Faking it: college entry forgery

Students turn to writing agencies for college applications

By Jung Min-ho, Jung Sung-eun

For some Korean students who want to study abroad, gaining entry to schools they want to attend is more about spending cash than making earnest academic efforts.

In May last year, the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT), a standardized test used in college admissions in the United States and other countries, was canceled across Korea for the first time after it was found that many “hagwon,’’ or private cramming institutes, had unlawfully obtained and distributed questions from previous tests.

In October last year, The Korea Times also discovered widespread cheating on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), involving instructors at some major English institutes, including the Lee Ik-hoon Language Institute and the Park Jung Language Institute.

But it is not just SAT and TOEFL scores that are vulnerable to fraud.

Some writing agencies sell ghostwritten essays, statements of purpose, personal history statements and even letters of recommendation to help Korean students get into U.S. and Canadian universities.

An investigation by The Korea Times found that cheating remains prevalent throughout higher education in Korea, which is known for its intensely competitive academic environment and obsession with proficiency in English.

So-called “writing experts” who graduated from renowned schools in Korea and abroad, such as Ewha Womans University, University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Texas at Austin, make money by selling their services without regard for legal consequences and ethical breaches.

According to the Institute of International Education’s annual report, 70,627 Korean students went to the U.S. to study in the 2012-2013 school year. Apparently, many Korean students are entering American schools with ghostwritten applications. / Korea Times

“All you have to do is to give us basic information about who you are and some memorable things that you want to highlight in your essay,” said a member of staff at JS Resume, a writing agency in southern Seoul, said. “We just need a few lines written in Korean.”

Depending on the quality of the first draft written by the student, the hired agency decides whether to forward it first to a Korean author, who will develop the story into something more appealing, or give it directly to an English writer, who then polishes the language.

Compared to simply writing an entire essay for a client, this process helps show a client’s “true personality,’’ which can then help increase their chances of getting accepted to the school they desire to enter, said the staff member.

“Our English writers have a lot of experience in translation, and they are also good at telling stories,” he noted.

Resume School, a writing agency based in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, has a similar system. For 100,000 won ($96) per A4-size page, its staff can turn a few dull Korean sentences turn into a heartwarming story in perfect English. “Extra charges apply for translation and additional pages, if needed,” said a staff member, who declined to be named.

Surprisingly blatant

Writing agencies and their clients think little about the legal and other consequences of cheating.

“Emory University expects students to represent themselves honestly. Emory can and has revoked admission for students that misrepresent themselves in any way in the admissions application, including having someone else write their essays,” Beverly Cox Clark, a senior communications officer at Emory University, located in Atlanta, Georgia, told The Korea Times.

Jennifer Simons, the director of international recruitment at Tufts University near Boston, Massachusetts, also said that the school works hard to “make sure that the students write their own applications.”

“If we discover that applicants have been dishonest in any way in their applications, they will be denied. If they are a Tufts student, they will be expelled immediately,” she said.

However, it is extremely difficult to discern and prove fraudulent essays from genuine ones. So it’s no surprise that writing agencies have been able to provide their services for many years without being hit with legal problems.

“There has never been a single problem with it. How can the professors find out? … We have not received even a single complaint about our English writing services,’’ said an employee from JS Resume. “As long as you (the client) write the first draft, there will be no issue.”

“We have been running the company for five years, and there has not been a single problem,” the Resume School employee said. “We check the level of our clients’ writing abilities … We believe many of them will make some changes to the final draft anyway. Therefore, no trouble is guaranteed.”

But believing that significant problems are absent from such practices couldn’t be further from the truth ― fraudulent essays do carry serious consequences, especially for the students.

“If it were not illegal, then plagiarism would be legal. It is direct copying and using someone else’s idea,” said Yang Soo-min, a junior at New York University.

Depending on their size and resources, some schools are better than others about detecting fraudulent essays.

For example, Smith College, an independent women’s liberal arts college in Northampton, Massachusetts, only has about 2,500 undergraduate students, making the application review process relatively easier, according to, Karen Kristof, the school’s senior associate director of admissions.

“While it can be difficult to ascertain whether an essay has been written by a student themselves, there are often many clues in the application itself … For example, does the writing in the essay match other writing samples submitted by the student? Does the level of the writing match the student’s English proficiency as it is measured by TOEFL or SAT?’’ she said.

But in a country where students can easily get someone to write their essays and obtain copies of test questions, it is almost impossible to completely weed out the cheaters from the academic champions.

When asked if they keep in contact with any clients who have been admitted to their desired schools, an employee of Resume World, another writing agency in Seoul, said one of its clients is “doing well in school” and “some ask for us again for their graduate school admission.”

But who cares?

When it comes to cheating in higher education, however, Korea is not alone.

According to the Institute of International Education’s annual report, 70,627 Korean students went to the U.S. to study in the 2012–2013 school year.

Cheating on application essays has also been a problem reported among Chinese students applying to U.S. schools.

According to a 2010 report by Zinch China, an education sector consultancy, eight in every 10 Chinese undergraduate students use an agent to file their applications with U.S. schools.

With such intense competition among agents ― not to mention ambitious students and their overzealous parents ― cheating is rampant, the group says. It estimates that 90 percent of recommendation letters from Chinese students are faked and about 70 percent of college application essays are not written by the students themselves.

Kim Lovaas, the associate director for international student admissions at University of Washington in Seattle, said the cheating issue “is not unique to the international student population.”

“U.S. students could also have a friend, a parent, or an independent advisor assist them with the application or help write their essay,” she said.

“It is extremely difficult to police,” a college professor, who refused to be named, said. “It is a problem observed everywhere. But there are too many suspected cases and little evidence.”

Cheating is hard to detect, but critics argue that officials here have shown zero interest in eliminating the culture of cheating. Instead of cracking down on wrong-doing by writing agencies, language institutes and other businesses, the Korean government allows them to operate freely.

In addition, some observers say international students are a significant source of revenue for many colleges, and thus, they do not put much effort into fighting the problem.

“To say there is no false information on applications being submitted is untrue, but we do not find that a large problem,” Lovaas said.