<h1>The China Conundrum</h1>
<h2 class="deck">American colleges find the Chinese student boon a tricky fit </h2>
<div class="image wide">
<img src="http://chronicle.com/img/photos/biz/photo_16387_wide_large.jpg" alt="Chinese Students Prove a Tricky Fit on U.S. Campuses 1">
<div class="cred-wrap"><p class="credits">Andrew Councill, The New York Times</p></div><p class="caption">Chien
Niu, from China, studies at the English Language Institute at the U. of
Delaware. Many Chinese students apply to public colleges with language
programs like Delaware's and spend the first several months working
toward college-level English proficiency.</p>
</div>
<div class="article-body">
<p class="byline">By Tom Bartlett and Karin Fischer</p>
<p>Dozens of new students crowded into a lobby of the University
of Delaware's student center at the start of the academic year. Many
were stylishly attired in distressed jeans and bright-colored sneakers;
half tapped away silently on smartphones while the rest engaged in
boisterous conversations. Eavesdropping on those conversations, however,
would have been difficult for an observer not fluent in Mandarin.
That's because, with the exception of one lost-looking soul from
Colombia, all the students were from China.</p>
<p>Among them was Yisu Fan, whose flight from Shanghai had arrived six
hours earlier. Too excited to sleep, he had stayed up all night waiting
for orientation at the English Language Institute to begin. Like nearly
all the Chinese students at Delaware, Mr. Yisu was conditionally
admitted—that is, he can begin taking university classes once he
completes an English program. He plans to major in finance and, after
graduation, to return home and work for his father's construction
company. He was wearing hip, dark-framed glasses and a dog tag around
his neck with a Chinese dragon on it. Mr. Yisu chose to attend college
more than 7,000 miles from home, he said, because "the Americans, their
education is very good."</p>
<hr>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0px;"><img src="http://chronicle.com/img/photos/biz/nyt-che-banner.png" alt=""><br> <strong><a style="font-size: 12px;" href="http://chronicle.com/article/Selecting-the-Right-Chinese/129621/">COMMENTARY:</a> Selecting the Right Chinese Students</strong><br>
<strong> <a style="font-size: 12px;" href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/afterword/2011/11/03/understanding-the-new-crop-of-chinese-students/">AUDIO:</a> How to Understand the New Crop of Chinese Students</strong></p>
<hr>
<p>That opinion is widely shared in China, which is part of the reason
the number of Chinese undergraduates in the United States has tripled in
just three years, to 40,000, making them the largest group of foreign
students at American colleges. While other countries, like South Korea
and India, have for many years sent many undergraduates to the United
States, it's the sudden and startling uptick in applicants from China
that has caused a stir at universities—many of them big, public
institutions with special English-language programs—that are
particularly welcoming toward international students. Universities like
Delaware, where the number of Chinese students has leapt to 517 this
year, from eight in 2007.</p><div id="related" class="related module1">
<h3>Related Content</h3>
<ul><li><a href="http://chronicle.com/article/How-American-Colleges-Can/128861/">From the Archives: How American Colleges Can Better Serve Chinese Applicants</a></li><li><a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Colleges-Educate-a-New-Kind-of/127704/">From the Archives: Colleges Educate a New Kind of International Student</a></li>
<li><a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Afterword-Understanding-the/129597/">AfterWord: Understanding the New Crop of Chinese Students</a></li><li><a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Selecting-the-Right-Chinese/129621/">Commentary: Selecting the Right Chinese Students</a></li>
</ul>
<div class="image">
<a class="enlarge show-enlarge-1" href="http://chronicle.com/article/Chinese-Students-Prove-a/129628/#">Enlarge Image</a>
<img src="http://chronicle.com/img/photos/biz/photo_16388_landscape_related_article.jpg" alt="Chinese Students Prove a Tricky Fit on U.S. Campuses 2">
<div class="cred-wrap"><p class="credits">Andrew Councill, The New York Times</p></div> <p class="caption">Jennifer
Gregan-Paxton, program director of the office of undergraduate advising
at the U. of Delaware's business school, is not surprised that Chinese
students stick together. Even if they "wanted to break out of their
pack," she says, "they wouldn't necessarily get the warmest reception."</p>
</div>
<div class="image">
<a class="enlarge show-enlarge-2" href="http://chronicle.com/article/Chinese-Students-Prove-a/129628/#">Enlarge Image</a>
<img src="http://chronicle.com/img/photos/biz/photo_16389_landscape_related_article.jpg" alt="Chinese Students Prove a Tricky Fit on U.S. Campuses 3">
<div class="cred-wrap"><p class="credits">Ricky Wong for The Chronicle</p></div> <p class="caption">High-school
students and their parents attend a college fair in Beijing. Parents
want to send their children to America because they believe the
education is better there. The number of Chinese students at the U. of
Delaware is 517 this year, up from eight in 2007.</p>
</div>
<div class="image">
<a class="enlarge show-enlarge-3" href="http://chronicle.com/article/Chinese-Students-Prove-a/129628/#">Enlarge Image</a>
<img src="http://chronicle.com/img/photos/biz/photo_16390_landscape_related_article.jpg" alt="Chinese Students Prove a Tricky Fit on U.S. Campuses 4">
<div class="cred-wrap"><p class="credits">Andrew Councill, The New York Times</p></div> <p class="caption">Chinese
students prepare for class at the U. of Delaware's English Language
Institute. It can be hard to get Chinese students to mingle with others,
the program's director says.</p>
</div>
<div class="image">
<a class="enlarge show-enlarge-4" href="http://chronicle.com/article/Chinese-Students-Prove-a/129628/#">Enlarge Image</a>
<img src="http://chronicle.com/img/photos/biz/photo_16391_landscape_related_article.jpg" alt="Chinese Students Prove a Tricky Fit on U.S. Campuses 5">
<div class="cred-wrap"><p class="credits">Shiho Fukada, The New York Times</p></div> <p class="caption">Many
Chinese families turn to agencies, like New Oriental (above), to help
students find places at American colleges. Educators say some agencies
produce fraudulent application documents.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>The students, mostly from China's rapidly expanding middle class, can
afford to pay full tuition, a godsend for colleges that have faced
sharp budget cuts in recent years. But what seems at first glance a boon
for colleges and students alike is, on closer inspection, a tricky fit
for both.</p>
<p>Colleges, eager to bolster their diversity and expand their
international appeal, have rushed to recruit in China, where fierce
competition for seats at Chinese universities and an aggressive
admissions-agent industry feed a frenzy to land spots on American
campuses. College officials and consultants say they are seeing
widespread fabrication on applications, whether that means a personal
essay written by an agent or an English-proficiency score that doesn't
jibe with a student's speaking ability. American colleges, new to the
Chinese market, struggle to distinguish between good applicants and
those who are too good to be true.</p>
<p>Once in the classroom, students with limited English labor to keep up
with discussions. And though those students are excelling, struggling,
and failing at the same rate as their American counterparts, some
professors say they have had to alter how they teach.</p>
<p>Colleges have been slow to adjust to the challenges they've
encountered but are trying new strategies, both to better acclimate
students and to deal with the application problems. The onus is on them,
says Jiang Xueqin, deputy principal of Peking University High School,
one of Beijing's top schools, and director of its international
division. "Are American universities unhappy? Because Chinese students
and parents aren't." (See a Commentary by Mr. Jiang at <a href="http://chronicle.com">chronicle.com</a>.)</p>
<p>"Nothing will change," Mr. Jiang says, "unless American colleges make it clear to students and parents that it has to."</p>
<h4 class="CHE-5-column-News subhead">The Role of Agents</h4>
<p>Wanting Tang is quick to laugh, listens to high-energy bands like Red
Jumpsuit Apparatus and OK Go, and describes herself on her Facebook
page as "really fun" and "really serious." Ms. Tang, a junior majoring
in management and international business, speaks confident, if not
flawless, English. That wasn't always the case. When she applied to the
University of Delaware, her English was, in her estimation, very poor.</p>
<p>Ms. Tang, who went to high school in Shanghai, didn't exactly choose
to attend Delaware, a public institution of about 21,000 students that
admits about half its applicants—and counts Vice President Joseph R.
Biden Jr. among its prominent graduates. Ms. Tang's mother wanted her to
attend college in the United States, and so they visited the offices of
a dozen or more agents, patiently listening to their promises and
stories of success.</p>
<p>Her mother chose an agency that suggested Delaware and helped Ms.
Tang fill out her application, guiding her through a process that
otherwise would have been bewildering. Because her English wasn't good
enough to write the admissions essay, staff members at the agency, which
charged her $4,000, asked her questions about herself in Chinese and
produced an essay. (Test preparation was another $3,300.)</p>
<p>Now that she can write in English herself, she doesn't think much of
what the employees wrote. But it served its purpose: She was admitted,
and spent six months in the English-language program before beginning
freshman classes. And despite bumps along the way, she's getting good
grades and enjoying college life. As for allowing an agent to write her
essay, she sees that decision in pragmatic terms: "At that time, my
English not better as now."</p>
<p>Most Chinese students who are enrolled at American colleges turn to
intermediaries to shepherd them through the admissions process,
according to a study by researchers at Iowa State University, published
in the <em>Journal of College Admission</em>.</p>
<p><img style="float: left; padding-right: 6px;" src="http://chronicle.com/img/photos/biz/12NYT-China-graphic-new.gif" alt="" height="469" width="250"></p>
<p>Education agents have long played a role in sending Chinese students
abroad, dating back decades to a time when American dollars were
forbidden in China and only agents could secure the currency to pay
tuition. Admission experts say they can provide an important service,
acting as guides to an application process that can seem totally, well,
foreign. Application materials are frequently printed only in English.
Chinese students are often baffled by the emphasis on extracurriculars
and may have never written a personal essay. Requiring recommendations
from guidance counselors makes little sense in a country where few high
schools have one on staff. Many assume that the <em>U.S. News & World Report</em> issue on rankings is an official government publication.</p>
<p>But while there are certainly aboveboard agents and applications,
other recruiters engage in fraudulent behavior. An administrator at one
high school in Beijing says agents falsified her school's letterhead to
produce doctored transcripts and counterfeit letters of recommendation,
which she discovered when a parent called to complain about an agent's
charging a fee for documents from the school. James E. Lewis, director
of international admissions and recruiting at Kansas State University,
says he once got a clutch of applications clearly submitted by a single
agent, with all fees charged to the same bank branch, although the
students came from several far-flung cities. The grades on three of the
five transcripts, he says, were identical.</p>
<p>Zinch China, a consulting company that advises American colleges and
universities about China, last year published a report based on
interviews with 250 Beijing high-school students bound for the United
States, their parents, and a dozen agents and admissions consultants.
The company concluded that 90 percent of Chinese applicants submit false
recommendations, 70 percent have other people write their personal
essays, 50 percent have forged high-school transcripts, and 10 percent
list academic awards and other achievements they did not receive. The
"tide of application fraud," the report predicted, will most likely only
worsen as more students go to America.</p>
<h4 class="CHE-5-column-News subhead">'Studying for the Test'</h4>
<p>Tom Melcher, Zinch China's chairman and the report's author, says
it's simplistic to vilify agents who provide these services. They're
responding, he says, to the demands of students and parents.</p>
<p>Thanks to China's one-child policy, today's college students are part
of a generation of singletons, and their newly affluent parents—and, in
all likelihood, both sets of grandparents—are deeply invested in their
success. At Aoji Education Group, a large college-counseling company
based in China, one of the most popular services is the
guaranteed-placement package: apply to five colleges and get your money
back if you're not accepted at any of your choices. "If a student isn't
placed, we've got screaming, yelling parents in the lobby," says Kathryn
Ohehir, who works in the company's American admissions department, in
Beijing. "They don't want their money back. They want their kid in an
Ivy League school."</p>
<p>Students in China's test-centric culture spend most of their high-school years studying for the <em>gao kao</em>,
the college entrance exam that is the sole determining factor in
whether students win a coveted spot at one of China's oversubscribed
universities. So it's not unusual for those who want to study in the
United States to spend months cramming for the SAT and the Test of
English as a Foreign Language, or Toefl, which most campuses require for
admission.</p>
<p>Patricia J. Parker, assistant director of admissions at Iowa State,
which enrolls more than 1,200 Chinese undergraduates, says students have
proudly told her about memorizing thousands of vocabulary words,
studying scripted responses to verbal questions, and learning shortcuts
that help them guess correct answers.</p>
<p>She has seen conditionally admitted students increase their Toefl
scores by 30 or 40 points, out of a possible 120, after a summer break,
despite no significant improvement in their ability to speak English.
Her students, she says, don't see this intense test-prepping as
problematic: "They think the goal is to pass the test. They're studying
for the test, not studying English."</p>
<p>Ms. Parker estimates that she contacts the Educational Testing
Services, the nonprofit group that is in charge of the Toefl, every
other day during the admissions season to investigate suspicious scores.
Like many educators, she would like to see changes to make it harder to
beat the exam.</p>
<p>At Kansas State University this fall, several Chinese students showed
up for classes but did not match the security photos that were snapped
when they supposedly took the Toefl months earlier. The testing service
says it takes additional precautions, such as collecting handwriting
samples, to reduce the chances that students will hire someone to slip
in, in their stead, after breaks. If cheating is found, the company's
policy is to cancel a score, but the organization won't say how often
that happens, and where. Kansas State, too, won't comment on
disciplinary measures, but it has named a committee to draft a policy on
dealing with fraud on the Toefl. Says Mr. Lewis, the international
admissions director: "It's very hard, sitting here at a desk in the
U.S., to judge what's fraudulent."</p>
<h4 class="CHE-5-column-News subhead">Authorship and Authority</h4>
<p>During this past September's orientation on the University of
Delaware's Newark campus, Scott Stevens, director of the English
Language Institute, stood on the stage in front of a mostly filled
theater. Behind him, on a large screen, was a stock photo of two white
college students seated at desks. The male student was leaning over to
look at the female student's paper. "We are original, so that means we
never cheat!" Mr. Stevens told the audience of primarily Chinese
students, mixing compliments and warnings. "You are all very
intelligent. Use that intelligence to write your own papers."</p>
<p>Mr. Stevens has worked at the language institute since 1982. As the
program has swelled in the last few years, the institute has outgrown
its main building and expanded to classroom space behind the
International House of Pancakes on the campus's main drag. Over the
course of Mr. Stevens's day, it becomes clear that he is a man with more
tasks than time. It's also clear that he's proud of his well-regarded
institute and that he cares about students. He gives out his cellphone
number and tells them to call any time, even in the middle of the night,
if they need him.</p>
<p>But he is candid about the challenges Delaware is facing as the
population of Chinese students has grown from a handful to hundreds.
Confronting plagiarism is near the top of the list. Mr. Stevens
remembers how one student memorized four Wikipedia entries so he could
regurgitate whichever one seemed most appropriate on an in-class
essay—an impressive, if misguided, feat. American concepts of
intellectual property don't translate readily to students from a country
where individualism is anathema. (In the language program, Mr. Stevens
says there has been no surge in formal disciplinary actions, as
instructors prefer to handle questions of plagiarism in the classroom.)</p>
<p>Just as an understanding of authorship is bound up in culture, so are
notions of authority. "It's not simply the language and culture but the
political element as well," he says. "We're well aware that the Chinese
are raised on propaganda, and the U.S. is not portrayed very
positively. If you've been raised on that for the first 18 years of your
life, when it comes down to who they trust—they trust each other. They
don't particularly trust us."</p>
<p>Instead of living with a randomly selected American, Mr. Stevens
says, some freshmen pay their required housing fees but rent apartments
together off campus, a violation of university rules. And they rarely
attend voluntary functions at the institute. At a gathering this summer
of the nearly 400 students from 40 countries, about 10 were from China.
Also, according to Mr. Stevens, students regularly switch classes to be
with their countrymen, rather than stay in the ones they've been
assigned by their advisers.</p>
<p>One of those advisers is Jennifer Gregan-Paxton. Ms. Gregan-Paxton,
program coordinator of the business school's office of undergraduate
advising, says she is impressed by the work ethic and politeness of her
students from China. They regularly bring her and other professors small
gifts to show their appreciation; on a single day recently, she
received a folding fan, a necklace, and a silk scarf. She's not
surprised that they would want to stick together. "Even if there were
Chinese students who wanted to break out of their pack," she says, "they
wouldn't necessarily get the warmest reception."</p>
<p>For example, Ms. Tang, the marketing major, recalls one class in
which, she says, the professor ignored her questions and listened only
to American students. Also, while working on a group project in a
sociology class, she says she was given the cold shoulder: "They pretend
to welcome you but they do not." The encounters left a deep impression.
"I will remember that all of my life," she says.</p>
<p>Last fall, Kent E. St. Pierre was teaching an intermediate accounting
class with 35 students, 17 of them from China. Within a couple of
weeks, all but three of the non-Chinese students had dropped the course.
Why did the American students flee? "They said the class was very
quiet," recalls Mr. St. Pierre, who considers himself a 1960s-style
liberal and says he's all for on-campus diversity. But, he agrees, "it
was pretty deadly."</p>
<p>In many schools across Asia, vigorous give-and-take is the exception.
No doubt, as Mr. St. Pierre points out, if you were to place Americans
into a Chinese classroom, they would seem like chatterboxes.</p>
<h4 class="CHE-5-column-News subhead">Making the Grade</h4>
<p>Despite the unfamiliar learning style, the average grades of Chinese
students at Delaware are nearly identical to those of other
undergraduates. That may, in part, reflect China's strong preparation in
quantitative skills, which holds Chinese students in good stead in
math-intensive programs like business and engineering, two of the most
popular majors for Chinese students and ones in which mastery of English
is less crucial. Indeed, some of China's undergraduates are strong
enough to land spots at the nation's most selective institutions;
Harvard had about 40 in the 2010-11 academic year.</p>
<p>But some professors say they have significantly changed their
teaching practices to accommodate the students. During quizzes, Mr. St.
Pierre now requires everyone to leave books at the front of the
classroom to prevent cheating, a precaution he had not taken during his
two decades at Delaware. And participation counts less, so as not to
sink the grades of foreign students. In the past, he required members of
the class to give two or three presentations during the semester. Now
he might ask them to give one. "I've had American students saying they
don't understand what's being said in the presentations," he says. "It's
painful."</p>
<p>Robert Schweitzer, a professor of finance and economics, frets about
using fairly basic vocabulary words. "I have students say, 'I don't know
what 'ascending' means,'" he says. "Did they get the question wrong
because they don't know the material or because they don't know the
language?"</p>
<p>If professors struggle to understand the students, the reverse is also true.</p>
<p>Damon Ma is in the language center's so-called bridge program, which
means his English was good enough that he could start taking regular
classes even though he hasn't finished the language program. Mr. Ma is
enthusiastic about studying in the United States, something he's dreamed
about doing since he was a boy, and he is conscious of the academic
contrasts between the two countries.</p>
<p>"Everything is copying in China," he says. "They write a 25-page paper and they spent two hours and they got an A."</p>
<p>He was nervous about taking his first university class—an
introduction to ancient Chinese history—and, a few weeks into the
semester, he was still wrestling with the language barrier. "I
understand maybe 70 percent," he says. "I can't get the details, the
vocabulary."</p>
<p>Many of the students arrive at Delaware expecting to take English
classes for just a few months, but end up spending a year or more at the
language institute, paying $2,850 per eight-week session.</p>
<p>Chuck Xu and Edison Ding have been in Delaware's English program for a
full year. Their English is, at best, serviceable, and they struggle to
carry on a basic conversation with a reporter. Mr. Ding says he paid an
agent about $3,000 to preparation him for standardized exams, fill out
his application, and help write his essay in English. What was the essay
about? Mr. Ding doesn't recall.</p>
<p>Mr. Xu just completed the English program and is enrolled in freshman
classes. Mr. Ding has yet to pass the final stage and hopes to begin
regular classes in the spring.</p>
<p>About 5 percent of students in the language program flunk out before
their freshman year. Chengkun Zhang, a former president of Delaware's
Chinese Students and Scholars Association, has known students who simply
got frustrated and returned home. "I know a couple of students who have
complained to me," he says. "They think that the ELI program is doing
nothing more than pulling money from their pockets."</p>
<h4 class="CHE-5-column-News subhead">A Target Market</h4>
<p>The university's push to attract more foreign students is part of the
"Path to Prominence," a plan laid out by Delaware's president, Patrick
T. Harker. When he came to Delaware, five years ago, less than 1 percent
of the freshman class was international. He knows firsthand about the
classroom challenges because he has taught a freshman course each year.
"They're very good students that struggle with American idiom and
American culture," he says. Mr. Harker says he's aware that applications
from China aren't always what they seem to be. He notes, though, that
it's a problem lots of universities, not just Delaware, are grappling
with.</p>
<p>But he rejects the notion that the university's recruiting effort in
China is mainly about money. "The students from New Jersey pay, too," he
says. "For us it really is about diversity."</p>
<p>Still, the majority of Delaware's international undergraduates are
Chinese, an imbalance that Louis L. Hirsh, director of admissions, says
he's working to change. Delaware is trying to make inroads into the
Middle East and South America, he says.</p>
<p>But for colleges that want to go global, and quickly, a natural place for recruiting efforts is China.</p>
<p>When Oklahoma Christian University decided to jump into international
admissions, it hired three recruiters and sent them to China. "China
was the market we decided to target," says John Osborne, director of
international programs, "because it was just so large." Today the
university, which admitted its first foreign student in 2007, has 250
overseas undergraduates, a quarter of whom are from China.</p>
<p>Indeed, if American colleges turned on the recruiting spigot in China
expecting a steady trickle of students, they've gotten a gusher
instead. Ohio State received nearly 2,900 undergraduate applications
from China this year. Mount Holyoke College could have filled its entire
freshman class with Chinese students. A single foreign-college fair in
Beijing this fall drew a crowd of 30,000.</p>
<p>The very size of the market can make it daunting and difficult to
navigate. While many American colleges have long-established connections
with universities in China, having maintained pipelines for generations
of graduate students, most do not have strong relationships with the
country's high schools. When only a few of China's very best students
went abroad, it was easy enough for colleges to focus their efforts on a
handful of elite secondary schools. But now admissions officers must
familiarize themselves with potentially thousands of schools to find a
good fit. That's tough for American recruiters who visit only once or
twice a year.</p>
<p>Some universities, including Delaware, have hired agents overseas, a
practice that is banned in domestic recruiting, and which this year has
been at the center of a debate within the National Association for
College Admission Counseling. Though the agents act as the colleges'
representatives, marketing them at college fairs and soliciting
applications, that's no guarantee that the colleges know the origin of
the applications, or the veracity of their grades and scores.</p>
<p>For those on the ground, there's deepening concern that American colleges have entered China without truly understanding it.</p>
<p>Not long ago, Tom Melcher, of Zinch China was contacted by the
provost of a large American university who wanted to recruit 250 Chinese
students, stat. When asked why, the provost replied that his
institution faced a yawning budget deficit. To fill it, he told Mr.
Melcher, the university needed additional students who could pay their
own way, and China has many of them.</p>
<p>"Do I think the budget squeeze is driving the rush to international?" Mr. Melcher says. "Unfortunately, yes."</p>
<p>At Delaware, officials are trying new strategies. They've started a
program that pairs Chinese and other international students with mentors
to help ease their transition to American academic life. In addition,
the English Language Institute runs workshops for faculty members who
have Chinese students in their classes. Other institutions are also
rethinking their approach. Valparaiso University, in Indiana, has
started a special course to give international students on academic
probation extra help with English and study skills.</p>
<p>There are ways to improve the admissions process as well, including
interviewing applicants in person to get a sense of their actual English
abilities and to discover more about their academic backgrounds beyond
test scores. A handful of institutions, including the University of
Virginia, have alumni and students interview prospective students,
either in the home country or via Skype, and the Council on
International Educational Exchange, a nonprofit group, has begun
offering an interview service. Such changes are welcome to some
educators on the ground. Mr. Jiang, the deputy principal in Beijing,
believes oral interviews could give colleges a better sense of students'
readiness for an American classroom.</p>
<p>Some universities, too, are hiring outside evaluators to review
transcripts or are opening offices in China with local staff members who
can spot the application red flags that colleges are missing. But
interviewing and thoroughly evaluating every applicant, considering the
deluge, would be an enormous and expensive undertaking.</p>
<p>For officials like Delaware's Mr. Stevens, who has been dealing with
international students for nearly three decades, Chinese undergraduates
are like a code he's still trying to decipher: "How can we reach them?
How can we get them to engage?"</p>
<p>"That," he says, "is something that keeps me up at night."</p>
<p><em>This article is a collaboration between </em>The Chronicle of Higher Education<em> and </em>The New York Times.<em> Tom Bartlett is a senior writer, and Karin Fischer is a senior reporter, for </em>The Chronicle<em>.</em></p>
<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Chinese-Students-Prove-a/129628/">http://chronicle.com/article/Chinese-Students-Prove-a/129628/</a><p><em><br></em></p>
</div><br><br>-- <br>=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of<br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture<br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br>
<br>-------------------------------------------------<br><br>