In a discussion at the Overseas Association for College Admission Counselling conference last week, stakeholders reported that the manipulation of applications by Chinese students, including cheating in exams such as the TOEFL, and doctoring transcripts, is still a problem.

“Honest applicants feel like they are penalised if they don’t do things that are unethical”

Terry Crawford, CEO of InitialView, an interviewing service for applicants to universities, said that because the college admissions process focusses heavily on test scores, Chinese students have an incentive to cheat.

“Basically what’s happening in China is a prisoner’s dilemma type situation where essentially honest applicants feel like they are penalised if they don’t do things that are unethical,” he told The PIE News.

He added: “The responsibility lies with the people who are in charge of the process and that means that it’s the institutions themselves, and if they are putting in place a process that is easily gamed, then it will be gamed.”

He underlined that, as a result, the process doesn’t always make it safe for the honest applicants.

At the OACAC conference, held last week at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Percy Jiang, from the College Counselling Centre at Beijing National Day School, explained that some Chinese students may pursue a more unethical application because of the pressures they are under in their education system.

“When the student makes a decision, it is not just a personal decision to go to university, it’s a family decision,” he said.

He added that with the one-child policy in China, “many families have invested their life savings in their child’s education. That is a big pressure.”

“It is not just a personal decision to go to university, it’s a family decision”

Public and open rankings of students in classes, and the social reputation of both the family and the individual going to a high ranking university, also contribute to this pressure to get into a good educational institution.

Joe Giacalone, President of OACAC, confirmed that fraud in the application process is one of the most significant issues for OACAC members.

“Always the ethics comes up with reviewing applications, and what you do when you have fraudulent transcripts or test scores from parts of the world,” he told The PIE News.

He said that students are at the core of OACAC’s efforts to combat cheating. “It’s continuing the conversations about making sure that students are taken care of. We’re looking out for the students’ best interests when it comes to the applications,” he said.

“We’re looking out for the students’ best interests when it comes to the applications”

And Crawford observed that the inroads made by institutions to stop cheating is sending a message to students.

“US universities are now being more careful and because of that, it is filtering down to students and they’re realising that they have to do more to focus on the content of their education,” he said.

But added, “I continue to be surprised at what I see in China.”

The OACAC conference was attended by over 1,200 delegates from 89 different countries. The organisation, which was created in 1991, saw more members attend this conference than in the first ten years combined.

The organisation also announced it will now be called the International Association for College Admissions Counselling, after 85% of members voted in favour of changing its name.

“I didn’t feel that our name accurately represented what we did,” Giacalone said. “As we’re looking to create more global partners, we needed something that represented who we were.”