Tens of Thousands of Dollars for a College Admission

We all know that the private education market in Korea is extremely big and the demand for private education only continues to grow. This is also the case for Chinese students living both in China and in the United States. I recently read an article on the recent boom of college admission consulting companies among Chinese students which made me question the role of private education in our lives. This article was about college admission consulting services that cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. The agencies designs extracurricular activities for the students, guides them in essay writing, tutors them for the SAT, helps them with meet-and-greet sessions with alumni, and more. Not only do the agencies guide and assist the students, at time, the agencies write application essays and fill out the applications themselves on behalf of the students. This is not only a fast-growing industry among Chinese students but have been extremely popular in Korea as well.

Even though it is understandable why students and parents demand these college admission consulting services, I think it poses numerous problems. First of all, by consuming these services, students are basically allowing themselves to be molded by these agencies. As Barbara Knuth, the vice provost at Cornell University, said, “Students have a responsibility to identify their own path toward future goals, rather than keying in how to get into a certain school.” It seems that high school years have become less about learning and more about fitting oneself into something of a formula for successful college admissions.

Another problem with these costly college admission consulting services is that they can lead to a greater bipolarization of the rich and poor. As college admissions get evermore competitive, it seems to be that those who can afford these types of services and other private education are more likely to accepted to prestiges colleges. It is difficult for less well off students to compete with students that have received these services and naturally the unwealthy students will go to less prestiges schools. Though stated generally, I think that the college consulting services can potentially have this impact on society.