools these students in the article are attending will look back a little more carefully at their applications now. I’ll bet those kids aren’t thrilled about the story using their names. Interesting that all the staff wanted to stay anonymous, leading me to believe that they knew that something was wrong, but they didn’t protect their clients identity.</p>
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<p>If they’re in engineering… Well, I still have a 2cr. “English for Engineers” class I have to take, but thus far the writing standards haven’t exactly been high. And if you get a C in a 2cr. course, it’s not particularly damaging to your GPA. </p>
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<p>It was probably just a convenience thing… The kid might not have thought at all to email professors, so the adviser suggested it and gave them the emails.</p>
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<p>Maybe the professional SAT taker makes mistakes on purpose so it seems like the student actually took it.</p>
<p>Ehhh… Probably not. From what I understand they drill the SAT really well in China. 410 doesn’t sound like that big of a jump.</p>
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<p>I doubt the company would have given their names without consent. Why would they shoot their own foot like that? Why would they talk to the reporter at all?</p>
<p>Once they are in, they still cheat a lot. </p>
<p>Also: How would this make the future of science and engineering in the US better? It would put a lot of idiots in positions they can’t handle. I already seem to run into doctors often enough that haven’t got a clue, it irks me to think of engineers that don’t really know what they’re doing because they literally bought their degree.</p>