<p>while the focus of this article is undergrad admissions, don’t forget the exact same thing happens for grad school. The TOEFL is critical for grad school admissions and that is where the big cheating occurs. Of course, that also explains the TAs that can barely speak English to their mostly US students.</p>
<p>that’s an interesting point about the grad school TA’s and their fractured english</p>
<p>GMT you apparently misunderstood me. I reiterated a valid point, actually a fact, stated by Hunt and also stated in the NYT story; intellectual property rights are not given the same respect in China as they are in western developed nations and Japan. Thus, I thought the comment in the story about how sharing answers was certainly credible. Copying information from others, etc. is not perceived by Chinese students as inappropriate and the individualism of achievement is frowned upon. That’s what the government has been teaching them since from day 1. And we all have read stories over the years about how western corporations from Nike to Galway Golf, Rolex, etc., not least of all the music recording business have pleaded with the government of China to be assertive about counterfeiting and theft of intellectual property.</p>
<p>Make no mistake, in my world the Chinese perspective about cheating is wrong, but the colleges better do their part to educate their international applicants about this and then root out all the players and middlemen whom refuse to reform.</p>
<p>My son got a call from a parent in China at the admissions office where he works, asking if her child could come to an interview and bring an interpreter. The answer, fortunately, was no. But he has told me that there are definitely some mainland Chinese students at his school whose English skills don’t seem equal to the task of being a student there. This is not true of the international students from Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan (who constitute the bulk of international students from East Asia).</p>
<p>When a country reproduces entire fake stores of stolen intelletual property (e.g. fake Apple stores and fake IKEAs) are you really all that shocked?</p>
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<p>The tide has changed 20 years ago. Have you been to the Chinese Culture Center in midtown Mahattan and in Flushing often? In the 70’s and Early 80’s. the centers were basically run by the HK and Taiwan students. Now, they are largely occupied by students from China. The reason? Primarily because those contries have advanced to a developed country satus and became more democratic, while China is still a totalitarian third world regin. People in China are still trying to fled the country for freedom. Take tourist visa for example, it is exceedingly hard to gain a visa to USA from China, while the USA is doing away from Visa for citizens of Taiwan, later on this year.</p>
<p>Many colleges have reps for each region. Their job is to get to know their region, understand quality of schools, cultural, and recommend to their school on how to differentiate applicants. In my view, they are either not doing their job or are knowingly allowing those applicants to cheat. If the fact the Chinese students are fabricating their credentials is making it to a newspaper, then it must be a well known fact to the adcoms. They should deny Chinese students from applying until they have cleaned up their act. Those schools deny admission to applicants from a particular high school because of “wrong doing” sometimes, I don´t see why they couldn´t do the same when they know students from a particular region, country, school are cheating.</p>
<p>My father came to the US as a graduate student. He was a full pay student, but back then it was a lot cheaper. Knowing where I came from, I still believe American colleges´mission should be to educate its own students first. Many foreign students seem to feel like they are entitled to go to American colleges. Even private colleges, they are enjoying many tax free benefits which are paid for by American citizens.</p>
<p>China is a big country, if a college needs to send reps to China to learn the local HS condition, they may have to send many and I don’t think the schools are doing that. Rather, they probably have one who sits in the college office overseeing the process. Who might be called “adcom” for China. That is far from understanding Chinese “culture” and the way they think and work.</p>
<p>Cheating, bribing and forgeries are rampant in China, they do not have ethics. Everything is focused on the MONEY, if they have a way to make a buck, they will. And those college application agencies were there on the day after Nixon visited China on 1972. Nevermind all those tutoring establishments for Toefl, SAT, ACT, MACT… anything you can think of they have it.</p>
<p>IMO(observations), Chinese people has a tendency to seek out other people’s approvals much more than other cultures like American. That’s why people on those countries love to study abroad, not to just gain personal experiences but also it would make them proud among their peers. But here in the US, the society doesn’t impose that kind of pressure to you. Even you are just an ordinary college graduate, you are likely to be as confident as other elite colleges’ graduates. You approve yourself, not to others.</p>
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Stop, just stop. You do not know Chinese. Do not get few tidbits from the media and think you know anything about Chinese people or its culture.
Oh really, how do you know that? Would this be the same as saying all Jewish people love money, WASPS are cheap?</p>
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Then don´t whine about not getting the right applicants. No every Chinese student cheats, there are many who hold honor above all things. If they are getting the bottom of barrel because they are not doing their homework, then they deserve what they get.</p>
<p>“Stealing” and “receiving stolen goods” are both crimes. Drug dealing and laundering drug money through your pizza restaurant are both crimes.</p>
<p>The emphasis here should equally be on how unethical, corrupt and dishonest US colleges are. Maybe US colleges value money above all. Or US culture in education seeks approval from others by having a lot of foreign students.</p>
<p>I can imagine Chinese students sitting back and saying, well heck Americans are so corrupt all they want is our money. They don’t care if we pay some guy a few thousand dollars to handle our admission. All those essays and such don’t actually mean anything to them.</p>
<p>Top tiers schools that are trying to recruit qualified students, they know all the international schools and good Chinese secondary schools. They could get to know those schoools, just like American schools. If some colleges are just trying to recruit foreign students who could afford full pay and don´t want to do the work, then they got what they were lookings - unqualified students who could help out with their bottom line. </p>
<p>How many international students does a school like Dartmouth admit - 0 from Japan American international school last year. Of few they want to admit from China, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan…they couldn´t do enough due diligence to find out if a candidate is truly qualified? They have alumni at many of those countries to do interviews for them, my brother did it for Cornell when he was in HKG. My brother knew most of kids´he interviewed (connections). If he thought any applicant didn´t “smell” right, he would have reported it.</p>
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<p>I am Chinese… did I say some thing you know and I don’t?</p>
<p>@oldfort, I stated it very clearly in my post#49–IMO(observations). That’s my personal observations as a kid grew up in Taiwan. Not only me, a lot of kids I knew had to set a goal of studying abroad because it would make the parents (or the students themselves) proud.</p>
<p>Now I have lived in the US longer than my time in Taiwan, I still constantly hear stories like that, from my family and friends who are in Taiwan as well as many contacts from China too.</p>
<p>I teach ESL at a community college near San Gabriel, CA and have a LOT of Chinese students. They run the gamut from honorable to dishonorable. I have been offered a $500 bribe to pass a Chinese student, but I’ve also been given flowers and gift cards just as a thank-you. I have also been touched by some Chinese students’ kindness when I got very sick last year. In other words, they are just like anyone else (although I don’t think an American student would think it’s OK to offer a direct bribe). We don’t get the super-high achievers, as this is a community college. My students seem to get in a lot of car accidents (some of the young men drink a lot, drive too fast and amass LOTS of speeding tickets). Many have gone to high school in the U.S. and have green cards. In other words, they are part of our general student population, and besides living kind of fast and furious, are not all that different from American freshman with too much money and free time.</p>
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Some am I, but I guess we are very different. We don’t run with the same crowd.</p>
<p>Don’t worry, our kids are learning. this is what he wrote today</p>
<p>–Periods like the Three Kingdoms, Sixteen Kingdoms, Chinese history is the struggle to create a unified country under one dynasty but they always get broken up by generals or eunuchs (guys who get their balls cut off and are made palace servants). The 60 year old Tang emperor Xuanzong had a crush on this girl Yang Guifei. In order to get on Yang Guifei’s good side he gave all these presents to her boyfriend An Lushan so that he could eventually have her for himself. Then with all the power he got An Lushan chased Xuanzong out of the capital. Eventually An Lushan was defeated and Yang Guifei got strangled to death. Then the Tang died and it was all chaos again. Many fights and murders and cool guys.</p>
<p>“although I don’t think an American student would think it’s OK to offer a direct bribe” Really?</p>
<p>Well, I do think an American student might think it was too risky to offer a college professor a direct bribe.</p>
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<p>This is very different than to say “Chinese people has a tendency to seek out other people’s approvals much more than other cultures like American.” I personally could careless of anyone’s approval, same for my siblings and my kids. </p>
<p>I live outside of US now. I am getting to know the local culture pretty well, I could make a lot of generalization, but I do not because they are individuals. Many expats like to make disparaging remarks about local people, but it is not something I tolerate in my department. </p>
<p>Just for the record - when you jump on the band wagon to belittle your own race, it doesn’t make you appear like you are better.</p>