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Boston is the academic capital of the US. In her environthere are 80+ institutions of higher learning. Thus it  is the goal for many Chinese students wishing to come to the US. This week the  leading city newspaper has a front page article about the problems facing: Chinese students wishing to come to the US for study, and the institutions they are applying for admission. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/01/19/chinese-students-hungry-attend-universities-caught-fraudulent-application-process/gpRB06mqBVAsxZ6eAbFKCJ/story.html?p1=Article_Trending_Most_Viewed..

The following facts are not in dispute:

1.      The US is still the overwhelming favorite placefor Chinese students and parents as a place for higher study.  A US college degree is highly prized inChina.

2.      For less qualified students who scored low on the Chinese national examination but with rich parents,  coming to the US for college study have become one short cut to higher education and future successes.

3.      Unlike in China where entrance to university is heavily dependent on the score of one annual  national examination, the US custom is to use application forms which consists of essays,  recommendation letters, courses taken and grades, TOFEL test about English language skill,  SAT test results, and host of other subjective and objective factors. The application is a multi-dimensional set of documents.

4.      As a result a whole industry has sprung up inChina to help less qualified students to create fraudulent  recommendation letters, ghost written essays, false test scores, etc. in order  to gain anadvantage in the  application process. This is in addition to the problem of scholar misbehavior http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-729425.html.

5.      It is difficult for the institutions to investigate fraudulent application generated 8000 miles away in China.  But admitting unqualified students create serious problems down the road for both the student and  the institution that admitting him/her

6.      In 2014, 8000+ Chinese students were expelled from US colleges for cheating and for failing in  study after being admitted.

7.      Chinese students are gaining a less than stellar reputation in the US. This is unfair to students who are  honest in their dealings.

8.      Except at richly endowed universities, such as Harvard, admission to US colleges are not “need blind”,  i.e., ability to pay full tuition and no scholarship needs matter in admission consideration.

9.      Many Chinese families are now rich enough to pay full tuition for their children’s college education.  This is an advantage but also contributes to some tension/competition between mainland Chinese students and local Chinese American applicants. http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-870623.html,   http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-471528.html.

10.  How this problem will sort itself out remains to be seen.