But the optics—dozens of Chinese students putting on headphones to understand a welcome lecture at their school—were all off. It had their American classmates and teachers asking the same question: “If they can’t understand English, why are they here?” The move felt like an insult to the American students who had worked hard to get accepted. Professors felt the language barrier was messing with classroom dynamics, reducing discussion, and forcing them to dumb down their language to be understood. One associate dean at USF’s business school quit soon after the orientation.
There was some important context to the headset fiasco. Like many schools, USF admitted some Chinese students on a conditional basis, requiring them to take anything from a semester to multiple years of English classes before joining undergrad classes. Those ESL students usually pay full university tuition but attend classes taught by retired high school teachers, a lucrative side hustle for these schools.
But the incident still shone a spotlight on the uncomfortable truth that neither Chinese students nor school administrators wanted to acknowledge: Chinese applications to U.S. universities are rife with fraud.
Rapid expansion of U.S. admissions spawned a cottage industry of “education consulting” companies. Employing young Americans living in China, these companies often charge fees ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 to help Chinese kids apply to U.S. colleges. The services they offer are on a spectrum as well, from totally legitimate admissions guidance to the ghostwriting of essays and the fabrication of extracurricular activities. A friend of mine who worked for an education consulting company in Beijing described the business proposition in simple terms: “The more you pay, the more we promise.”
For 250,000 RMB (roughly $40,000), the company would guarantee entrance to a top-twenty-five school in the US News & World Report rankings. For around half that amount, it would promise a certain level of involvement in selecting schools, crafting personal statements, and coaching the student for taking the SATs and English-proficiency TOEFL test.
Reporting a Chinese student’s high school grades brought its own challenges and opportunities. Most schools there use number rather than letter grades, and they tend to grade dramatically harder than U.S. schools; the grade of the best Chinese student in a class of 300 might translate to B+ if converted directly to the American system. So many students, schools, and parents work together to create a better-looking transcript. My friend who worked as an educational consultant put it bluntly: “If a parent is actually influential and has money, then that high school Chinese transcript is like a chalkboard.”
What emerged at the end of this application process was often a polished picture of a brilliant Chinese student who was full of potential and fluent in English. When many of those students arrived on campus with severely limited English skills, colleges quickly realized something was amiss.
Some schools began requiring Skype interviews for their Chinese applicants, hoping to at least ferret out students whose language skills couldn’t cut it. But these schools discovered that even a live conversation with the real applicant could be faked. A report on admissions fraud by Vericant, a Beijing-based company that conducts certified video interviews for schools, recounted the story of one Skype interview gone wrong:
As they began, the [admissions] officer noticed the ear of a black cat in the student’s lap. Although the officer thought it was strange, he continued with the interview. At one point mid-way through the interview the “cat” moved, and the admissions officer was astonished to realize there was a woman lying in the student’s lap! The woman, presumably the mother, had been there throughout the interview, whispering answers to her daughter.20
Stunts like the whispering cat-mom can be anything from comical to criminal. As the full scope of admissions fraud became apparent, some observers began to pin the blame on Chinese culture, invoking stereotypes about Chinese people as devious, corrupt, or unconcerned with morality.
But American universities—institutions with “truth” and “justice” carved into their ivy-framed plaques—were often just as complicit. My friend’s company funneled a good portion of its highest-paying students through one admissions officer at a prestigious California university. A student’s application would have to be polished, and their test scores above a certain threshold, but beyond that the officer could work to push the student through the admissions committee. At the end of the day, all parties had a sense of what was going on.
“On the admissions side, are they shocked that these things were forged, that the integrity of their academic program is jeopardized? Are they mad?” my friend asked. “Or did they say, ‘Yo, we have a budget deficit. We need $450,000 from international students over the next year. Give me the best you can.’”
“THEY NEVER REALLY LEFT CHINA”
Education consultants helped the two sides navigate the admissions process. But once the Chinese students landed on U.S. soil, platforms like College Daily took on the duties of cross-cultural translation. Even if a student’s English skills were up to snuff, getting a handle on the many facets of life in America—pop culture, politics, and dating apps—could still be daunting.
In that process, the sheer number of Chinese students could be a handicap. Earlier waves of Chinese students were immediately thrown into the deep end: they were largely cut off from their home country and surrounded by American peers. Students who didn’t learn English and make friends with Americans would live a very lonely existence. But by 2012, many American universities had reached a critical mass of Chinese students such that they didn’t need to venture outside their own circles: they only made Chinese friends, consumed Chinese-language media, and spoke Mandarin all day long.
Tim Lin had chosen Miami University specifically because it would force him to make friends with Americans, and he lamented the inward turn of more recent arrivals: “You could say they never really left China.”
No app or news platform can force these students to engage with their American peers, but College Daily did its best to give them the tools they would need if they wanted to venture outside their comfort zone. The articles clearly resonated with an audience: by fall 2015, College Daily boasted over 400,000 subscribers to its daily publications, a number that far exceeded the 300,000 Chinese students in the United States.
When I visited Tim’s Beijing headquarters that year, his team of editors and writers were busy mashing up the day’s slate of news, gossip, and life hacks. The articles are largely written by Chinese students in the U.S., and they reflect their needs: how-to guides on applying for a green card, pointers for using Tinder (“Those interested in Chinese people are just in it for the novelty”), and think pieces on Donald Trump (“taking America charging hysterically into the unknown—a place with politics, dark humor and 100% naturally grown hair”).
Reading those stories gives a window into an activity familiar to many Americans, whether they’re immigrants to this country or students spending a semester in Spain: piecing together the puzzle of a country and a culture not your own.
A TALE OF TWO SYSTEMS
People like Tim were working overtime to bridge the gap for Chinese students, to interest and engage them with American culture. It was much rarer to find Americans engaged in the same project, trying to understand their new Chinese classmates and where they were coming from. Exploring that background—the education system, family expectations, and college application process—goes a long way toward understanding the sources of cultural frictions once Chinese students arrive in the states.
I dove into that background while profiling a pair of identical twin brothers who were high school seniors in Beijing: Ding Xuanyu and Ding Xuancheng. They had grown up going to the same schools, hanging out with the same friends, and playing the same sports. But when it came time to think about college, their paths diverged. Xuanyu preferred to stay in China, while Xuancheng (English name: Frank) decided he wanted to study in America.
Both