Ivy League Admission
The Ivy Coach College Admissions Blog

As you’ve likely heard, the Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to reconsider the use of race as a factor in college admissions. The case stems from a University of Texas applicant who alleges that factoring race into admissions decisions at UT cost her a slot at a place in the incoming class. In 2003, the Supreme Court made a ruling on affirmative action. In a divided opinion, the Court ruled that race can indeed be a factor in admissions decisions. But nine years have since gone by. Maybe race should no longer be a factor in college admissions. With a more conservative Court than in 2003, this case could well be the end of affirmative action as we know it.

The Supreme Court needs to protect Chinese and Indian applicants from being discriminated against in the college admissions process, too.

In an election cycle, this could become a major issue at the forefront once again and while many will debate the pros and cons of affirmative action, we want to draw the attention of our readers to a different kind of college admissions discrimination based upon race. It’s not white applicants losing slots to African American applicants. It’s Chinese applicants competing with other Chinese applicants for slots. It’s Chinese applicants with higher test scores and higher grades losing out to non-Chinese applicants. And the same is true for Indian applicants.

The time has come to end discrimination against Chinese and Indian applicants in highly selective college admissions. Some college admissions officers may deny it. Most won’t. It exists. It’s real. It’s time to put it to an end. It’s, quite frankly, shameful that the very institutions that claim to be all about diversity discriminate against certain minority applicants in the college admissions process. Shame on them.

For those Americans who believe that international students are taking slots at our nation’s top universities away from deserving American students, they should know that these very international students are the reason why many American students can afford to attend college. How’s that, you ask? Well, international students pay the full cost of tuition. They don’t receive financial aid. And many American students do indeed get financial aid. How do you think a university can afford to let students attend for reduced costs…or even for free? “Full-pay” International students (which is essentially redundant) indeed help offset these costs!

At the University of Washington, like many universities across the nation, international students who pay the full ride offset the cost of American students who can't afford full tuition.

A piece in “The New York Times” published today about international students and college admission by Tamar Lewin points out that more than a quarter of the class at the University of Washington gets a free ride largely because of the full-pay tuition from international students. And that’s how the University of Washington can continue to admit low income students from the state of Washington! Does it seem unfair for applicants from China to take slots away from Americans at our universities now? Not so much, we’re guessing you’re thinking.

According to the same college admission piece in “The New York Times,” “There is a widespread belief in Washington that internationalization is the key to the future, and Mr. [Michael K.] Young, [the university president], said he was not at all bothered that there were now more students from other countries than from other states. (Out-of-state students pay the same tuition as foreign students.) ’Is there any advantage to our taking a kid from California versus a kid from China?’ he said. ‘You’d have to convince me, because the world isn’t divided the way it used to be.’”

Mr. Young at the University of Washington isn’t alone either. The University of Washington isn’t the only state school more inclined to admit a full-pay international student over a partial-pay student from another state. And they’re not wrong to do it. It just makes simple financial sense.

While you’re here, if you’re an international student, check out this post on the Student Visa Interview.

“The Choice” blog of “The New York Times” sat down two days ago with the Dean of Admissions at the University of Pennsylvania in the hope of demystifying the Ivy League admissions process for aspiring Ivy Leaguers from India. So what’d Eric Furda have to say? Well, he said that students in India are likely to have “varying levels of English preparation,” inconsistent SAT prep, and often inaccurate information about U.S. universities.

Just under 10% of applicants from India were admitted to the UPenn Class of 2015.

Furda went on to say how the admissions office at Penn is in the process of extending their recruiting reach beyond the major cities of India, beyond Mumbai, New Delhi, and Bangalore. They want to reach students across the nation – in rustic parts of the nation as well as urban parts. One of the major reasons why students in India are applying to U.S. universities is because the competition to gain admission to the elite Indian universities is so tough…so students seek to expand their options.

In terms of numbers, 460 students applied to the University of Pennsylvania in the hope of being a part of the Class of 2015. Of those 460 students, 42 were admitted. That marks an admission rate of just a little bit under 10%. What do you think about these numbers? What do you think about what Eric Furda had to say about Ivy League admission from India? Let us know your thoughts by posting below! And check out this post on the Ivy League and India.

There was a great article yesterday up on “Global Post” about U.S. universities and China and how students in Asian nations applying for admission to U.S. universities cut every corner possible by cheating their way into universities. How so? They hire unethical college admissions agents in China who give them a pile of essays from which they can choose one to submit with their U.S. college application. These same unethical admissions agents make up awards for them and even rework their transcripts! The students even hire other students to take the SAT for them (maybe this is where those Great Neck, Long Island students got their inspiration!).

It's about time for U.S. universities to take a stand against unethical Chinese admissions agents.

This is nothing new. We’ve reported on the unethical Chinese admissions agents before. And there isn’t much that can be done to stop these unethical individuals from compromising the college admissions process in the United States. Or is there? What if these unethical agents didn’t receive commissions from U.S. universities if their students got into a school and attended? What if U.S. universities just said “no more?” Wouldn’t that be something! But instead, U.S. universities are dragging their feet, unwilling to take a stand against these gross violations of ethics. In no uncertain terms, in many though certainly not all cases, they look the other way!

Want to know why? Because U.S. universities have something very important to gain from admitting and ultimately matriculating these Chinese students: money, money, money. Chinese students are seen as “full-pays.” They pay the full cost of tuition. Universities don’t have to offer these students financial aid like they do for American applicants. So U.S. universities will gladly take their money, look the other way at these gross ethical violations, and run. We’re calling on U.S. universities to reverse this policy, to take a stand at the blatant corruption in China. We’re calling on U.S. universities to put their money where their mouth is.

For Chinese students studying at U.S. universities, it's often the first time in these students' lives where they feel like minorities.

As you may know from reading our blog or from your familiarity with the trends of international students applying to universities in the United States, it’s China, China, China. Yes, and India. Indeed the fastest-growing group of international applicants to universities in the United States is the Chinese. According to a “New York Times” article by Dan Levin on Chinese students at US universities, “In 2008-9, more than 26,000 were studying in the United States, up from about 8,000 eight years earlier, according to the Institute of International Education.”

But what is it like for these Chinese students once they get to the United States to begin their university studies? Is there a culture shock? In short, yes. As the article on Chinese students at American colleges points out, many Chinese students have a difficult time adjusting to the social atmosphere…one that often includes quite a bit of drinking. They also often have time learning the English language. What they learned as the proper pronunciation of a word in China doesn’t necessarily fly when their professor hails from Mississippi! Plus, learning a language in a classroom is a far cry from leading your life in that language, from conducting all of your daily affairs in that foreign language.

It’s worth mentioning the literature on ethnic identity formation as well. For Chinese students studying at universities in the United States, it’s often the first time in their lives when they’ve truly felt like minorities. This isn’t the case necessarily for Chinese American students as they’ve grown up in America where the vast majority of people aren’t Asian. So what’s it like to go through ethnic identity formation during one’s university years? In the coming months, we’ll be hearing from Chinese students as they adjust to life at American universities. We hope you enjoy the series.

90% of Chinese students are granted visas to study in the United States.

The number of Chinese students studying in the United States is on the rise. Shocker. More specifically, over the course of the last year, 160,000 student visas were issued to Chinese students seeking to pursue their studies in the United States. And in the United States, 18% of foreign students hail from China. Many students in China dream of attending Ivy League colleges. And many end up getting in and matriculating.

China is trying to make the visa application process easier for Chinese students to navigate since so many students have an interest in studying in the United States. Indeed 50 new consular officer positions will be added in China within the year to help serve these students seeking to get visas to study abroad (90% of these student visas are granted).

What do you think about so many Chinese students studying in the United States? Do you think this will improve relations between China and the United States? Do you think we’re training the competition? Or in today’s global times, do you think we all just need to cooperate and be team players in the pursuit of higher education? Let us know your thoughts by posting below!

And check out this post on College Consultants in China.

The relationship between Yale and Singapore is taking off. Students wishing to apply to Yale in Singapore can begin applying this winter and spring. Yale-NUS (National University of Singapore) will officially open in August of 2013. This campus marks the first school for Yale outside of New Haven. You can read about Yale’s announcement to open a school in Singapore via this previous post: Yale in Singapore.

And what kind of admissions process will be employed at Yale-NUS? A holistic one. Rather than rely exclusively on test scores as Singaporean universities typically do, they’ll be using the system that Yale and all of the Ivy League colleges use here in the United States. They’ll even be holding workshops to train teachers in Singapore on how to effectively write letters of recommendation for their students since these teachers aren’t used to having to do this.

Applicants can begin applying to Yale-NUS (Yale's school in Singapore) this winter and spring.

According to Jeremiah Quinlan, a deputy dean of admissions at Yale and the dean of admissions and financial aid at Yale-NUS, as reported in an article on Yale and Singapore by the “Yale Daily News,” “The college hopes to attract around 150 students for its first class, and will eventually build the number of students up to 250 in each graduating class and approximately 1,000 in the school.” There will be three rounds of admission for Yale-NUS and according to the “Yale Daily News, “earlier applicants may be deferred to later rounds before a final decision is made.”

Do you think more Ivy League colleges will be opening up campuses around the globe? Let us know your thoughts by posting below! And, if you’re a student in Singapore, contact us today for help with your case for admission to Yale-NUS.

Recently, we wrote about the rise of “college admissions agents” in China. In China, these agents often write essays for students or have students select their college essay from a stack of options. They receive commissions for sending students to various universities in the U.S. They rarely if ever have any experience in United States college admissions and the vast majority of the college consultants in China seem to have no ethical standards.

In a piece in the Global Business section of the “New York Times,” writer Dan Levin profiled one of these very companies, a company founded by a Berkeley grad with no apparent experience in college admissions — other than applying to college himself. The poor, ungrammatical writing on the company’s website may give you an indication that this company should not be helping students with college essays. They can’t write themselves!

The ethics of college consultants in China leave a lot to be desired. In the United States, college consulting firms that are members of NACAC (National Association of College Admissions Counselors) and IECA (Independent Educational Consultants Association) are bound by principles of good practice. The Ivy Coach is proudly a member of both organizations.

Perusing the company’s website, numerous profiles of “master instructors” are listed. Here’s an example of one: “Cheryl is a graduate of Azusa Pacific University, where she was the vice president of the school’s English honor society. Her other experiences working with young people include volunteering as a tutor for underprivileged middle graders, working at a summer camp, and volunteering as a soccer coach.” Soccer coach? Vice president of a college club while she was in college? And Azusa Pacific University isn’t exactly a prestigious university in the United States! If the “master instructors” have as little experience as Cheryl, imagine the experience of the other instructors!

The “New York Times” piece also profiled another consulting company in China which “has offices across China and charges clients an average of 500,000 renminbi for writing clients’ essays, training them for the visa interview at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and providing career guidance. ‘The students just supply their information and we do all the work,’ said one representative, who requested anonymity to protect his job.” They admit they write the essays for the students!

Take a look at our blogs: University Admission in China and The Ivy League and China.

^{Levin, Dan. “Coaching and much more for Chinese students looking to U.S.” New York Times. 26 May 2011. Web. 26 May 2011.}

The recruitment of students who live in China to attend colleges in the United States is in need of some serious regulation reform. These Chinese students are being taken advantaged of and manipulated out of their family’s earnings by “agents” who receive kickbacks by United States colleges (whose affiliation with them they keep secret) if they successfully get them to enroll. According to “Bloomberg,” an estimated 80% of students use such agents. If you think these kickbacks are bad enough, it gets worse. US college admissions in China is plagued by cut and pasted college admissions essays and completely fake teacher letters of recommendation.

According to “Bloomberg,” “Some of the services provided by agents in China violate ethical standards for college admissions in the U.S. About 90 percent of recommendation letters for Chinese students are fake and 70 percent of essays aren’t written by the applicant, according to the Zinch China report. ‘Many agents in China have folders full of ‘successful’ essays, which they tweak each year,’ Zinch China Chairman Tom Melcher wrote. ‘Others hire recent returnees to write essays.’”

The recruitment and US college admissions process in China is in need of some serious reform.

Can you imagine submitting a college admissions essay that is completely cut and pasted, that is selected from a file of previously submitted college essays? With the dearth of reputable college counselors in China who have knowledge of American universities and the college admissions process in the United States, this is what students in China are doing. According to “Bloomberg,” “For recommendations, teachers’ names were signed without their knowledge, and extracurricular credentials such as student-union president were made up.”

Many of these Chinese students are duped in other ways. When they get to the United States, they think they’ll be at this wonderful university only to realize they’ve been enrolled at a satellite campus far from the main campus. And yet they still have to pay the same $47,000 of annual tuition. Imagine the feeling of showing up in a foreign country to attend the college of your dreams only to learn that you’re actually going to school in the trailer miles down the road from the college of your dreams.

NACAC (National Association for College Admission Counseling) has denounced the unethical practice of these agents. So has the United States federal government. It’s illegal for anyone to receive money for “recruiting” an American student to a university in the United States. It’s time to make the process by which these agents “recruit” Chinese students to American universities illegal as well. This could not come soon enough!

Check out our posts American Education in China and University Admission in China.

And take a look at the “Bloomberg” article on United States University Recruitment in China.

University admission in India includes a sports quota for 5% of university seats. But this quota may soon end.

Delhi University in India is debating whether or not to continue its policy of having a sports quota for the incoming class of students. Typically, 5% of all seats at a college are reserved for students who have been awarded laurels in athletics or other extracurricular pursuits. But Hindu College, which is a part of Delhi University (think of it like the UC system in California although it should be noted that university admission in India doesn’t resemble the UC admission process one bit), wants to do away with this 5% sports quota and now Delhi University must decide if they should eliminate the policy completely.

Said Vinay Kumar Srivastava, principal of Hindu College, “The governing body has decided to suspend the sports and ECA admissions for two years. We have now written to the university seeking clarification on whether admissions in this category can be abolished without an approval from the executive council. We are waiting for a reply.”

Check out our related posts Students in India and India University Admission. And take a look at the “Times of India” article on Delhi University admission.