The China Force

From China, More Students Pursue Dream of American Education - NYTimes.com: "At rural Grinnell, nearly one of every 10 applicants being considered for the class of 2015 is from China.

Dozens of other American colleges and universities are seeing a surge in applications (and similar brochures) from students in China, where a booming economy means that more families can pursue the dream of an American higher education.
But that success — following a 30 percent increase last year in the number of Chinese studying in the United States — has created a problem for admissions officers. At Grinnell, for example, how do they choose perhaps 15 students from the more than 200 applicants from China? After all, the 11-member admissions committee cannot necessarily rely on the rubrics it applies to American applications (which are challenging enough to sort through).Consider, for example, that half of Grinnell’s applicants from China this year have perfect scores of 800 on the math portion of the SAT, making the performance of one largely indistinguishable from another.But the most accomplished applicants will have grades in the 70s or 80s, because Chinese schools tend to grade on a far less generous curve than American high schools. Few will have had the opportunity to take honors or Advanced Placement courses to demonstrate their ability to do college work, since such courses are rare in China."