The validity of CMU admission process under question

Colleges & Universities A-Z Carnegie Mellon University
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<p>This is the article published by the The Korean Times on March 1st, 2010.</p>

<p>By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter</p>

<p>Parents of many students hire consultants to complete essays and other documents for their children aspiring to gain admission to prestigious American universities. These "ghostwriters" forge documents for college applicants both for local and foreign schools.</p>

<p>A number of Korean students have gained admission into art schools in the United States by submitting drawings and documents created by hired experts. In some cases, the students transferred to other departments after gaining entrance into the school.</p>

<p>A high school graduate in Gyeonggi Province was admitted to the art school of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh with a portfolio created by such a consultant.</p>

<p>"I spent about six months preparing for admission into the art school," the freshman at the prestigious U.S. school told The Korea Times. Carnegie Mellon school officials didn't make a specific comment when asked whether the school was aware of such practices involving Korean students.</p>

<p>The student had no background in the arts whatsoever. In Korean art schools such as Hongik University's, the aspirants are required to take a rigid set of on-location tests.</p>

<p>In a telephone interview, one such ghostwriter said she can produce drawings for use in university entrance without triggering any suspicion from admissions officers.</p>

<p>"All the students need to do is to get accustomed to using drawing pencils for about three months ― not for admission but for studying at the school following enrollment," she said.</p>

<p>Such drawings usually cost some 300,000 won ($259) apiece, although the fee depends on the success rate of the consultants in getting "unskilled" students into overseas art schools, according to private instructors and tutors.</p>

<p>Portfolios usually consist of 15 to 20 pieces of artwork created by the applicant. Art schools in the United States put substantial weight on portfolios in screening students.</p>

<p>Another Carnegie Mellon student said it was natural for her Korean peers to get help from instructors in making their portfolios. "A lot of students from my school went to private institutes,"' she said.</p>

<p>Portfolios are not the only things that private institutes and consultants can forge for applicants. A SAT instructor in the affluent Gangnam area, identified as a Yoo, said she writes essays for a number of students seeking enrollment at American colleges.</p>

<p>Some students at elite foreign language high schools here have enrolled at U.S. arts schools before transferring to their preferred department.</p>

<p>Many students use art schools as a stepping stone to other departments because high academic scores ― including the SAT ― are often not required for admittance into art schools.</p>

<p>Moreover, changing majors is much easier in the U.S. and arts majors often transfer to other studies.</p>

<p>In Korea, portfolio evaluation has been scrapped at most universities due to numerous irregularities. An art professor at Hongik pointed out the abuse of the system.</p>

<p>He said that "a picture can be dramatically changed with a little touch from an expert."</p>

<p>The art school of Seoul National University accepts portfolios but makes applicants draw in front of admission officers as well.</p>

<p>However, most U.S. schools don't conduct on-site testing. In the face of a series of cases of cheating in the SAT, universities there used to say they had a variety of tools to screen unqualified Korean applicants.</p>

<p>Many of those accepted to American universities with documents "manufactured" by private institutes are noted for quitting their studies prematurely. One such student was unable to graduate fromthe Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) after her enrollment in 2004 with the help of a ghostwriter. In reply to an inquiry, the school said that it was unaware of such cases.</p>

<p>"Many Korean students managed to enroll at U.S. schools but fail to complete their four-year courses," said a student who transferred to a Seoul university from a noted U.S. school.</p>

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<p>and your point is?</p>

<p>It’s not just CMU. All art schools in the states have the honor policy. It’s just those stupid people who don’t care about how they do at college.</p>

<p>and as a Korean myself, I’m more than eager to punish or even kill those who Koreans who ignore this policy and cheat.</p>

<p>PS - I don’t want this thread to turn into one of those racist ones but it’s not just Koreans who do this. I’ve seen some Chinese kids at my old school getting into universities by doing so.</p>

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<p>I agree with laure this stuff happens at a lot of foreign countries. But still its a good article.</p>

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<p>This is similar to those kids who claim to be, like, homosexual native american orphaned jews to get into Harvard, and then it later turns out that it was all a lie. The fault isn’t on the “validity” of the college’s admission process-- it’s just that when you’re reviewing thousands of applicants from one location in Pittsburgh, there’s no way to tell whether each and every single applicant really did draw his or her own pieces, especially since students from Korea don’t usually come in for a personal portfolio review. </p>

<p>my question is why you’d want to fake your way into the CMU arts program. It’s so competitive, even once you’re on campus-- one of my roommates is in Design and talks constantly about the caliber of creative talent required to hold your ground once you are into CFA. If you really did have someone make a portfolio for you and you have no drawing ability yourself, you’re basically f**cked, and everyone’s going to know you’re a liar in about half a second once the first set of fall assignments goes out.</p>

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<p>There are liars everywhere…my parents tell me that in their workplaces they know people have fabricated resumes to get jobs, once in, their lack of abilities eventually shows and they are rid of the pigs…
Same everywhere. How many of us played sports at some point and know that there were kids left off teams os b/c of parents’ politics and the like. </p>

<p>It’s not about foreign students … there are US prep schools that hand hold students through the essay writing process right here…there are people that pay THOUSANDS of dollars here in the US to have the “best” college consultants manage the entirety of the process for children…I wouldn’t even doubt for a minute that essays might be drafted or polished for their clients-- the consultants’ reputation and future income rests on boasting of high acceptance rates…it’s dishonest…but unfortunately, we cannot hold ADCOMs accountable for the few rats they fail to detect…</p>

<p>I guess we can only be upset when these situations impact us personally-- and in the interim, we lead our lives in an ethically admirable way-- b/c that’s all we can do. </p>

<p>Do your best, be your best at all times.</p>

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<p>I was shocked though that lies could get you this high</p>

<p>[News:</a> MIT Dean Claimed Unearned Degrees - Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/27/mit]News:”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/27/mit)</p>

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<p>It’s amazing how little personal integrity means to some people.</p>

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<p>I wasn’t making a point. I was simply sharing a possibility and an opinion =]</p>

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<p>It does give you an unfortunate sense that the social fabric is coming apart at some corners. The outright illegal activities may be limited but pushing the law as far as it can go is probably wide spread and is certainly almost as harmful.</p>

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<p>Igloo’s damn straight there about “pushing the law as far as it can go”. The law is not synonymous to the moral values that we might want to uphold and something being “perfectly legal” is not the ultimate justification for our actions. I’m sure that many of us are frustrated/disappointed/outraged that some people have gained more than they deserved in life through shams but hey, you never know when those bubbles of lies are going to burst.</p>

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<p>I was talking to one of my international friends the other day and he was complaining about how long he was having to wait to get letters of rec back from his professors. I commented that it’s no different than waiting on teachers to write them in high school, at which point he told me that at his school the teachers had the students write their own letters and then they would simply sign them off. No surprises really…</p>

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<p>bco09: That reminds me of managers I’ve known that tell their employees to write their own reviews. The manager just puts in the % for salary increase.</p>

<p>completelykate: The reason they fraud their way into the art school is so they can immediately transfer into the program of their choice. That way their artistic abilities are never truly tested. It’s easier to do this at some schools than others. </p>

<p>I managed the application process for DS. He did the tests, grades, essays and short answer questions. I did everything else. We wanted him to be able to focus on school. It paid off as his final SAT (third try) in November was his highest in all categories and his grades this past semester were his best ever.</p>

<p>There are definitely grey areas in the application process. Ghost writers for the application essays (or art submissions) are just plain wrong. It’s generally accepted that it’s okay to have someone proofread an application essay. What if your proofreader is your english teacher? Is it okay to pay someone to proofread your essay? When does proofreading become rewriting?</p>

<p>CMUGUY2014: The example regarding resume inflation is good. You’d be amazed how well those folks interview, then fall flat on their faces when they start the actual job. My guess is that someone that goes through the process outlined above will be tempted to use similar strategies in other areas…academic or otherwise.</p>

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<p>Heh, I remember my English class in 11th grade required that we write a “college admissions essay.” I remember writing about the thrill of building my first computer and learning about how all the parts work. He wrote “SO WHAT?” across a random paragraph. I asked him after class what I should do to improve it and he said, “Make it better.” then handed the paper back to me.</p>

<p>Not really pertinent to the current discussion, but man did I not like that guy.</p>

<p>Also, the general sentiment of that article seems to reflect the things I’ve heard some of my southeast Asian friends talk about their schools at home. The most common one being “It’s not cheating as long as you don’t get caught.”</p>

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<p>RacinReaver: You are right. That wasn’t a teacher. That was a “guy”.</p>

<p>Your friends are dead wrong. Cheating is cheating. They think they are getting away with it if they don’t get caught. They will keep cheating and cheat themselves out of an education (for starters).</p>

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<p>A few of them have been caught in one form or another already, though I know of one in particular who managed to get away with manipulating people for answers to homeworks/tests and those sorts of things through her entire undergrad career and placed into a pretty decent grad school. You can bet all of us that also went to grad school “accidentally” say her name when we tell stories about people that did unethical things in undergrad. Pretty much everyone’s hoping the fact that academia is a small community will come back to bite her. ;)</p>

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<p>AVHS, if the point is to be able to immediately transfer to the program of their choice (SCS, CIT, whatever), then they’re not doing their research very well. Freshmen can’t complete an internal transfer until after their freshman year, unless it is into a program such as BHA-- and they would still be required to take the mandatory freshman arts classes depending on which part of CFA they are in (design or fine arts).</p>

<p>with regards to writing your own high school letters of rec: I disagree that that’s cheating. A lot of colleges require them, but in my high school, there were 950 of us in the graduating senior class. No matter how well I had known several of my core subject teachers, with the sheer amount of students they taught (in some cases up to 4 sections with 50 students each-- we had a serious overcrowding problem) there was simply no way they could remember enough vivid details about each one to write a perky rec letter. So they’d ask us to bring them a list of our accomplishments and a bullet point list of what we would like them to say about us in their letter. Sometimes they’d just flat out say, “bring me a letter to sign.” We really had no choice in the matter. I’d love it if my teacher could have written a cool letter about me without me essentially writing the letter for them to sign off-- but it just didn’t work out that way. It wasn’t physically possible.</p>

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<p>“Sometimes they’d just flat out say, “bring me a letter to sign.” We really had no choice in the matter. I’d love it if my teacher could have written a cool letter about me without me essentially writing the letter for them to sign off-- but it just didn’t work out that way. It wasn’t physically possible.”</p>

<p>Wow I’m shocked that happens at some schools. At my school everyone knows who’s good at writing recs and who’s not. My AP Chem teacher is the best at writing rec’s at my school. But most of it is complete bull and he says stuff like how you stay after class and tutor people, how you are inquisitive and amazing in the lab, and other good stuff like that ;)</p>