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This is an interesting thread! I actually work at the other end of the pipeline, I do international admissions for a large and popular (but not Ivy League) US university that gets a lot of international applicants. We're used to trying to navigate around some of the cultural issues that international students bring with them but we mostly only interact with those from a US perspective. Since we don't have funding for international undergraduates, most of our applicants are graduate students and the undergraduates we get tend to be children of the upper classes. You can really spot the ones who stayed in the Chinese bubble even though they did undergrad in the US and are therefore exempt from the TOEFL. Ghostwritten essays also tend to stand out a bit sharply as well--if nothing else, they just lack the basic grammatical errors that even very skilled Chinese students tend to make. We don't penalize them for those, the point of the essay is to show some ability to construct a larger written piece and showcase their reasons for wanting to go to our university versus the many other less competitive institutions out there. A lot of the essays show signs of 'guidance', in that they were more or less given a template to follow and told to write engaging topic sentences but then they struggle with momentum and definitely cannot write strong conclusions other than 'please let me in'. I could also just keep a bullet point list nearby for most of them--piano, violin, soccer, tennis, yearbook, student council. Boarding school. Basically a checklist of upper middle class signals. I wonder how many of them are applying to my school in engineering or business because that's what they actually want. Some of the essays show more amusing qualities. I found it really charming when I got an essay from a boy describing making a video tutorial on how to play Hearthstone for his class (he had to make a video tutorial about something) and another kid wrote about loving anime and hosting the anime club, then getting a girlfriend and learning not to identify with anime characters to much, to be more of his own person--I wanted to send him a prize for learning that one early. Others apply to things like special education after caring for an autistic family member, or similar stories that demonstrate some kind of genuine inspiration or commitment to their path beyond 'this is what is expected of me'. That Eunice Vi piece nailed what a lot of Chinese (and others but we get more China than anywhere else) essays struggle with, trying to show challenge in a life that hasn't had a lot of it. You guys have written a lot about academic dishonesty. This is something we struggle with quite a bit. We've recently begun requesting admitted Chinese students to have their transcripts verified by an organization called CHESICC and their diploma verified by one called CDGDC. This is a really inefficient arrangement that seems to exist mostly to let both agencies get their shot at gouging Chinese students. The Chinese MOE (in conjunction with a group called the National Student Clearinghouse) asked us to do this as a pilot program a few years ago, and I'm not sure it actually does any good. My impression is that a lot of dishonesty occurs within the schools themselves, like when you all wrote about principals giving students passing grades despite them never even showing up for class. Would you say that's accurate at the university level as well? Someone also wrote that they can't offer the SAT in mainland China at all due to dishonesty, is that really true? Could anyone elaborate on that? I'm really curious about where some of our students are coming from and so stories about academic life in China are fun to read.
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May 8, 2017 16:21
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 15:02 |
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That is extremely weird. The Chinese kids I deal with are all applying to pay non-resident tuition in the US with no financial aid so I guess the expense of 'go to Thailand to take the SAT' isn't that big a deal but I did not realize it was generally unavailable on the mainland. Is the TOEFL still offered widely? What about the GRE? Man do my applicants bitch about having to take the TOEFL. Even when they can barely stutter out a sentence to me on the phone.
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May 9, 2017 20:28
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Are you referring to the high school campus? At the college I work for, there is no "bridging program" or "foundation program" as they're sometimes called, students are expected to have done the TOEFL and be ready to do university level work. There is an ESL program run by one section of the university but it is totally separate from and in no way guarantees later admission.
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May 9, 2017 20:37
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So I have a few more questions about Chinese education-- The high schools you all are teaching at are described as intended for at least pseudo-elite students. My latest reading suggested that mandatory education stops at 9th grade, and 10-11-12 are optional. Is that accurate, and how many students actually attend for those last three years? Are there free public options available all the way through high school? What percentage of Chinese students attend college? It sounds like a lot of the English learners mentioned are at least intended for universities somewhere even if they have little in the way of educational aspirations of their own.
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May 16, 2017 19:22
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:^ TGA, thank you so much- I didn't know almost any of that. You've really clarified the whole test score panic I've seen here. The worst part about that is that at least for my school, we don't really give a poo poo if a score is higher than the cutoff--79. It either makes the cutoff or it doesn't, we're done. So busting their rear end for that 100 doesn't do much for us. Of course, some graduate departments care more (as they really should) since they're going to be relying on their applicants to teach undergraduates but basically the 80 is all that matters for most. The IELTS is even worse since they only report the scores with paper so it takes forever to arrive and process, and they're more, ah, generous with their scoring. I wish we didn't accept it but I guess we have to try and keep the TOEFL somewhat honest. 1700 RMB is a racket though. It costs about the same in the US too, and the GRE is $195. At least the GRE is good for five years, the TOEFL also expires practically overnight (two years) and kids are supposed to have a TOEFL that's valid when they enroll. Their application deadlines are in December of the year before the fall semester, which gives them a very narrow window for taking the test. (We're actually flexible about that but shhh) I've read elsewhere that only something less than 50% of Chinese students opt for some kind of post-9th grade education. I mean I guess you can drop out in the US after 16 in some states so it's not that different here either, just that most people choose to finish, and we consider the lower graduation rates in some areas to be a serious problem. It also is another way those "international comparison test" scores are skewed when you're only dealing with a minority of the HS-aged population. The sliding-scale high school fee thing is interesting though. I guess I see the logic but I also know that the people with the money for extensive academic resources do best, so the wealthiest will be paying the least a lot of the time. In addition to having the money to have influence and be friends with school board members. We do a large portion of our college admissions here based solely on HS class rank which is a rule intended as a backhanded sort of Affirmative Action--whether you graduate from West Bumblefuck HS or PS 349 in the worst part of the city or Jumbotron By The Lake you are judged according to how you perform against your peers, with the resources you have in the school you are in. There are problems with that (hell, college admissions in general is a huge mess) but it at least doesn't demand AP courses and band uniforms of people in districts struggling with poverty and the rich kids with resources are fighting against others with the same.
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May 17, 2017 03:16
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 15:02 |
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:By the way, I apologize if I'm coming off as too negative. Things are very difficult for me right now, health- and work-wise, and I'm generally pretty sensitive so I always sweat the small stuff. One local custom I appreciated in southern Japan in summer was it being totally okay to basically towel off with a little washcloth or something, everybody sweatin' so humid guh whereas in Texas (which is actually even hotter) you shouldn't be showing any glow, didn't you just totter directly from your car to the office what do you mean you walked to the post office that's half a mile away how uncivilized
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Jun 8, 2017 16:31
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