REUTERS/Tyrone Siu Students leave after a Scholastic Assessment Tests (SAT) exam at AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong. As the number of Chinese students in U.S. colleges outpaces that of any other country, the journey to get into an elite American university has only gotten more cutthroat and students are rising to the challenge in strange ways.

Think: Scalping tickets for tests, making up exotic adventures, and getting tutored at 1:00 am.

China is already known for one rigorous exam that students spend years preparing for – the gaokao. The determining factor in a high school student's college placement, the gaokao is the cause of pressure, stress, and occasionally cheating among test takers.

But as graduates emerge from Chinese universities without jobs, more high school students are directing their efforts overseas. Chinese students now make up 31 percent of all international college students at U.S. universities, according to data from the Institute of International Education.

In contrast, gaokao test takers reached a low in 2012 of about nine million since its peak of 10.5 million in 2008. The Financial Times reported that an additional million students backed out of the test last minute in 2013.

The pressure that once came with the gaokao now falls for some students to the SAT, ACT, and TOEFL.

Scott Wang, a high school teacher who works with students applying to U.S. universities, said the amount of studying that goes into these efforts has intensified.

"Five years ago, I couldn’t convince a single person to even consider taking the ACT," Wang said. "I begged, I was like ‘I will even pay for your testing fee if you take the test and get a good score, because I know you can,’ – nothing. This year, half the students are ACT takers."

Wang said wealthy parents especially have become more zealous about getting their children admitted to U.S. universities.

One family refused anything less than a one-on-one tutoring session, asking Wang to tutor from 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. – the only free time the student had. Another family sent their child to an SAT boot camp under the guise that they were going on vacation to Korea, Wang said.

Parents have also hired multiple college application specialists at once. Wang said one of his students from last year went to three different tutoring companies for SAT training alone.

"Why are you bothering?" Wang had asked him. "He said, 'Well, my parents just want to be thorough."

Trying to stand out

The intense measures Chinese students go to during college applications is only representative of a fraction of the population. However, stories traded around the education industry highlight the competition that comes with wanting an education abroad.

Traditionally, Chinese students have always been rigorous when it comes to academics and test-taking. For those that are doing everything to get into a U.S. university, the sheer number of high test scores has made standing out even harder.

Cheng Ho, a Harvard graduate who has interviewed Chinese prospective students in Beijing, said he talked to tons of students with similar qualifications. If one student said she went to Africa to volunteer, a thousand other students will soon have the exact same thing on their resumes as well, Ho said.

"Chinese students are no different, they all have great grades," he said. "All they were ever taught was, 'You gotta do this, you gotta be number one, you still have to be number one.'"

Another challenge facing students and schools is the difficulty in accurately evaluating all applicants. A student's aptitude for test taking may mask deficiencies in actual English or other capabilities, Guy Sivan said. Sivan is the COO of Vericant, a company that offers video interviewing services and identification verification for U.S. college and boarding school applicants.

In their time at Vericant, Sivan and China director Kelly Yang have heard many reasons why such a service is necessary.

One admissions officer, while speaking with a Chinese student over Skype, thought it was strange that the student had a black cat in her lap during the interview. Several minutes into the interview, the admissions officer realized that it wasn't a cat, but the hair from her mother's head as she whispered answers to the applicant.

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