By Patrick Winn
Created 1969-12-31 19:00
BANGKOK, Thailand — From sleep to social lives, there is little Asia’s
most upwardly mobile students won’t sacrifice for education. Though they
belong to the so-called “Asian Century,” American colleges remain the
premier destination for the elite from Shanghai to Singapore to Seoul.
The path to US college acceptance, however, increasingly compels
students to sacrifice their integrity. For the right price, unscrupulous
college prep agencies offer ghostwritten essays in flawless English, fake
awards, manipulated transcripts and even whiz kids for hire who’ll pose
as the applicant for SAT exams.
“Oh my God, they can do everything for you,” said Nok, 17-year-old Thai
senior in her final year at a private Bangkok high school. (She asked
GlobalPost to alter her name for this article.) “They can take the SAT
for you, no problem. Most students don’t really think it’s wrong.”
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Among Asian high society, and particularly in China, parents’ obsession
with sending their offspring to US colleges has given rise to a
lucrative trade of application brokers. Depending the degree of
assistance, families can expect to pay between $5,000 and $15,000.
“The parent says, ‘My kid needs this GPA but, frankly, his scores
aren’t that strong.’ Then the unscrupulous agent says ‘Don’t worry.
We’ll figure that out,’” said Tom Melcher, chairman of Zinch China and
author of a Chinese-language book on choosing American colleges.
A 250-student survey by Zinch China, a Beijing wing of the
California-based Zinch education consultancy, suggests college
application fraud among Chinese students is extremely pervasive.
According to the survey, roughly 90 percent of recommendation letters to
foreign colleges are faked, 70 percent of college essays are
ghostwritten and 50 percent of high school transcripts are falsified.
“For the right price,” Melcher said, “the agent will either fabricate
it or work with the school to get a different transcript issued.”
Admission into a top 10 or top 30 school, as defined by the US News &
World Report, can bring a $3,000 to $10,000 bonus for the agent, he
said. The magazine, Melcher said, is commonly confused in China for an
official government publication.
Demand for such agents is high and getting higher. Rapid economic
growth across China and other parts of Asia has sparked an explosion in
foreign students hoping to secure their ascent with a Western diploma.
Chinese citizens currently account for more than one in five foreign
students studying at US colleges. Nearly 158,000 Chinese students are
enrolled at any given time, a full 300 percent jump over mid-1990s
numbers, according to the Institute of International Education.
Chinese, Indian and South Korean students comprise roughly half of
America’s foreign college student population. Vietnam has sent 13
percent more students to the US within the last year, and Malaysia has
added 8 percent, the institute reports.
But many American college officials are oblivious to the application
fix-it men these foreign students may have paid back home. Worse yet,
remaining blind to the deception is often financially incentivized.
America’s economic downturn has drained the state tax coffers that
provide a funding lifeline to many US colleges. Many schools have
resorted to unpopular tuition hikes. But many are also courting wealthy
foreign students whose families gladly fork over money for housing and
tuition along with out-of-state or even out-of-country fees.
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“International students are seen as a source of revenue ... and the
trend has exploded in the past two years,” said Dale Gough,
international education director for AACRAO, the American Association of
Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.
Foreign students, through tuition and living expenses, contribute $2.1
billion to the US economy, according to the US Commerce Department. “In
short,” Gough said, “they help the bottom line.”
Excuses abound for ignoring fraudulent applications, Gough said. Some
assume that kids who cheat will inevitably flame out anyway and never
score a degree. Some admissions officers, he said, contend that “that’s
just the way it’s done over there.”
Many schools also make sloppy attempts to translate foreign
transcripts, calculated by an “indigenous” and unfamiliar methodology,
into America’s GPA or “grade point average” system, Gough said.
His association publishes a guide to deciphering foreign scores, the
only one of its kind, but fewer than 500 of the 3,500 institutions
represented by AACRAO bother to buy a copy.
“Translating foreign grades into a GPA system is meaningless,” Gough said. “They attempt to do it anyway.”
Gough fears that universities’ lax standards, and focus on big foreign
tuition payments, will eventually undermine the pedigree of an American
diploma. The damage, he said, would be nearly impossible to undo.
“This scenario spells disaster,” Gough said. “Even if a lot of the
students who cheat are bright, and they go on to succeed, is this fair
to American students? Or [to] the foreign students who play by the
rules?”
While America has ceded manufacturing power and foreign influence to
China, an American degree remains the gold standard of educational
prestige. Nok, who is currently applying for colleges abroad, never
considered applying to universities in Asia.
“Students who study in America are elite, the privileged,” said Nok. “It shows you’re smarter than the others.”
But like most Asian students, Nok has felt baffled and overwhelmed by America’s complex application system.
“Here, you take a big test one day and report the score. That’s how you
figure out where you’ll go to college,” she said. “The Americans are
different. They want to know the big picture. All these essays. All this
stuff about your life.”
America’s liberal arts application system is “fundamentally more
confusing,” said Joshua Russo, director of Top Scholars, a college prep
and tutoring agency in Bangkok.
Asian families unfamiliar with the process, he said, are justified in
seeking an agency’s help with application strategies and tutoring to
build the skills US colleges demand. But Russo’s refrain to parents, he
said, is that kids who can’t write their own essays are likely to burn
out once enrolled in America.
“Some consultants will promise the world ... and they’re fundamentally
preparing students to fail,” Russo said. “Beyond fabricating an essay,
they’re fabricating a whole life story. Students will start to believe
in the lie. It’s wrong.”
The allure of America’s universities, and the pressure-cooker drive to
succeed among Asia’s expanding upper class, will continue to propel
Asian students into American schools. Many Chinese teenagers applying
abroad, Melcher said, are the sort of highly motivated students colleges
desire.
“Chinese kids are typically great,” Melcher said. “They’re not at the
tailgate parties drinking. They’re busting their butts. Failure is not
an option.”
But college application fraud will continue, he said, so long as the
risks are low and the rewards are so high. His consultancy suggests
interviewing all Chinese students via online video chats, conducting
spot tests in English, and hiring a mainland Chinese staffer in the
college’s home office.
“Frankly, I feel really bad for Chinese families who are trying to be
honest,” he said. “They’re driving 55 while everyone’s zooming past
them. After a while, they throw up their hands and say, ‘Fine, I’ll
speed up.’”
