This is only to keep for possible future reference
‘But you don’t like to read. Why do you want to go to Harvard?’
Daniel Grayson thought there was probably something fishy about the kid who said his childhood friend died from a procedure in a back-alley abortion clinic in Bangkok. Grayson, an associate director of admissions at Tufts University who recruits students and reviews applications from Southeast Asia, had been warned about too-good-to-be-true applications from Thailand. This one, from a student who claimed to have been so inspired by his friend’s plight that he made a documentary on illegal abortion and promoted it with great success on the Internet, got him wondering. Grayson emailed the applicant, a senior at a Thai international school, asking to see the film. He heard back several weeks later from the student, who sent a link to a video posted to YouTube the day before by another person. The “documentary” — a three-minute reel of stock photo images accompanied by a student reading a bland script on abortion — looked hastily thrown together.Tufts denied the applicant. In fact, during the 2013 admissions season, Grayson threw out a quarter of the applications from Thailand for suspected cheating. The applicants, he says, had offered impressive stories of enterprising (but fictitious) extracurricular projects, like the student who said he had invented an elephant motion detector to help protect agricultural fields in rural Thailand.
Padding college applications is virtually as old as higher education itself; for all we know Nostradamus may have overstated his powers of prophecy to secure a spot at the University of Avignon. But many undergraduate and graduate officials say that in recent years there’s been a spike in problematic submissions, especially from emerging markets, where the families of the elite and the growing middle class are eager to ensure their children’s success with degrees from top U.S. schools. And they are enlisting the aid of a growing professional class of consultants and fixers who will not only help a student navigate the complexities of the American college system but in many cases buff and polish a candidate’s application beyond recognition.
In the most extreme cases, students and parents turn to savvy and unethical admissions consultants who excel at packaging students for U.S. audiences; for a pretty price, consultants will happily write essays and recommendations, fabricate student backstories, and coach applicants through enough interviews that the lies stick. “There do seem to be countries where getting unwarranted ‘help’ isn’t considered cheating as much as it is seen as a necessary way of doing business,” says Therese Overton, an associate dean of admission at Wesleyan University. “As the stakes rise and more people are apprised of the possibilities, it does appear the problem is getting worse.”
Higher Education: American University rejects a quarter of Thai students’ applications
When applying to universities that look for more than scores from multiple-choice tests, some Thai students have gone so far padding their applications that at least one Western university now regards all of them with suspicion.
During the 2013 application season, Daniel Grayson, an admissions official at Tufts University in Massachusetts, reveals he had to throw out a quarter of all applications from Thai students who were suspected of cheating or just making up wonderful stories to impress screeners.
One Thai student claimed in his letter he was inspired by his friend’s tragic death to make a documentary on illegal abortion which became a great success on the Internet. Grayson emailed the applicant, a senior at an unnamed Bangkok international school, and inquired to see the film, which of course turned out to be a three-minute slideshow of stock photo images uploaded the day before.
And then there was the student who said he’d invented an elephant motion detector to help protect agricultural fields in rural Thailand. Uh huh.
In recent years, CNN reported there has been a continuous increase in too-good-to-be-true applications, many of which were likely written by pricy “education consultants,” which help students create a letter appealing to the American academic audience.
“There do seem to be countries where getting unwarranted ‘help’ isn’t considered cheating as much as it is seen as a necessary way of doing business,” said Therese Overton, an associate dean of admission at Wesleyan University. “As the stakes rise and more people are apprised of the possibilities, it does appear the problem is getting worse.”
Pressured by social status and the idea of “losing face,” many Thai elite and upper-middle class families feel the need to secure for their children an education abroad at a top university, preferably in the United Kingdom or United States, because it reflects the family’s wealth.
By pampering their children with interview coaches and private mentors to help them pad and lie through the process of admission, the credibility of Thai students in general has worsened. We can’t help but feel sorry for those smart kids who fight for a scholarship fairly and work hard to pay to study abroad, only to automatically be suspected as one of the “liars” in a stack of submissions.
continue to read comments from original : http://bangkok.coconuts.co/2014/02/17/higher-education-american-university-rejects-quarter-thai-students-applications
Thai Human Rights 