There was an interesting post the other day on a popular blog where a private admissions consultant challenged the entire admissions process for students from China – apparently most Chinese schools don’t have transcripts, most Chinese teachers can’t/won’t/don’t write recommendations, and extracurricular activities are regarded as ludicrous – none of these things matter a whit for students attempting to go to Chinese universities. So when American universities demand these components for applications, students who haven’t attended an international school pay some fixer to generate all this stuff. Plenty of ringers on the testing front, too.
He was pretty critical of the top US universities that ought to understand very clearly why their application requirements actively encourage cheating. He suggested that much more in-depth interviewing would do more to identify truly talented applicants than asking for application components that don’t exist within that educational system.
I found it very interesting.