perryg

Dear Colleagues,

I would like to call your attention to a very disturbing set of circumstances of which many of you may not be aware. It has to do with the authenticity of tranxxxxs emanating from universities within the PRC.

We recently had to verify a student's set of ranxxxxs from Wuhan University, and found that what we had in our office, which looked like an original, with the appropriate stamps etc., was in fact very different from what was on file with the University. Several courses had been added and many grades were changed. Additionally, three of the student's five letters of recommendation were from professors who taught courses that were never taken (the letterhead was also different from the other two letters).

During a recruitment visit to UCLA, the student was interviewed by faculty members in our program, and was soundly endorsed for acceptance. Subsequent to our discovery of the falsified papers in the dossier, we had no choice but to withdraw our offer of acceptance.

In collaboration with the U.S. university where the student was enrolled in a master's program, we determined that yet another and different falsified tranxxxx was on file with them. Moreover, we now know that there is at least one operation in China from which the applicant was able to obtain these sets of forged tranxxxxs. When both of our programs went into the archives and examined the tranxxxxs xxxxted over the past few years by other applicants who had graduated from Wuhan, we found them to have two different appearances: Ones that have the look of the originals that we received directly from the Dean of Records, and the others that were identical to the forgeries. We are tentatively concluding that other applicants and yes, even current and former students, xxxxted forged tranxxxxs; some going back as far as 1992. Needless to say, the student in question was expelled from the master's program based on the evidence collected.

At this point I am forced to question the authenticity of tranxxxxs from other universities in China as well. As a recent article in US News and World Reports points out, there is a dramatic rise in falsified test scores, diplomas and tranxxxxs from the PRC(http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/articles/chinafraud.htm.

Regrettably, I am now in the process of having to formulate new policies and procedures as to how we can guarantee that applications from the PRC can be deemed authentic. In the next few weeks, we will likely consider suspending applications/admissions from the PRC until a mechanism is in place whereby only authentic tranxxxxs are received directly from a single responsible individual within the administration of each university. It has been difficult enough to navigate through PRC applications in light of revelations by the ETS of irregularities in GRE and TOEFL scores.

Uncertainties about tranxxxxs make this task even more difficult. Since this matter is of such gravity, I would like this letter to be the beginning of an on-line dialogue whose ultimate goal is to formulate a consensus policy that will send a loud and clear statement to the student population of the PRC: We will no longer be taken advantage of in this way.

I realize that the majority of students who apply to our programs from China are sincere applicants who should not be presumed guilty of such crimes.

I feel just as strongly that we must stand together to eradicate a system that has undoubtedly led to millions of our tax dollars being spent on dishonest students who have fraudulently displaced the honest ones from our admissions process. I would be most grateful to hear your experiences, your opinions and your suggestions.

Thanks in advance,

David Meyer
Sr. Associate Dean, Graduate Studies
The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and
Director, UCLA ACCESS

perryg

It's ZT

nickwang

sigh.