[thrwy_01]

The bottom line... with rampant cheating on standardized tests, fabricated school records, and massive "assistance" in college applications, it has become almost impossible to accurately measure the merit of most applicants from east asia.

First order effects arising from this are not that big a deal, those students will either wash out in in the university setting, or will end up cheating their way through school to the degree that they will be useless to many employers afterwards. The bigger issues is that, whether due to malice or not, schools have limited enrollment spots and people who try to "play fair" will be left at a disadvantage. Some might say that this is not all bad; that it prepares students for the real world. But I would like to think that we want to protect our culture/society from devolving into the sort of low trust free for all that exists in some other parts of the world. Anecdotally I've heard that this shift has already started to permeate our universities, where many students feel immense pressure to cheat because so many other people are doing it.

I'd be lying if I said that this didn't have a big effect on the way I view recent east asian immigrants in the workforce. Let you say I'm xenophobic, "recent east asian immigrant" would accurately describe many people in my family and social circles, and if I didn't open my mouth, the average bystander might assume I would be in that category as well.

The college board and individual colleges are not exactly innocent bystanders in all of this, and I'm glad I got through the system before these issues became acute, but I feel really badly for students from anywhere who actually play by the rules.