The other day I stumbled across an article on the news website Global Post that a friend of mine had shared on Ye Ol' Book of Faces. The link read, "Elite Asian students cheat like mad on U.S. college applications." Intrigued by this inflammatory and somewhat offensive headline, I had to click.
Like anyone who has applied to college, my friend was peeved at what he perceived as unfair manipulation of one of our most frustrating, though unavoidable, systems. This story sounded like a firecracker. A hair-puller. A declaration of war. I read on.
The story explains how, in an increasingly global and competitive world, the pressure on education-addicted Asian students encourages them to compromise their integrity in order to succeed. Though Eastern economies have begun to boom, United States colleges still manufacture the most coveted of scribble-laden certificates. A swelling trend among members of Asian "high society" is now to utilize college prep companies that offer falsified transcripts, essays pre-written in perfect English, invented awards and surrogate geniuses for standardized tests.
However, paying one's way into college does not come cheap. Depending on how much finagling is required, the cost runs from $5,000 to $15,000. And, an agent who wins a student's acceptance to a U.S. News and World Report top-ranked college slaps another $3,000 to $10,000 into his pot o' gold. Apparently, in foreign countries, the organization is mistaken as part of the American government.
Considering both the fact that our beloved Brown is now at spot number 15 and that strolling around campus, I am overwhelmed by a beautiful melange of languages, I began to wonder. Has Brown been swindled by this brand of trickery? Then I saw the figures.
According to a 250-student survey conducted by Zinch China, the foreign branch of an esteemed, California-based education consulting corporation, 90 percent of recommendation letters that are headed overseas are faked, 70 percent of essays aren't written by applicants and half of all transcripts aren't genuine. Also, the only student quoted in the article, a 17-year-old senior from Thailand exclaims, "‘They can do everything for you. … They can take the SAT for you, no problem. Most students don't really think it's wrong.'"
Confused? I was simply befuddled. First, I knew that 250 people is nothing compared to the 158,000 Chinese students enrolled in American colleges and that this data had to be skewed by sampling error. But it still seemed indicative of much foul play. I had to take a peek at where this information came from. This data would mean that international students at our school could have gained entry on false pretense, certainly a disturbing notion. Cheating is not compatible with the religious and moral traditions of the East. With so much emphasis on honor and hard work that students compromise sleep and social lives, one would think that wide-spread rule-bending would be condemned. I went to work.
Now, I don't know what's more appalling — that the world runs on money or that even a system designed to be incorruptible is not immune from the triumph of dollars over diligence. Or even worse, is it that, when one looks behind the scenes at foreign teens portrayed by media as cutthroat monsters, students aren't even the source of this issue?
The data tends to be factual within the limited confines of the article's research. However, when I looked into the paper from which most of the startling information was drawn, I found that these sensational statistics stem from a very different problem.
The Global Post article fails to mention that Chinese teachers and high schools are almost always judged on the colleges and scores of the students they produce. Some are even penalized for pupils they send overseas, which is seen as a national loss, so there is real incentive to keep students within the country. This leads to the withholding of transcripts and signatures from recommendations.
Another tidbit that the journalist fails to include is that, in the report he cites, the head of Zinch China admitted that most parents consider 17-year-olds too irresponsible to coordinate their own affairs. Often only hired heads can access the email accounts used to communicate with schools and register for the Common Application. Many students aren't even allowed to log in or view the materials. Parents tend to see this as a benefit, a buffer if their child's English skills are poor.
The overbearing influence of parents and the fear of what will happen if their children do not succeed clearly facilitates the emotional exploitation of concerned parents for personal profit. The problem is one of ethics, but not on the students' behalf, as the Global Post article insinuates.
This kind of faux journalism serves to stir up prejudice and xenophobia in an already tense area of discussion. The facts have been obscured, and the real issue of application fraud has been used as a sensational base for publisher profit. So to Global Post, I say, shame — let's aim our rhetoric at what's really to blame.
Adam Bouche '14 is a geology and archaeology concentrator from Ipswich, Mass. He can be contacted at adam_bouche@brown.edu.
