When these aspects are combined with parents who cannot speak English and are unfamiliar with the U.S. college application process, an opportunity arises for agents who promise to “package” the students in a way that admission officers will accept. Since most agents are paid at least partially on a success-fee basis, there is a strong incentive to succeed by any means necessary. Agents fill out all of the forms for the student, adding essays and extracurricular activities, and handle all correspondence with the schools (after all, why risk one’s fee to a high school student unfamiliar with the process?). This in turn frees up additional time for students to focus on the SAT and TOEFL (hopefully in classes also run by the agent’s company).

Admission officers might say they conduct a holistic review of China applicants, but in hushed tones at admission conferences they admit that a competitive admission process without dependable documentation is like an emperor without clothes. Students know that time spent cramming for the SAT and TOEFL is usually time well spent, regardless of how admission officers talk their about holistic admission process.

One uncounted casualty in all of this is the upright high school educator who wants to be a teacher for the right reasons. As any teacher in an “international” high school program will tell you, there is usually strong opposition from parents to any part of the curriculum that takes away from prep time for the SAT or TOEFL. (These “international” programs are privately run, typically sitting inside the gates of a reputable public high school, and specifically prepare Chinese students to go abroad.) In our interviews, we often ask a student about their current class schedule only to discover that they have spent two years of high school focused on cramming for standardized tests. Students in the gaokao track of prestigious high schools will simply stop going to their regular classes and instead enroll in private cram schools, which are often run by the same companies that run the “international” divisions. One student recently let it slip on camera that she wasn’t going to class and instead was just doing test prep, and then sat pale-faced afterwards as she admitted that her interview answers weren’t consistent with her transcript.

Guessing the percentage of fraudulent transcripts in applications from China is a popular parlor game among educators over here. Unscientific estimates abound: One prominent agent who works with students at some of the best high schools in China recently estimated to me that at least half of the transcripts in China are doctored to look like the students have done well in a robust high school curriculum, when the reality is one of almost constant memorization and practice tests. Unfortunately, no one in the college prep industry in China would be surprised if the actual percentage was significantly higher.

One might think these practices are cut from the same cloth as other types of corruption that the central Chinese government is trying to eradicate, but the reality is more sobering: Much of this behavior is incentivized by the very admission requirements put in place by U.S. colleges. Chinese students (and their parents) know the value of a degree from a top U.S. institution, and they are willing to pay top dollar for access to it — as are many Americans. The only difference is that China doesn’t have school-based guidance counselors who are entrusted with protecting the reputation of their high school—and of themselves—each time they sign off on an application.

The public and formal role that they play in the U.S. admission process helps reduce discrepancies between the content of a student’s college application and his or her real life. In the case of an applicant from China, one college might reject a student because of something fishy in the application, but the student will still likely be accepted by another school, to the delight of the student, the parents and particularly the agent who collects the fee behind the scenes.

This dynamic results in the world’s largest prisoner’s dilemma: Students in China could endeavor to be honest, provide an accurate transcript, and take care of all aspects of the application process themselves, but most feel that not tapping into an agent’s “expertise” would leave them uncompetitive against their better-advised classmates. Everyone knows of the smart kid who decided to apply “DIY” and then wasn’t accepted—and they don’t want to risk being the next one. Unfortunately, there’s a sense in China that the honest applicants are the chumps.

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Since starting this business, I have become both more skeptical and more sympathetic. The fraud and extreme test prep is on a level greater than most admission officers realize, but at the same time I now better understand the plight of the Chinese student. Many in the U.S. view the influx of Chinese students as evidence of China’s increasing economic might; however, the trend is equally evidence of the incredible soft power of U.S. universities, influence which extends even to high school curricula in foreign countries.