• Chinese applications to U.S. schools skyrocket

    The number of Chinese undergraduate students in the U.S. has doubled in the last two years. China's booming economy and the ability of families to pay tuition in full is also playing a big role. NBC's Adrienne Mong reports.

    By Adrienne Mong

    BEIJING – Wenzy Duan dreams about becoming a delegate to the United Nations.

    “I know this [ambition] is pretty high,” said the 17-year old Beijing native.  “But I think I can give it a shot.” 

    To prepare, Duan wants to study international relations at an American college – someplace like the University of Washington. “I hear [it] is good at social science," she said.

    The University of Washington is one of approximately 10 U.S. universities Duan plans to apply to in the coming year with the help of an education consultant she hired last summer.

    “I know that the scores is not the only thing that the university will consider whether you can get in or not,” said the high school senior.

    Duan is not alone.  Today, China sends more of its students to America than any other country. During the 2010-11 academic year, 157,588 Chinese students were studying in the U.S. – an increase of 23 percent from the previous year, according to the Institute of International Education. 

    The growing market of Chinese students wanting to go to the U.S. has created various cottage industries in China and the U.S. –  among them are education consultants who help students navigate the maze of college applications and "brokers" representing American universities who seek student candidates paying full tuition. But it's also fueled anxiety among American students and their parents about increased competition from abroad.

    Education consultants: the main cottage industry
    “When [Chinese students] decide to come to the U.S. and study in the U.S. school, they have no idea,” said Steven Ma, president of ThinkTank Learning, the consulting group with which Duan is working.  "What do colleges in the U.S. look for anyway?  What do they want?  What type of students they want?  And that’s where we come in.”

    ThinkTank Learning, based in Santa Clara, Calif., offers tutoring and college counseling.  Most of the students contracting its services have been Asian-American, but Ma said increasingly his firm began fielding calls from mainland Chinese families wanting their advice. 

    Eventually ThinkTank Learning opened a branch in Shenzhen in 2009 and then in Beijing a year later.  It charges anywhere from $17,000 to almost $40,000 for tailored consultation packages lasting six to 12 months, dispensing advice on choosing the right schools, writing essays, or preparing for interviews.  

    “They’ll just tell you when you need to get something done by what deadline and how do you prepare your application to the school’s standards,” said Julia Yin, Duan’s mother, a petroleum engineer who hails from Hunan province.  “Basically, everything is DIY [do it yourself.]"

    Go West, Young Man (and Woman)
    China sent its first student to an American college in 1850: A native of Guangdong Province named Yung Wing earned his degree from Yale University, paving the way for thousands more over the following century.

    The flow of students from China to America dried up in the 1950s when the establishment of the People’s Republic of China gave way to tumult and isolation, and did not re-start until 1974 1978.

    From then until just a few years ago, "It was almost all graduate students, most of them funded by the host universities through research assistantships or teaching assistantships," said Peggy Blumenthal, senior counselor to the president at the Institute of International Education (IIE).

    Now, Chinese undergraduates drive the growth, particularly in the past two years.  At the start of the 2006-07 academic year, 9,955 Chinese undergrads were enrolled in U.S. schools. The following year, that figure jumped to 16,450.  By the 2010-11 academic year, 56,976 undergraduates made up a third of all Chinese students living in the U.S.

    “What you’re seeing is the growth of the middle class of China who can really afford to send their kids to the U.S.,” said Blumenthal.  “The Chinese undergrads are all coming virtually self-funded.”

    Adrienne Mong

    Wenzy Duan (centre) and her mother, Julia Yin, go over college choices with a ThinkTank Learning consultant in Beijing.

    The fact that so many students pay their own way has not gone unnoticed.

    "Foreign students spend about $21 billion a year in the U.S. in tuition and living expenses for them and their families,” said Charles Bennett, Minister-Counselor for Consular Affairs at the U.S. embassy in Beijing – where Ambassador Gary Locke has made among his top priorities the expansion of visa processing capacity in China.

    “That’s a very large sum of money for U.S. academic institutions,” continued Bennett, especially as so many face shrinking endowments or reduced state funding.

    The Chinese comprise at least 21 percent of all international students newly enrolled in American schools, which means that they and their families contribute roughly $4 billion to the American economy, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

    Edging out American students in America?
    Recent reports, however, have suggested mainland Chinese students and their ability to pay full tuition are costing American students placement in American colleges. A bankrupt state school system in California – one of the most popular destinations for Chinese students – has meant that its well-regarded schools are seeing record enrollments from out-of-state and international students. 

    For the 2010-11 academic year, California welcomed the most international students – 96,535. And for the tenth year in a row the University of Southern California was the leading host U.S. institution for overseas students, enrolling 8,615, according to the IIE.

    But the IIE argues adding mainland Chinese students is helpful for diversity.  “Most Americans will not study abroad. On the other hand, their careers will be global,” observed Blumenthal.  “They need to learn how to interact with professionals from other countries, and many of them will be from China.  There are very few industries or business not affected by China.”

    Moreover, at the graduate level, Chinese students aren’t competing against American students for a seat in the classroom, according to Blumenthal.  “There still aren’t enough Americans in the pipeline wanting to get graduate training in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math,” she said.

    But detractors note other challenges have surfaced as a result of so many Chinese students going to U.S. schools.  Among them is whether some applicants from the mainland are cheating their way into admissions by falsifying their academic records or achievements. 

    One consulting company in Beijing that works U.S. universities, Zinch China, says 90 percent of Chinese undergraduates submit false recommendation letters for their U.S. college applications and that 70 percent enlist someone else to write their essays.

    The dishonesty works the other way, too.  A growing number of “education brokers,” who work on behalf of U.S. institutions to solicit Chinese students, have led to misrepresentations and predatory fees, according to a revealing report from Bloomberg News. Some agents promise admission to top-flight schools, charge exorbitant fees, in some instances including a portion of scholarship funds, and students can end up at schools that are a far cry from the "dream schools" they hope to attend.  

    Can China produce innovative thinkers?
    The desire among Chinese students to seek an American college degree has grown stronger over the years owing to a number of factors.

    Adrienne Mong

    The parents of Dolly Luo believe an American college education will improve their daughter's future career prospects.

    Above everything else, there is the fierce competition for gaining admissions to a preeminent Chinese university. The selection process is decided solely by the gaokao, an annual national college entrance examination that lasts nine grueling hours over two to three days.

    This past year, more than 9 million students across China took the gaokao.  And believe it or not, that number has been declining since 2008 as more students opt out of the gaokao and sign up for exams like the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test), both of which are generally prerequisites for applying to any U.S. college or university.

    A lively debate is growing about whether China’s education system can produce innovative thinkers who can enable the country to lead – not just catch up with or follow in the footsteps of industrialized economies like the U.S. or Britain. Such concerns triggered a widespread discussion online when Steve Jobs died earlier this year.

    “The students here are not as robotic as Americans think,” said Gene Hwang, a 27-year-old Taiwanese-American, who has been working in China for ThinkTank Learning for almost two years.  “But they are held back by some of the systems in schools, which emphasize rote memorization….  We work with them on [developing] critical thinking.”

    Broadening those horizons
    “When I get into America, I can get [a liberal] education [that] could open my mind,” said Zhang Yuqi, a soft-spoken but intense 17-year-old high school senior.

    He’s been working with a ThinkTank Learning consultant for three months, reviewing which schools to apply to and working on his essays.  A possible math major, he has his eye on Carnegie-Mellon and Emory where he hopes to find a climate that differs from his elite Beijing high school, which he says has too many “planned activities.”

    Duan wants to study in the U.S., because “they accept all different kinds of different ideas.  You can dream about anything,” she said.  “In America, I can experience more…maybe all kinds of things I will never experience in China.”

    For high school junior Dolly Luo, it's simply about getting the best education.  “The U.S. has the most well-developed college education," said the 16-year-old Beijing native who loves Harry Potter and dreams about attending an Ivy League college.

    Her parents have similar faith in the U.S. college experience.

    “She will have more opportunities, and it will broaden her horizons,” said William Luo.  In fact, Dolly’s father had harbored his own U.S. scholarly ambitions, but he didn’t have the financial resources to enable him to pursue his graduate studies in America.

    “I hope when Dolly goes abroad and she learns American values or Western values that she can absorb the Western education – the good parts: the culture, the education,” continued Luo.  “In China, we would need that.” 

  • No sitting on Santa's lap at British schools

    By msnbc.com staff

    Parents who volunteer to play Santa at British schools may not be allowed to let little tykes climb on their laps to tell them what they want for Christmas, the Telegraph of London reports.

    The issue arose because any parent volunteering as Father Christmas, Santa's United Kingdon name, no longer has to pass a Criminal Records Bureau check, which is reserved for a volunteer regularly around children, the Telegraph said.

    However, some schools are taking no chances with bad behavior.

    A government guideline, as reported by the Telegraph, says, "Under no circumstances must a volunteer who has not obtained a CRB disclosure … be left unsupervised with children."

    Many teachers decided then to impose a ban on all physical contact, Russell Hobby, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, told the Telegraph.

    "The climate we work in, and the risks of getting it wrong, mean many school leaders err on the side of caution," he said. "And if you are going to 'err' I think that’s the side most parents would prefer.”

    A Department of Education spokesman said children could sit on Santas' knees if parents were consulted and were "completely comfortable" with the situations, the Telegraph said.

    Santa should be treated the same as any other visitor, the spokesman told the Telegraph. A staff member should be present.

    Christine Blower of the National Union of Teachers said she hoped the regulations wouldn't deter schools from holding traditional celebrations.

  • Do only pretty blondes graduate from UK schools?

    One of the founders of the "Sexy A-levels" blog told msnbc.com it was born out of a desire "to satirize and poke fun" at the media's coverage of the day high school students get their final report cards.

    by Ian Johnston, msnbc.com

    LONDON — Based on the coverage in many British newspapers, readers could be forgiven for thinking that the vast majority of students who received their final high school report cards Thursday were pretty blonde girls who are fond of low-cut tops and joyful leaping.

    But that, of course, would be wrong, so how could it happen? Amid much soul-searching about standards in the U.K.'s media following the phone-hacking scandal, revelations have emerged about just how low high schools will stoop to collude with the press and compete for publicity on what has become branded "Sexy A-levels" day.

    Normally details of how well students have done in their A-level exams — essentially the British equivalent of final exams and SATs combined — lead to newspaper debates over whether the tests have been deliberately made easier to boost the results artificially. The accompanying photographs of good-looking girls with top marks go largely unnoticed.

    But this year, Chris Cook, a journalist on the respected and slightly dry Financial Times newspaper, has lifted the lid on some of the rather seedy ways that schools and papers set up the shots.

    In an article entitled, "We're just not that kind of newspaper," he detailed a slightly creepy message left by a public relations officer for Badminton School in Bristol, a private school for girls, on his voicemail last year.

    'Amazing girls'
    "Hi Chris, ... Just wanting to give you some details of some absolutely beyootiful [beautiful, but pronounced with emphasis] girls we've got here who are getting their A-level results tomorrow. Some lovely stories ... they're amazing girls," the message from the unnamed publicist said, according to Cook's article. (The Financial Times operates behind a paywall.)

    He also said that Bedales School, a private school for girls and boys, "helpfully supplies photos to journalists."

    "Oddly, it seems to forget to send out any photos of its male students (or dowdier girls)," Cook wrote.

    He added that a"very grand" private school, which he did not name, had invited a Financial Times staffer to an end-of-year sports event, with a teacher saying that watching the girls would provide a "unique opportunity to pick out promising candidates for A-level day pictures."

    The Guardian newspaper, in its live blog Thursday, the day the results came out, said that by about 10 a.m. local time just four out of 45 photographs of students sent in by picture agencies were of boys, a staggeringly low rate of just under 9 percent.

    At least one blogger noticed the preponderance of attractive young women in the coverage of annual exam results as far back as 2009.

    The blog, called simply "Sexy A-levels", says its purpose is to explore "the hypothesis that U.K. newspapers believe that only attractive girls in low-cut tops do A-levels." The three people behind it note their "growing sense of disquiet."

    It lists several pages of pictures from local and national newspapers, mostly of girls, many engaging in the almost obligatory, celebratory group leaps. By Thursday, the blog had been "liked" on Facebook 9,380 times, up from 5,000 last year.

    London-based journalist Tom Phillips, one of the people behind the blog, told msnbc.com in an email that the blog was born out of a desire "to satirize and poke fun" at the media's coverage of the results.

    'Perving' over teens
    He said its main aim was "to be funny," but he stressed was also a serious point. "We do get quite worried that some people seem to be taking it as an endorsement of perving over 18-year-old girls," he said.

    Phillips said a large number of Britain's photo editors were likely to be middle-aged men and suggested this might lead to "some subconscious bias" and "to be honest, entirely conscious in some cases."

    While there was nothing wrong with "celebrating bright, blonde girls who've excelled academically," Phillips said he felt there should be "a bit more space to celebrate others as well."

    Photographers, he added, should also find other ways of illustrating joy at good results than simply "making them jump in the air in a rather unconvincing way."

    Phillips said he had noted a change in coverage this year, saying there had been "definitely more boys, less jumping" and even "pictures of people looking miserable."

    The front page of Friday's Daily Telegraph newspaper.

    Sadie Wearing, a lecturer in gender theory, culture and media at the prestigious London School of Economics, told msnbc.com that the newspapers were doing "what papers routinely do, which is to equate women's performance with the way that they look, so that becomes the story."

    "This seems to happen even when the story is ostensibly about young women's achievement," she said.

    Wearing, who said she had not seen the pictures, said Cook's description of private schools' efforts to get their students in newspapers sounded "particularly distasteful."

    It was just one of the signs of the continuing inequality between the genders.

    "There's already a story out there that feminism is over; there's no need for it anymore because young women are equal and so on," Wearing said. "It doesn't seem to me that the battle has been won." 

  • A crumbled school, but firm spirits

    By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer

    MINGORA, Pakistan – Two years ago, in the middle of the night, the Taliban blew up Government School #1 here in Pakistan's Swat Valley.

    The militants held sway over the valley then. They terrorized the local population until last year when the Pakistan Army conducted a huge military offensive and pushed them out.

    Now, the Taliban are gone and Swat is bustling again.

    But the plans to rebuild Government School #1 have stalled – the city government has run out of money.　

    Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

    Although, that hasn't stopped the determination of teachers and students: Every day from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. 1,000 children crowd inside a cluster of tents – nine in all – that serve as makeshift classrooms.

    Mounds of rubble, piles of bricks, concrete, dirt and dust – the remains of their school – are still there. It is the children's playground now.

    No one from the Pakistan government or private sector has come to clean up the debris. No one in authority seems to care.

    'Just imagine 1,000 kids without a toilet'
    Situated in the center of Mingora, the largest town in Swat Valley, the school was a landmark, built by the ruling family in 1954 when Swat was still an independent kingdom.

    It became a monument of sorts – the biggest, most famous elementary school in the Swat Valley that was alma mater to both the well-heeled and the downtrodden.

    Mohammed Musa, the school's principal, was a graduate. A kindly, dignified man in his late 40s, he was, nevertheless, quick to show his anger and frustration at the bureaucratic red tape.　

    "Just imagine 1,000 kids without a toilet," he told me on a recent visit to the school. I couldn't imagine it.
    　
    Musa said he was livid and frustrated with the government's excuses and foot-dragging, so much that he built a latrine for the kids with his own money.　

    "Can you imagine 1,000 kids without clean drinking water?" he continued. Now I was becoming angry, too. 　

    Photo by Carol Grisanti/ NBC News

    A group of students at Swat Valley's Government School #1

    "One of my teachers is a rich man and very generous," Musa explained. "He brought in and paid for a water tank and filtering system so the kids could have clean drinking water."

    There was no end to his outrage. "It took the government months to even provide these tents," he told me. "For four months, in the dead of winter, the children had to sit in the open fields. They would cry," he said.　 "Now, they sit in these tents. They still cry. You can feel how hot it is in there."

    Indeed, when I visited on a recent summer morning, the temperatures rose above 110 degrees.　The kids, between 5 and 12 years old, squeezed into the tents, side-by-side, cross-legged and barefoot on hard dirt floors in the sweltering heat. They rocked forward and back and forward again – reciting by rote – English, math and the Koran, struggling to learn in desperate conditions.

    There are no desks, nor chairs and very few notebooks and pens.

    The teachers say these kids spend most of their time outside in the rubble- pushing and shoving one another for water. Often, they have no water at all because there is no electricity to bring water into the tank.

    In the fifth grade tent, 70 kids were trying hard to learn English.

    "Salam Alaikum" ("Peace be with you"), I said as I made my way to the front of the tent. "Alaikum as Salam" ("Peace be to you, too") they answered back.

    And then I tested their English. "Hello," I said.　There was no answer. "How are you?" I continued.

    Silence.

    The kids seemed unable to understand; or perhaps they were just shy in front of an American woman.

    "Sangay" ("How are you?") I tested my Pashto (the local language). "Kha Yum," ("I am fine,") they shouted, smiling.

    Photo by Carol Grisanti/ NBC News

    Students sit in their classroom - one of nine tents - at Swat Valley's Government School #1

    Students hope for more than tents
    The children can't concentrate and their grades are falling now. All of them are below average students, their teachers say, dropouts in the making.　

    But the kids say they would do better if only they had a building, desks and chairs, instead of these tents.

    Farhan Ullah Khan, 12, insisted that he loves school; he just doesn't want to go to this school.

    "I cried and cried when I saw what happened to our school," he said. "I was worried because there was nowhere to study for four months and I was afraid I would not get an education. Now we have these tents," he said as he wrinkled his nose. "But it's so awful in here."

    Naeem Akhtar, the spokesman for the civilian administration in Swat, told me in a recent interview that Government School #1 is a top priority.

    "The school is functional," he insisted. "We have provided some of the tents for the children, but this is a heavy project and we are short of funds."　

    Akhtar told me that he, too, was an alumnus of the school. Then he shifted blame from his government.　

    "The international community is not fulfilling your obligations to us, you are not providing us with any funds," he scolded. Akhtar said that the Taliban had destroyed or damaged 401 schools in the Swat Valley and the government had already repaired 204 of the damaged buildings.　　

    Parents who can afford it have pulled their kids out of Government School #1 and placed them in newly rebuilt private schools.　But the 1,000 students who remain are mostly from poor homes; their families toil just to make a living and sometimes there's not enough money to put food on the table. Most parents certainly can't help with their lessons.

    Soft spoken and serious, 11-year-old Mohammed Abu Zar said he wants to be a teacher when he grows up. "My parents want me to get an education and they told me I had to keep studying even under these awful conditions," he said. "I don't understand why the government won't give us a building. It's too hard to study in these tents."

    Perhaps, Khan, the 12- year-old, said it best:　"I want to become a scientist. So I need to have a quality education in a clean building. This way I can study."　

    Tall orders coming from small voices.

    NBC's Mushatq Yusufzai and Shahid Qazi contributed to this report.