Two Chinese Education Companies Reportedly Brings College Students To America Through Fraud

Former employees of two giant Chinese companies have come out and revealed that the organizations have committed fraud in bringing Chinese students to America. Apparently, the companies engaged in college application fraud, from writing the students' application essays to faking high school transcripts.

In an investigation by Reuters, eight former and current employees of New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. as well as 17 former Dipont Education Management Group employees revealed that the firms created application essays and teacher recommendations for the students. The organizations were also reported to have falsified some high school transcripts.

Those who have worked with New Oriental admitted that most clients did not have the language skills needed to write their essays on their own. This is why the counselors wrote it for them. Only the top students were able to do original work.

Thomas Benson, who previously ran a small liberal arts college in Vermont, and Stephen Gessner, who served as president of the school board for New York's Shelter Island, worked as consultants for three major Chinese companies, including New Oriental and Dipont.

They were able to recruit several U.S. admissions officers to fly to China and meet with the companies' student clients. The schools that participated were: Cornell University, the University of Chicago, Stanford University as well as the University of California - Berkeley.

New Oriental, which was founded in 1993, has become China's largest provider of private education services. It caters to over two million Chinese students per year.

Clients usually pay about $1,450 and $7,300 for the company to recommend colleges and prepare applications. In a student contract reviewed by the publication, it was noted that New Oriental's services include "writing or polishing" parts of college applications."

The company also creates an email account for the student. However, New Oriental keeps sole control of the account's password. Moreover, some students never even get the chance to see their application.

Quartz added that Reuters' investigation is one of the latest reports on shady practices done by Chinese education companies. It was noted that, earlier this year, the SAT was compromised by a cheating operation run by some Asian test prep companies.