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An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

reuters.com

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Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#121

Post by Steuard »

tdeck wrote: post #89
mrep wrote: post #53

I went to a public university with a large international population and this doesn't surprise me in the slightest. A lot of the international students were extremely poor at english. One of the guys on my software project team was an international student who confirmed that it was very easy to pay someone to take the english proficiency exam. Us Americans aren't so innocent though. The amount of adderall/vyvanse/rita…

These types of discussions always depress me. You'd think from reading them that everyone has cheated or popped some Adderall at some point, and it's a normal part of college. Is that really true? I never have, unless you count making up excuses for turning in the occasional thing late. I worked hard in school and got decent but not amazing grades (3.7 something). When I hear this shit it makes me feel like I was pla…

In my experience, a lot of the cheaters do, in fact, believe (or want to believe) that just about everyone else is doing it too. Don't buy it.

I wasn't aware of anyone in my circle of friends or even friendly acquaintances who cheated in college or grad school. (I heard about occasional incidents involving people I didn't know. But if there was an active cheating subculture, nobody talked about it when I was in earshot.) And my experience as a professor is that there are an awful lot of students who I work with one on one and whose homework and exam grades are right in line with my firsthand experience of their work.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#122

Post by ohyes »

whatshisface wrote: post #113
darawk wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, there is a difference between adderall and actual cheating. One of these is a thing that helps you do your own work better, and the other is hiring someone else to do your work for you. One of these things is fraudulent, and the other is simply performance enhancement. Taking Adderall to study doesn't make you less competent at the subject in question, whereas cheating your way through tests does.

>"Taking Adderall to study doesn't make you less competent at the subject in question" What happens when you stop taking it? We frown upon doping in school for the same reason we frown upon it in sports. It creates an environment where people are forced to deal with the side effects to compete, or receive a lower grade. Employers will expect that you continue your performance outside of school. If you stop doping aft…

Doubt the employer would notice it, being that GPA and performance are not necessarily correlated. Doping in any situation gives an edge at the upper levels, but won't make an average person superhuman. (It makes superhumans even more superhuman).

We frown on doping because it's dangerous due to bad health effects. Forcing someone to use performance enhancers to compete and damage their health is the ethical problem in my mind. Collateral harm.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#123

Post by MichaelGG »

redcap wrote: post #86
hoodoof wrote: post #13

I know its naive but I find it really hard to understand why people value the piece of paper more than the knowledge. The good news is that you can't cheat as a software developer. Or maybe you can? Depressing thought.

There's the story about a developer who outsourced his work to China so that he could browse reddit: http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2013/01/16/verizon-finds-de...

Doesn't the IRS view that if you cannot substitute labour, then you are not a contractor?

http://art.mt.gov/artists/IRS_20pt_Checklist_%20Independent_... "Services rendered personally."

(Couldn't find the same simple checklist on irs.gov).

So it seems quite within his rights to outsource, no? Unless there's some clearance restriction or I'm just misunderstanding these guidelines?

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#124

Post by edc117 »

tdeck wrote: post #89
mrep wrote: post #53

I went to a public university with a large international population and this doesn't surprise me in the slightest. A lot of the international students were extremely poor at english. One of the guys on my software project team was an international student who confirmed that it was very easy to pay someone to take the english proficiency exam. Us Americans aren't so innocent though. The amount of adderall/vyvanse/rita…

These types of discussions always depress me. You'd think from reading them that everyone has cheated or popped some Adderall at some point, and it's a normal part of college. Is that really true? I never have, unless you count making up excuses for turning in the occasional thing late. I worked hard in school and got decent but not amazing grades (3.7 something). When I hear this shit it makes me feel like I was pla…

I didn't either, and don't believe I knew anyone that did (grad and undergrad CS, knew 2-3 other students who likely did not). Anecdotal data point, but there it is.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#125

Post by madengr »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #112
sotojuan wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment doesn't really add anything to the discussion especially because colleges have different grading scales and culture of grade inflation or deflation. For example in mine most GPAs hovered around 3.5. A 3.8 would be rare.

Grade inflation is a problem for many state American universities, at least. Havard also is a private university where grade inflation has been highlighted as a real problem. See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/12/... I haven't heard of any universities recently where the problem is instead grade deflation, any links to share?

No, but in engineering the flunk-out rate is near 70%, or at least it was 25 years ago when I was a student. I don't think there is grade inflation going on there.

I only witnessed cheating twice; Chinese and Indians. In general though, the Asians worked their asses off; 1st generation immigrants "off the boat". Very tough competition.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#126

Post by dogma1138 »

hackaflocka wrote: post #85

Can confirm. I'm a professor at a US university. One class of 40 students, about 20 were Chinese foreign students. Turns out, they were each doing 40+ credits that semester. About 20+ from the U.S. university, and about 20+ from a Chinese university (online). How's that possible? They were sharing assignments and exams. Each one had the responsibility to do the same assignment and exam over and over for about half a…

Isn't that kinda counter productive? I would assume that a degree from a US university would count for much more which is part of the reason why so many of the Chinese upper class are sending their children to the US - the stamp on the paper is worth more than the actual education.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#127

Post by Spooky23 »

netheril96 wrote: post #74
msie wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The professor should be held responsible for letting the cheaters get away with it. Not that hard to find cheaters in a programming class if he/she cared.

More likely scenario is that the professors have been told by the school to turn a blind eye.

Professors aren't what they used to be. Many schools have dramatically reduced the number of tenured faculty.

They the newer folks young and dumb, and they cannot fight the administration like faculty did in years past.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#128

Post by kodablah »

superuser2 wrote: post #110
kabdib wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just interview people. I really don't care where they went to school, or if they have a degree. If they've got the chops, that's all I care about. In a small company it's pretty easy to avoid the automatic filters of large companies, the ones that screen out applicants without degrees, or from "wrong" universities, or who have low GPAs. Most of these metrics don't seem to matter in the long run (but they are easy f…

Why do you think you can assess whether they've "got the chops" in an interview better than a university can assess competency in four years?

Because having chops in one area doesn't necessarily correlate to having them in another (i.e. student vs employee). Couple that with individual valuation and personality evaluation, and it seems foolish to accept the university's assessment. Maybe if you were hiring in groups and needed impersonal metrics it would be different.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#129

Post by Cyph0n »

qrendel wrote: post #54
s_baby wrote: post #27

The international students have unreasonably high standards for maintaining financial assistance and staying out of academic probation(3.5-3.8 at my university). By design college courses give work just a little beyond what a student can reasonably accomplish(with a "good" grade) and curve accordingly. These kids aren't just cheating they are marginalizing students who are honest or don't have this kind of social acc…

> If you're not part of a fraterntiy/sorority that archives coursework/tests of previous students or part of an international student in-group then you can easily fall through the cracks from this grade deflation effect. That is a huge problem for a lot of us more introverted types, especially if you're a transfer student from another school. I remember taking a bunch of classes where I didn't know anyone and had no…

I'm also introverted, but it was my choice not to take the easy way out. >90% of students in my classes cheated on everything - if there was no way to cheat, the world would end for these guys. It's hilarious when you see students sharing answers on an ethics exam!

Cheating may get you the degree and a good GPA, but you really won't learn that much. I for one came to university to learn as much as possible.

In the end, I graduated with first-class honors and had the highest GPA of my cohort. And even though I graduated from a no-name university in the Middle East, I'm going to start a PhD in Electrical Engineering at a top 10 school in the US this fall.

I like to think it's all thanks to doing things ethically rather than cheating my way through college, but perhaps I'm just lucky.

Re: An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

#130

Post by s_baby »

tomkat0789 wrote: post #116
s_baby wrote: post #27

The international students have unreasonably high standards for maintaining financial assistance and staying out of academic probation(3.5-3.8 at my university). By design college courses give work just a little beyond what a student can reasonably accomplish(with a "good" grade) and curve accordingly. These kids aren't just cheating they are marginalizing students who are honest or don't have this kind of social acc…

>If you're not part of a fraterntiy/sorority that archives coursework/tests of previous students or part of an international student in-group then you can easily fall through the cracks from this grade deflation effect. +1 I saw this going on at my highly ranked university. After many B's, my self-esteem got a boost senior year when I finally took a newly required course with a new professor where there were no old t…

Now imagine that B was a 60-80 post-curve and your financial assistance was tied to this number.
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