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<p>Another thing I was going to point out. (1) can be addressed by elaborating on point 3. in the previous post. This mentality of academics being the only indicator of measuring a student’s ‘success’ (which I think is justifiable, but more on that another time) extends to teachers who quantify the student’s success based on his/her exam scores and sometimes class discussion. Thus teachers do not give sufficient importance to a student’s intangible qualities.</p>
<p>(2) can be attributed to the general difference in essay writing styles taught in the two countries. From experience, essays in India are usually much more closer to ‘listing’ things out. For a more tangible comparison, you can compare the writing style to that of a personal statement for the UCAS. The ‘feeling’/‘raw passion’ part is lost. Now, before others mark me as pretentious, please note that I am not making any broad generalizations. I am just talking from my own experience.</p>
<p>Another thread on CC some time back talked of how Chinese students fake their recommendations and pay professionals to write their essays. This is not far from what happens in India. I don’t know how or why this has stemmed up, but it is sad. The only reason I can think brings us back to the holistic aspect. The mentality is that no one has time for such things. Teachers don’t have time to write quality recommendations. Students don’t have time to write essays which truly reveal the student’s personality. Trust me, it takes time … a lot of time to introspect and come up with a flawless essay. Days, sometimes weeks. I took 1 month to come up with my final essay.</p>
<p>There is one word which sums up the entire problem here: Jugaad. The closest english translation I can come up with is, “It means to get the job done, regardless of the path taken to complete that job.”</p>
<p>This explains the fake recommendations ;)</p>