<p>Babson…graduates 84% of their incoming freshmen within 4 years.</p>
<p>then how can so many students be getting D’s and F’s???</p>
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<p>I haven’t observed it in Chinese, but cheating amongst Indians is pretty much a fact of life at Tech. I even had one class where some Indian students (at least two groups) were cheating on the final exam. The professor decided to go work in his office during the final, and so these students were talking amongst each other about the content of the exam. About 1/3 of the way through, I went down to the professor’s office and told him what was going on and so he came back into the classroom, but the students continued to cheat when the professor’s attention was diverted elsewhere (e.g. when someone came up to him for a question). Unfortunately, with the professor seemingly powerless to stop this, and my lack of knowledge of any of the parties involved, this will never get reported to the office of academic affairs because the burden of proof required for cheating (innocent until proven guilty, and all that jazz) is very high.</p>
<p>Even as a TA, I noticed a lot of cheating on homework from Indian students (I did not grade exams). Some of their homework even had same inane comments verbatim on them, like at the end of an equation they might write “I think this is the answer based on conservation of momentum”. I informed the professor from the very first homework of several individuals caught cheating, but he said “oh it’s fine they’ll be screwed for the exam”. Then I found out that the exam average for the first exam was a 92, and I pretty much gave up caring.</p>
<p>From talking with Indian students, cheating is a way of life in Indian universities, and so they bring the same behavior here. The standards of ethics are completely different there. For example, a paper that has been stitched together verbatim from a multitude of sources would not be considered plagiarism because it was from, well, multiple sources. Of course we Americans view this as plagiarism, but they would probably argue with you fiercely if you accused an Indian doing this of plagiarism.</p>
<p>On the flip side, I have not once observed American students in my program cheating (graduate ECE).</p>
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<p>Well, it happens often enough that they have a specific term for it: karoshi. Literally “death by overwork.”</p>
<p>[Kar?shi</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karōshi]Kar?shi”>Karoshi - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>I agree with the self-selection argument. Most domestic US students outside the top 25 major research universities or the equivalent top LACs probably fall in the “average” or “below average” bracket in High School. International students, on the other hand, even in the second or third-tier US colleges, are likely to be among the best in their countries of origin. That is particularly true for students coming from Asia and Latin America, though not necessarily true for European students (most top students in western Europe would probably choose to get their undergraduate degrees at home, rather than coming to the US). </p>
<p>A second possible explanation is that, language problems aside, secondary education in some countries, especially in Asia and particularly in math and science, is better on average than the typical American High School curriculum. That gives an edge in college to internationals, some of whom actually come from countries like India or Singapore where secondary schooling is mostly in English and based on international curricula like the IB diploma or A-levels.</p>
<p>“Has anyone considered how much harder it is for an international student to get into a U.S. college? Self-selection bias, plain and simple.”</p>
<p>Can’t believe it took 12 posts for this to be said.</p>
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<p>This is blatantly racist and prejudice. To malign an entire ethnic group and an entire country on the basis of your experience with a few is terrible pathetic and shows a complete lack of reasoning.</p>
<p>In fact in my high school it was the white students in the class not the Asians who cheated blatantly. The problem was that they cheated off each other and none actually knew the material and still did worse than the Asian students.</p>
<p>Oh and what was really upsetting is that when the end of the semester came, the white male teacher gave another white male student an A despite the fact that he (and nearly all the white students in the class) turned in several assignments extraordinarily late. To the tune of two weeks late to be exact.</p>
<p>But when I turned in an assignment late I received the B that I deserved. And people assert that there is no sort of affirmative action for whites :P</p>
<p>Yes the cheating thing is messed up. All students cheat, and I can almost assure you that there is the same amount % of white students that cheat than compared to indian, chines etc.</p>
<p>I think it needs to be said somewhere that not all Chinese/Indian/other asian ethnicity kids cheat. I’m sure everyone who’s posted something here recognizes that, but since it hasn’t been stated explicitly, I will. Sure, some of them do. But I think it goes without saying that some white kids also cheat - and no one’s really talked about that thus far in the thread. And as an asian student that’s been brought up to find cheating absolutely repulsive, I feel compelled to at least say something when I find people saying things that could be interpreted by others to mean that all Asians cheat.</p>
<p>And for the record, I know someone made the distinction between Asian Americans and immigrant Asian students - I know several recent immigrants in my high school that don’t cheat and never use their translators on test. </p>
<p>but like I said, I’m sure most people are already aware not to judge the entire Asian student population by what’s been said above. I’m just saying this in case someone does. :)</p>
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<p>While this is certainly true, students themselves can compensate for this. At my high school the science department was absolutely atrocious but myself and other simply taught the material to ourselves so when it came time to take the AP test we still received 5s although our in class education was terrible. </p>
<p>The problem doesn’t stop at the high school however, even my chemistry professor at Yale who is a brilliant quantum chemist is a terrible teacher. But that doesn’t matter because everything we learn can be taught to oneself independently. </p>
<p>So it really is the students fault if they do not learn the material. If your teacher isn’t teaching then a student should teach it to themselves. People should stop making excuses for people being lazy.</p>
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<p>All I have to say to you is get some experience before calling me racist. I’m not talking about high schoolers being lazy here. As a former TA (and a friend of many other TA’s) working with departments that have in excess of 50% foreign students, I feel like I know certain ethnic groups’ academic tendencies fairly well.</p>
<p>Dbate: Agreed. My point was though that the domestic US students who are likely to take AP classes in High School or self-study for AP exams are the above-average ones, who will probably end up in a top 30 university or top LAC. The “average” or “below-average” student, who is likely to attend a lower-ranked school such as Babson, probably won’t take classes beyond the minimum required for graduation in HS. Conversely, in some foreign countries, even the “average Joe” could not graduate without taking significantly more Math for example than in the States.</p>
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<p>Asians don’t start being lazy in college after working hard in high school.</p>
<p>I think the point is that in general, people who cheat will end up doing worse on tests that are harder to cheat on.</p>
<p>Fact: anyone who literally believes that ALL Asians cheat is blatantly racist.
Also fact: anyone who literally believes that ALL white kids cheat is blatantly racist.</p>
<p>Let’s not generalize, okay?</p>
<p>Cheating IS a huge problem in US universities with large foreign populations. That is because cheating is often defined and treated differently in other cultures. Students who come here are often surprised that behavior which is somewhat common and tolerated in their countries is considered a serious breach of ethics here. It’s a cultural issue, and schools often have to explain the difference to their incoming overseas students. I once witnessed such a talk given to incoming Russians. One of the items discussed: do not offer money to police officers if they stop you for speeding 
this is totally expected in Russia, here it’s an offense that could land you in jail. Which is not to say that all Russians try to bribe law enforcement officers or cheat. It’s to say that it can be a problem due to cultural misunderstandings.</p>
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<p>Granted I don’t go to as esteemed an institution as Georgia Tech, but even to me it is obvious that the foundation of racism is prejudice, which is predicated on the extrapolation of the experiences one has with a few members of a group to a whole. I assure you the 50% foreign students who attend Georgia Tech are not representative of the entire population of foreign Indian students and are likely to not even be the best Indian students there are, otherwise they would have gone somewhere better than Georgia tech.</p>
<p>Re 36</p>
<p>To clarify, my post was meant to caution against holding up foreign-educated naturalized Americans as evidence of the greatness of our system. Elizabeth Blackburn, for example, earned her B.Sc. and her M.Sc. in Australia and earned her Ph.D. in the United Kingdom. Yes, her career has wholly been in the United States, and she is a naturalized American, but the United States had nothing to do with either her training or background. Thus, I’d argue that holding her as an example of why our system is good makes no sense; we’d basically be taking credit where it is not due.</p>
<p>Steve Chen, one of the co-founders of Youtube, however, is a different story. Yes, he was born in Taiwan. But, he attended middle school, high school, and college in the United States. It’s fine to hold him as an example of American excellence.</p>
<p>Katliamom has a good point - there are certain things that are treated completely differently in other countries.</p>
<p>However I would like to stress that in many schools in Asia, especially the ones that often send students to the US, cheating is NOT the norm and is frowned upon, and people should not assume that all Asian students have a propensity to cheat.</p>
<p>Again, just countering possible generalizations here. :)</p>
<p>gthopeful - just responding to your edit, but I certainly hope that you don’t automatically judge your Asian students based on their ethnic group’s academic tendencies.</p>
<p>“Has anyone considered how much harder it is for an international student to get into a U.S. college? Self-selection bias, plain and simple.”</p>
<p>Yeah, I said that earlier but not as clearly. She has nowhere near a random sample. She is a professor of rhetoric. I don’t know whether to say if she’s bad at rhetoric because her argument is so poor or if she’s good at rhetoric because she got printed in a major newspaper. Probably the former</p>
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<p>That’s my LOL of the day. I too have mixed feelings about the article and the points it makes, which is why I thought it would be a good discussion-starter here.</p>
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<p>I feel the need to step in to defend gthopeful as well as my school. There is no racism involved in writing, “…cheating is a way of life in Indian universities…The standards of ethics are completely different there…” You could argue that it’s prejudiced and biased, sure, but there is no mention or insinuation that as a group, Indians are inferior to other groups in terms of ability. To be considered racist, a statement must suggest that a racial classification is either inferior or superior to other racial classifications because of the racial classification itself. </p>
<p>As for the quality of our school, among twelve engineering specialities, we’re top-ten ranked in ten of those twelve, and we’re top-ranked in Industrial Engineering and ranked second in Biomedical Engineering. If you want to major in these fields, there aren’t many schools that can tie or best ours. I’ve got no proof, but I’d wager that most of those Indian international students major in some engineering discipline, which if true, suggests that they’re at the right place.</p>
<p>Yale has a School of Engineering, but they aren’t in the top-ten for any of those specialities. Does that mean that engineering students at Yale are only there because they couldn’t go to a better school? Does that mean Yale itself sucks? Of course not! Yale’s Law School is top-ranked, as is its History program. Its English program is ranked second, its Psychology program is ranked third, its Economics program is in the top-ten, as is its Political Science program.</p>
<p>And, unsurprisingly, Georgia Tech doesn’t show up in the top-ten for any of these fields. It’s all about context. We don’t claim to be the best university in the world, but if it’s engineering you’re looking for, you’re not going to find many universities in the U.S. that are better than us at that.</p>
<p>Mantori.suzuki–LOL post 40.</p>