<p>And stop the implication about Hongkong people and Taiwan people are more honest than people from mainland China. Do they currently have a better form of government (in some respect)? Yes. Are they individually better? No.</p>
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<p>The incomprehensible TA syndrome is largely a function of lack of experience with speaking the language AND lack of public speaking experience… I’ve had native English speaking TA’s from India, Malaysia, and the like that had no problem with the language but needed to learn how to speak in public, no small feat.</p>
<p>In contrast, I’ve had profs and TA’s that were great public speakers or communicators and spoke little English, but were great :-)</p>
<p>Few people realize what it takes to master a language to the level required for college study. I learned English from my public high school teacher (same teacher for 6 years), a couple years’ worth of twice a week classes, LOTS of reading - novels and the like - and a decade of watching English and American TV with the subtitles turned off (cardboard :-)). I had no problems whatsoever acing the TOEFL, Cajun State’s English Placement Test, and each and every one of the half dozen English/Technical Writing classes I took. But this took years to develop.</p>
<p>In contrast, grad students often learn English as an afterthought, and no matter who’s your teacher, you ain’t learning a language in a year. </p>
<p>Aside from the accent problems (I still have a fairly thick Euro accent after 30+ years here, but that’s by choice) the newcomers have little experience reading serious sized books (Harry Potter and the like), little experience speaking the language, and often commit the cardinal sin - think in their native language and translate. It don’t work either, folks… While studying Computational Linguistics I got very good at guessing where someone is from solely by the mistakes they make… </p>
<p>The final Bad Thing is that foreign students rarely write as much in college in their home countries as they do in the US. Skills that American high school students take for granted (library research, reference citations, outlining) are often not present or are developed well below what’s needed… </p>
<p>So, to summarize… If anyone things they can learn a language in a year, cram school or not, they’re seriously mistaken. Not speaking the language properly leads to decreased interaction with other students from other countries (as the article pointed out)…</p>
<p>@GMT</p>
<p>Aside from the preposterous situation the local school district found itself duped into, there are some intriguing possibilities raised by the venture envisioned by Mr. Chen and his Chemax Education Foundation. By bringing high school students to the US for their education they are setting up a direct pipeline to our university system. In CA, such students would be UC eligible and would eligible for financial assistance, regardless of their immigration status. As the backlash mounts to admission of college students with dubious credentials, the new selling point for entrepreneurs such as Mr. Chen will be to convince families that their children will have a better chance to enter prestigious universities if they complete their high school education here.</p>
<p>momsquad,
In CA, does state-residency matter? Immigration status (legality of being in the U.S.) is not to be confused w state-residency status. </p>
<p>In Massachusetts, for example, kids attending school in MA are not counted as MA-residents and do not qualify for admissions into a MA state college as in-state students.</p>
<p>@turbo93</p>
<p>“So, to summarize… If anyone things they can learn a language in a year, cram school or not, they’re seriously mistaken”</p>
<p>Agreed, that’s why I think it’s ridiculous that these students were accepted to the U.S. university with the proviso that they take a crash-course in English a few months before they matriculate.</p>
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<p>Until the last few years, the preferred path among Mainland Chinese students was to do undergrad at home(Preferably at a first tier college like Tsinghua or Beida) before going off to the US or other Western countries for grad school. </p>
<p>Any Mainlander who came for undergrad studies back then…even at the Ivies was commonly perceived by many Mainland Chinese grad students* and even a few visiting Profs as “rich mediocrities” who failed to score high enough on the Gaokao to even make it into a third-tier school and is using family wealth/“dirty money” to purchase a backdoor route to prestige. Some of their actual comments were so harsh that even the translations are unprintable here. </p>
<p>Though a Chinese high school grad who gets into Bei-da or Tsinghua is still unlikely to turn them down for even an Ivy today, that mentality is nowhere near as strong in the last few years as it was in the early to mid-'00s. </p>
<p>That mentality is not that different from those held by many Japanese where getting a US/European graduate degree is highly prized, but not so much their undergrad degrees. </p>
<p>More interestingly, Japanese society seems to be less open-minded about accepting Japanese citizens who did undergrad in foreign countries as illustrated by one unfortunate Japanese Bucknell honors grad who was turned down by every major Japanese employer even with a Masters from Top-4 Waseda because he wasn’t a Tokyo U grad. However, after following their suggestion to go back as an undergrad transfer student at Todai and he completed their BA…those very same companies were suddenly falling all over themselves to hire him. </p>
<ul>
<li>Probably not a coincidence that they all went the “preferred route” by doing their undergrad at top 3-5 colleges…especially Tsinghua and Bei-da before coming to the US to pursue grad studies(Fully funded PhDs) on Ivy/elite university campuses. Only possible exceptions were if the Mainland students were attending topflight US/European conservatories.</li>
</ul>
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<p>Interestingly, this was widely reported in China. And the Chinese high school involved was thoroughly embarrassed.</p>
<p>Again, the target of this scam by Chen and the Chemax Foundation was Chinese students/parents and the Chinese high school (and from reports in Chinese media, the involvement of Long, the former California Secretary of Education, was much deeper than reported by LATimes). Chen et al. had probably been making nice money by placing Chinese kids in US high schools for exorbitant fees. Apparently, they would get a good pipeline of paying kids if they could trick the Chinese high school (which happens to be a well known top high school in Guangzhou/Canton) to participate formally in the scheme. </p>
<p>Ironically, some US school districts, including at least one in California, are also trying to attract students from China, paying full tuition of course, to fill budget short falls.</p>
<p>Paradoxically, these Chinese students are here on legal student visas and considered as internationals; and unlike the illegal immigrants and children of illegal immigrants, they don’t qualify for in state tuition/fee under the new California’s Dream Act if they chose to attend public universities in California.</p>
<p>so this must be what oldfort have felt?
^^^ generalization is scary thing,
cobrat, I don’t know you and not contesting what you sad or anything but
lemme just say that
getting in to Tokyo U straight from HS is, like, not possible to normal human being. I am generalizing this, of course, there are such kids. I had one classmate (maybe the first ever from our school, or the city, even prefecture, who knows) who pulled it off.
"every major Japanese employer " this person applied can not be just every “EVERY” jobs.
and it is unfortunate almost no one there knows of Bucknell or don’t get the idea of “liberal arts education”
If you’d applied to places where only and always have been taking Tokyo Kyoto Keio Waseda UG, of course you don’t get the job. That’s why kids’d try many times again cramming after cramming all day/night schools to take exam to get in such schools.
UG is far more important than graduate study, that’s where branding happens, unless you are into academia. It’s different system all together.</p>
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<p>I thought that the US schools accept students who present (through their essays, TOEFL scores, etc) as if they already have an excellent command of English. They aren’t accepting them assuming they will learn later. It is, from how I read it, the Chinese scurrying to get the students up to speed in English after the fact , after they are accepted, and after they have falsely presented as more fluent in English than they really are.</p>
<p>
This
is quite different than reading blue books published by the testing companies who make the old tests/questions available to the public. This is blatant cheating at its worst.</p>
<p>Somewhat related to post 78, there was a story on Rock Center with Brian Williams about Chinese mothers who come to the US specifically to have babies so they will be US citizens. One of the ads directed at the mothers said it would be easier for the kids to get into US colleges such as UC Berkeley and that the kids could get free K-12 education. The moms stay after birth long enough to get a US passport and birth certificate for the baby.
[Rock</a> Center with Brian Williams](<a href=“http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/]Rock”>http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/) click on story “Born in the USA.” There was a similar story in the NY Times earlier this year-I’ll have to see if I can find the link.</p>
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<p>US public school districts are charging tuition?? Which one in CA? </p>
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<p>It appears there is now an incentive to forgo securing a student visa before coming to CA for high school, since they are better off without one.</p>
<p>…
I do agree that just because someone can’t speak English well does mean he/she couldn’t get high scores for SAT CR and Writing. D2 started Spanish in K, was reading high school/college level Spanish literature, but when she first moved to a Spanish speaking country she couldn’t even open her mouth in a store. She now speaks and texts in Spanish, just like any local teenager.</p>
<p>"And for the online cooperation on GRE questions, how different is that than the vacaburay hit lists, model tests, blue books that one buys at Barnes and Nobel, other than those guys are more enterprising? "</p>
<p>You have got to be kidding if you think that online cheating is the moral equivalent of buying a test prep book at Barnes and Noble. Shameful.</p>
<p>This is a top-scoring essay for the Chinese subject in the 2011 Gaokao. The media always portraits education in China as rote learning, but the following essay has shown that scoring high in the Gaokao would certainly need to reach beyond merely rote learning. This essay contains a fluid blend of more than a dozen implicit and explicit references of literature and philosophy, which is impossible without thorough understanding of the materials. The English translation is mine and I can assure you that the original Chinese version is far better. My only criticism is the essay reminds me of a poster in another thread, who expects to be surrounded by other young ambitious people in Columbia and rule the next generation. The know-it-all older teens… :-)</p>
<p>“Couldn’t help but think of this morning while rushing to attend an exam, I saw a small restaurant, called “Sandblast Tour”. With just these three words, a mental image entirely surfaced, the cluttered storefront didn’t seem crude anymore, but radiated a kind of bold and collegial spirit stomping within my chest.”</p>
<p>“It is just a sign, but it can make this ordinary restaurant to stand out from the common “Smith’s Restaurant”, and “Joe’s Snack”, which is the power of excelling beyond mediocrity.”</p>
<p>“Couldn’t help but think of a group of people, they also have sit in this examination room, also have strived for their ideals, and they are now, called “tribal ants”; their homes, called “snail shells”. When the society’s wind-and-frost (hardships) have cooled the hot-blood (desire) and eroded the edges-and-corners (character), when the acquired knowledge has become useless and discarded at the back of their minds, they have long forgotten the pride of being well-educated talents, becoming quiet, and becoming mediocre. The saddest part isn’t residing in a less-than-several-square-feet tiny room, also isn’t the lack of food or clothes, but the loss of ideals and the pursuit of such, only remaining forbearance and compliance. Nobody since birth should be stepped-all-over as worthless ants, but in the case of a heart submissive to mediocrity and servility, then the only destination is becoming ants.”</p>
<p>"Wanting to become an over-achiever, we must first have the heart of one; wanting to look beyond mediocre beings, first there must be a sense of “over-reaching desire” . </p>
<p>“Whether possessing a heart of an over-achiever, a heart detached from mediocrity, is the watershed between those pertaining to mediocrity or over-achieving. “Man is but a thinking reed”, the most precious is the thinking. So the nobility of a man comes from the soul, the nobility arising from the ideological level. Already having a heart that rejects mediocrity, eventually someone would notice from the resolute within your eyes, from your impressive composure with clenched fists, and realize your extraordinary nature. Even if the eventual outcomes weren’t entirely satisfactory, even if there would be malevolent criticisms of “aspiration soars higher than the sky, while livelihood wears thinner than paper”, even if (like a plum blossom) “scattered into the mud and grinded as dust”, it will still be “sweet as ever”.”</p>
<p>"So what, for being among the “tribal ants”? If my heart were to possess the will of a swan, overlooking the bramblings in a cultivating environment, I strongly believe: that one day, I can “soar 90,000 miles upward”, "cruise the northern seas at dawn and Cangwu (in the south) at dusk “, carry a long gust of wind, and mightily blast away.”</p>
<p>“Probably the owner of “Sandblast Tour” wouldn’t be a mediocre, mundane business person? If not a man from the Huangtu Plateau, then he must be a well-educated scholar confined in a mundane world. Otherwise, how could such a collegial sign (Sandblast Tour), diffusing with such charm of classical rhymes, come into existence?”</p>
<p>" I shall always visit “Sandblast Tour”. Food and wine are no longer important. Only to enjoy a drink and share a smile with the owner on the way out, How can we be Average John Doe’s?"</p>
<p>“Reject mediocrity. The world is exciting with your presence.”</p>
<p>A lot of US colleges (mine included) accept students without TOEFL scores into basic skills level intensive English programs. If they don’t have a TOEFL, we put them into an ESL Intensive program, which takes the average student about a year to complete. Very few students come with zero English, but some of them (Chinese included) place so low on our placement test (given when they get here) that they actually should be in non-credit (adult ESL) rather than credit ESL. Of course, after a year, they would have just reached freshman level in their skills if they don’t fail anything ( a lot do fail, mostly because of attendance and homework issues).</p>
<p>We are not scamming them- we are giving them a great opportunity to get up to speed and maybe transfer to a four-year university in a few years. Someone mentioned the employment and business opportunities for employing English majors, and I agree. English is the international language, and teaching it is a big business. Why not do it here and employ Americans to do it? Trust me, Australia and Great Britain are doing this in a big way. Why not take full-pay internationals? The state legislatures won’t give us any money- in fact, they are making draconian cuts to our budgets. Public colleges have to get money somewhere. Unencumbered international student fees pay for programs and facilities used by all students, including the resident (taxpayer) students. </p>
<p>We have excellent products to sell- our language and our higher education system. If people from other countries desire those, we benefit economically by offering them the chance to come here and boost our economy. It also benefits the world to have global citizens. These Chinese students here quickly learn that plagiarism and cheating get them kicked out (some of them learn the hard way). Maybe they’ll take the word back to China. The American students get to interact with them, too. Considering that many of our kids will spend some part of their careers overseas, maybe even in China, it benefits everyone to have this type of cultural exchange.</p>
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<p>This is not new. Beside the trip written in the article, there are already plenty of other Asian countries that have pipelines to California. There are ‘travel services’ who have been arranging such trips for years. They usually target high-achieving public school districts (high API scores). Mom commutes back and forth and the kids live by themselves for much of the time. Sorta like boarding school without a headmaster. Easy to hide assets. Students receive financial aid to UC, but of course the REAL goal is to better prepare for that application to HYPS; Cal is the ‘safety’ school.</p>
<p>
I think it’s fair to ask whether the political and economic system of a particular country may have an impact on the behavior of the typical citizen. If “everybody” is giving bribes in one country and not another, that’s a real difference–although, of course, it’s never really everybody. Also, I think the government itself models behavior for its citizens, for bad and good.</p>
<p>I don’t see what’s so wonderful about the essay you posted, StillGreen. It sounds like a whole lot about nothing. It riffs on a sign that has an unusual name as standing out from the mediocre, and then it states some broad platitudes about not wanting to settle for mediocrity, but without giving any specifics as to how the author plans not to do so. Sorry, I recognize I’m reading a translation, but that essay says absolutely nothing to me.</p>
<p>More to the point, an essay that states broad platitudes is not what American colleges are looking for. They are looking for insight about the individual student. Anyone can mouth platitudes about hard work, responsibility, striving for the stars, etc.</p>
<p>Regarding the OP’s post, this is a great contrast to my experience with Chinese international students…or international students in general. </p>
<p>Back in the '90s, it was widely known that most schools…especially elite ones held international students to much higher admissions standards AND forced them to prove they had the ability to be full-pay. Only exceptions I know of are those who applied to conservatory/special programs which provided merit aid accessible to the best students…including internationals. Moreover, it was the international students who were not only stellar intellectually, but also had the best work ethic followed closely by lower-middle/working-class kids on FA/scholarships. Heck, I admired the strong work ethic and intelligence of the international students so much that I did my best to model the best aspects of their academic work habits to my benefit. </p>
<p>The weakest students in the observations of high school classmates and myself tended to be the overly sheltered upper/upper-middle class kids whose parents excessively micromanaged them from K-12 or those who believed being full-pay status/legacies meant the degree with great grades is bought and paid for…expectations of student effort/work be damned. </p>
<p>As there were still many old-school Profs who didn’t take such 'tude from such students…most either shaped up after being told off by the Profs and/or classmates or crashed & burned. </p>
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<p>Agreed. Most Chinese immigrants of my parents generation who had some English under their belt were far stronger in the writing than the verbal part. If you met my father, he still has a fairly strong Chinese accent despite having been in the US for nearly 5 decades. </p>
<p>However, despite not always being idiomatic…his English writing skills…along with many others of his generation can put most native-born US undergrads and many grad students to shame…even those at elite schools. </p>
<p>While the native-borns can speak quite fluidly…their writing skills, on average, are mediocre at best. I’m mainly talking about coherence here…not grammatical perfection.</p>