“How a Chinese Company Bought Access to Admissions Officers at Top U.S. Colleges.”
That's the headline of an investigative article published by Reuters on Friday. The article focuses on the Shanghai-based Dipont Education Management Group and its alleged “special relationship” with about 20 well-known American colleges, including Carleton, Pomona and Wellesley Colleges; Colgate, Tulane and Vanderbilt Universities; and the Universities of California, Berkeley; Vermont; and Virginia. Multiple former Dipont employees have accused the company of engaging in application fraud, charges the CEO denies.
According to the Reuters article, Dipont and an affiliated charity paid for airfare and honoraria for admissions officers from top U.S. universities to participate in the company’s eight-day summer workshop on applying to U.S. colleges, which is held in Shanghai and attended by hundreds of paying Chinese students. For the past three summers, admissions officers at participating U.S. colleges and universities were given a choice of either business-class airfare or economy-class travel plus an honorarium -- worth $4,500 the past two summers, and in some cases paid in cash, in $100 bills.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/10/17/reuters-investigates-special-relationship-between-us-admissions-officers-and-chinese