Editor's Note:

Chinese students are applying to US colleges in greater numbers than ever before. But after a series of recent media exposes, US schools are becoming increasingly skeptical of Chinese applicants' claims. According to a 2010 report by student-orientated social network Zinch China, 90 percent of recommendation letters are fakes, 70 percent of application essays are written by somebody other than the student, and 50 percent of grade transcripts are fabrications. Who's to blame? Can US schools take measures to prevent it? The Global Times invited two commentators to contribute their thoughts.

View Point: Blame system, not students, for frequency of cheating

Some Chinese students have been expelled from US universities after being caught faking applications. The growing Chinese presence in US universities has sadly added to the number of dishonest applicants at the same time.

Many students blame cutthroat competition. With thousands applying, they figure they have to do anything to get in.

This may be the surface reason for cheating, but on a deeper level, it is shortsightedness and the lack of a sense of community that leads them to this risky route.

It is true that US schools rarely go to the trouble to verify everything students say in their applications. Their assumption is that students are telling the truth. But if you think this means you can easily fool the Americans, then you misunderstand the credit system in the US.

In the US, credit is linked with every aspect of your life, opening a bank account, getting a car, renting an apartment, and so on.

The US credit network keeps a detailed and personalized profile of your entire credit history, which means everything you do, from paying your student loans to paying your utility bills, goes on record.

If you go wrong in any of these aspects, you can easily stain your credit history, and once the damage is done, it can scarcely be repaired.

If you are found cheating in a grant application, you will find yourself in trouble renting an apartment or getting even into classes later, because of the mark of "untrustworthiness" you bear. And no matter how trivial your initial offence is, it will be the first falling domino.

Therefore, a person who gets ahead by way of cheating can rarely get far. Even if those students who cheated in their applications are not kicked out of school, they can barely survive and succeed in a society that so highly values honesty.

This thoughtless behavior of cheating also reflects a missing sense of community among Chinese applicants.

US schools consider academic dishonesty a serious offence. They familiarize their students with the consequences of plagiarism and other kinds of academic dishonesty right from the start. They want to deter students from such behavior, but they also want to protect the academic community of which every student is a part.

If one member of the community steals ideas from others without acknowledgment, or makes up stories to get a spot in grad school, the entire community suffers from this lawlessness. That's why academics police student integrity so thoroughly, in order to protect their own work.

The sense of community US schools try to foster among students by enforcing rules of academic honesty is absent in many Chinese applicants. Their only concern is to secure a place in their dream schools and they show little regard for what may happen to themselves or others afterward.

The cheaters themselves might deserve whatever their own behavior brings, but there are also many innocent souls that bear the consequences of cheaters' actions.

As a result of the dishonest behavior of a select few, US universities are developing new stereotypes about Chinese students as a group. While Chinese students used to be commonly regarded as "smart kids" that excelled in mathematics and the sciences, their academic honesty is now suspect.

Such a reputation is not only beginning to hurt Chinese students already enrolled in US universities, but is also creating new obstacles for subsequent applicants from China, since selection committees are now looking at applications with a more critical and suspicious eye.

Cheaters may suffer if caught, but they drag the whole group down with them as well.

The author is a PhD candidate of Ohio State University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn