5 ms·

I went to grad school with a lot of Chinese visa students. It was pretty clear about a week in who was the real deal (absolutely brilliant students) and who had

I went to grad school with a lot of Chinese visa students. It was pretty clear about a week in who was the real deal (absolutely brilliant students) and who had worked the system to get into the school. The ones that had cheated their way in generally were generally just average folks who had taken what they viewed as their best option in a very high pressure and high stakes situation. I'm guessing most of my US raised classmates would have made the same decisions in same situations and certainly fair bit of them cheated although usually in less dramatic fashion. The part that is surprising to me is that schools aren't doing much to prevent this. Studies show us when humans are likely to cheat and probability of getting caught is at the top of the list [1]. How universities and colleges can raise tuition an average of 8% a year and get away without doing a minimum of due diligence around cheating is beyond me. Simple things like some certified system for transcripts, letters of recommendation and teachers who ID/recognize their students would be a huge step to resolving these issues. At my grad school the only change was to make foreign students take the TOEFL[3] upon arrival which solved their big problem of english skills as graduate students are supposed to be teaching assistants in undergrad classes. [1] http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/inside-the-cheaters-mind http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/inside-the-cheaters-m... [2] http://www.finaid.org/savings/tuition-inflation.phtml http://www.finaid.org/savings/tuition-inflation.phtml [3] https://www.ets.org/toefl https://www.ets.org/toefl

simonsarris 10y ago
> How universities and colleges can raise tuition an average of 8% a year and get away without doing a minimum of due diligence around cheating is beyond me. Why would they? The students and their parents aren't paying for hard (which includes catching cheaters). They're paying for the degree. If college was harder the perceived ROI* would be less. As far as I can tell colleges are happy if the students keep showing up paying real live money-dollars, regardless of if they learn or cheat or even have to do work. * Individuals might feel like they are getting a good deal, but in the aggregate, most college degrees are essentially worthless now, I suspect because college is way too easy so a degree is a signal for almost nothing.
- sambe 10y ago
  I would think they care about diluting their brand. At some point these degrees you say are worthless will mean people stop paying - don't you think?
  - chuckcode 10y ago
    Agreed. And this article could just as easily be run with the headline "Schools do almost nothing to stop known cheating" which would make for more bad press.
    - ethanbond 10y ago
      And what exactly should they do? Require students to bring two forms of ID to each test? Require students to sit in Faraday cages during exams? Isolation rooms? A school can't prevent cheating outright and it's lame to act like it's the school's fault when American and European students understand just fine that cheating is simply wrong and disallowed. If a student wants to cheat, s/he will cheat. The fact that there's an entire industry built around one culture's penchant for doing so seems to imply that maybe that culture is the problem.
      - studentrob 10y ago
        > And what exactly should they do? Require students to bring two forms of ID to each test? Require students to sit in Faraday cages during exams? Isolation rooms? The first article in this series talks about how the SAT is being gamed overseas [1]. The article makes a strong case that a unique copy of the SAT should be administered each time the test is given. As it is right now, the College Board / ETS reuses the tests to some degree. This 3 minute video is a good summary of the situation [2] The podcast How to Game the SAT is also enlightening [3] There are people working on this problem. There is also an alternate test called ACT which has stricter requirements for testing in China. Supposedly, the College Board, which creates and administers the SAT, is afraid that if it gives the SAT less often then it will give up market-share to the ACT test. There could be a real opportunity here for some startup that can help either of these testing agencies securely administer tests overseas. The SAT cancelled a test date in January due to concerns the test they were going to use had already been released on the internet. Then they gave a test in March and found its questions on the internet hours afterwards. I imagine we'll see more updates from these reporters in the coming months / years. It's a tough problem. [1] http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/college-sat-one/ http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/college-s... [2] http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/college-sat-one#video-SAT http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/college-s... [3] https://soundcloud.com/reuters/howtogamethesat https://soundcloud.com/reuters/howtogamethesat
Ivannahack 10y ago
One local public university suddenly had a 10% budget cut in funding from the state, to which their response was to stick thumbs in the dam: get more international students to pay the full tuition. However, many smaller universities are very inexperienced with regulations governing I-20s, and outsource to services involved in getting Chinese students into American colleges. What is referred to in the article as companies that "help students contrive their entire college application" are more commonly referred to as recruiters. Recruiters get students in the door, often by any means necessary. They are often the only way for Chinese students to access info about American universities at all: blocked websites, inability to pay online, and a host of other problems guarantee that recruiters will continue to exit. Another contracted service is transcript verification, also too expensive a resource to hire on campus and often outsourced to companies outside the USA. I've seen presenters at NAFSA on this topic, the difficulties translating degrees from one country to another, and hiring someone knowledgeable, authentic and with local connections is expensive. So many universities will again default to contracting out to---you guessed it---Chinese 'educational' groups that work with recruiters. Finally there's what's commonly called an IEP (Intensive English Program), that gives out I-20s to 'study English' for a certain length of time. In desperation, universities co-opt IEP programs onto their campuses to test and assess student English levels once they're on campus to avoid the Chinese educational link. This often fails too. I know one IEP that was creative with the truth in order to cut through the DHS paperwork to issue IEPs, that never checked transcripts and paid kick backs to recruiters as well as administrators for every kid that got into college. The recruiting industry is so corrupt that universities that care have a very short list of trusted recruiters. The shocking truth here is that many don't. I know of two students who ETS caught cheating on their TOEFL tests--the university accepted them based on this score. Sadly it was not a surprise to me that when the university was notified of the cheating by ETS, they did not rescind their admission to the school. Many unis would rather take the money and look the other way.
- studentrob 10y ago
  > I know of two students who ETS caught cheating on their TOEFL tests--the university accepted them based on this score. Sadly it was not a surprise to me that when the university was notified of the cheating by ETS, they did not rescind their admission to the school. Many unis would rather take the money and look the other way. Yikes. I hope news like what happened at Iowa gives schools the kick in the butt they need to either (1) be more strict in who they accept or (2) provide some additional English training for these incoming kids who supposedly know English but really do not

simonsarris 10y ago

> How universities and colleges can raise tuition an average of 8% a year and get away without doing a minimum of due diligence around cheating is beyond me. Why would they? The students and their parents aren't paying for hard (which includes catching cheaters). They're paying for the degree. If college was harder the perceived ROI* would be less. As far as I can tell colleges are happy if the students keep showing up paying real live money-dollars, regardless of if they learn or cheat or even have to do work. * Individuals might feel like they are getting a good deal, but in the aggregate, most college degrees are essentially worthless now, I suspect because college is way too easy so a degree is a signal for almost nothing.

sambe 10y ago
I would think they care about diluting their brand. At some point these degrees you say are worthless will mean people stop paying - don't you think?
- chuckcode 10y ago
  Agreed. And this article could just as easily be run with the headline "Schools do almost nothing to stop known cheating" which would make for more bad press.
  - ethanbond 10y ago
    And what exactly should they do? Require students to bring two forms of ID to each test? Require students to sit in Faraday cages during exams? Isolation rooms? A school can't prevent cheating outright and it's lame to act like it's the school's fault when American and European students understand just fine that cheating is simply wrong and disallowed. If a student wants to cheat, s/he will cheat. The fact that there's an entire industry built around one culture's penchant for doing so seems to imply that maybe that culture is the problem.
    - studentrob 10y ago
      > And what exactly should they do? Require students to bring two forms of ID to each test? Require students to sit in Faraday cages during exams? Isolation rooms? The first article in this series talks about how the SAT is being gamed overseas [1]. The article makes a strong case that a unique copy of the SAT should be administered each time the test is given. As it is right now, the College Board / ETS reuses the tests to some degree. This 3 minute video is a good summary of the situation [2] The podcast How to Game the SAT is also enlightening [3] There are people working on this problem. There is also an alternate test called ACT which has stricter requirements for testing in China. Supposedly, the College Board, which creates and administers the SAT, is afraid that if it gives the SAT less often then it will give up market-share to the ACT test. There could be a real opportunity here for some startup that can help either of these testing agencies securely administer tests overseas. The SAT cancelled a test date in January due to concerns the test they were going to use had already been released on the internet. Then they gave a test in March and found its questions on the internet hours afterwards. I imagine we'll see more updates from these reporters in the coming months / years. It's a tough problem. [1] http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/college-sat-one/ http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/college-s... [2] http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/college-sat-one#video-SAT http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/college-s... [3] https://soundcloud.com/reuters/howtogamethesat https://soundcloud.com/reuters/howtogamethesat

Ivannahack 10y ago

One local public university suddenly had a 10% budget cut in funding from the state, to which their response was to stick thumbs in the dam: get more international students to pay the full tuition. However, many smaller universities are very inexperienced with regulations governing I-20s, and outsource to services involved in getting Chinese students into American colleges. What is referred to in the article as companies that "help students contrive their entire college application" are more commonly referred to as recruiters. Recruiters get students in the door, often by any means necessary. They are often the only way for Chinese students to access info about American universities at all: blocked websites, inability to pay online, and a host of other problems guarantee that recruiters will continue to exit. Another contracted service is transcript verification, also too expensive a resource to hire on campus and often outsourced to companies outside the USA. I've seen presenters at NAFSA on this topic, the difficulties translating degrees from one country to another, and hiring someone knowledgeable, authentic and with local connections is expensive. So many universities will again default to contracting out to---you guessed it---Chinese 'educational' groups that work with recruiters. Finally there's what's commonly called an IEP (Intensive English Program), that gives out I-20s to 'study English' for a certain length of time. In desperation, universities co-opt IEP programs onto their campuses to test and assess student English levels once they're on campus to avoid the Chinese educational link. This often fails too. I know one IEP that was creative with the truth in order to cut through the DHS paperwork to issue IEPs, that never checked transcripts and paid kick backs to recruiters as well as administrators for every kid that got into college. The recruiting industry is so corrupt that universities that care have a very short list of trusted recruiters. The shocking truth here is that many don't. I know of two students who ETS caught cheating on their TOEFL tests--the university accepted them based on this score. Sadly it was not a surprise to me that when the university was notified of the cheating by ETS, they did not rescind their admission to the school. Many unis would rather take the money and look the other way.

studentrob 10y ago
> I know of two students who ETS caught cheating on their TOEFL tests--the university accepted them based on this score. Sadly it was not a surprise to me that when the university was notified of the cheating by ETS, they did not rescind their admission to the school. Many unis would rather take the money and look the other way. Yikes. I hope news like what happened at Iowa gives schools the kick in the butt they need to either (1) be more strict in who they accept or (2) provide some additional English training for these incoming kids who supposedly know English but really do not