HONG KONG, Jan. 26, 2013—Today I visited an exhibition hall at the Asia World Expo, next door to Hong Kong International Airport, before heading home to Los Angeles this morning.
As most students know, the SAT is typically administered at schools in regular classrooms--you know, with whiteboards, posters, books, and all the rest. I reckon that that hall was at least 200 feet wide and 500 feet long—more or less the size of two football fields. The hall was empty, except for me and a handful of parents milling around, waiting while their kids took the SAT in an adjacent hall.
That hall, identical to the one that I was in, was reportedly full. Rows upon rows of desks lined up from side to side and end to end. In each desk sat an aspiring student who will apply to, and, with luck, gain admission to American colleges. I was told by an independent college counselor who was showing me around that the October test requires two of those exhibit halls.
That’s a lot of kids taking the SAT in a single venue. I imagine that more students take the SAT at the Asia Expo than in any other single venue in the world.
Why Hong Kong?
There are two reasons for the unspeakable popularity of this venue. The first, more straightforward reason is that applications to US colleges from Asian students have been steadily rising for years. The second reason is more complicated.
It’s worth noting that applications from Hong Kong itself have remained flat, even as those from Mainland China have skyrocketed; the number of Chinese students currently in the US has doubled, to nearly 200,000 since 2007. The reason so many students take the SAT in Hong Kong is that—incredibly—the Chinese Ministry of Education does not permit public testing centers in China from administering the SAT (see note at bottom of this College Board page).
Meanwhile, poor oversight and rampant corruption—everything from cheat sheets to faked identities—have undermined the integrity of SAT testing throughout Asia (and elsewhere). Of late, the College Board has had trouble not trust their own results, and, of course, neither could colleges.
The solution for China is a massive, tightly controlled environment better suited for boat shows than for intellectual expression. Now students from all over China fly in to Hong Kong—for the weekend or just the day—to take a test that may hold the key to their future. There are even companies that organize SAT trips—complete with chaperons, air travel, hotel stay, and last-minute tutoring. It’s probably a welcome service for parents, many of whom might never have left their city and are pinning their dreams on their kids.
The End of the Rainbow
The stereotype in Chinese education circles is that every Chinese parent wants his or her child (often the only child, because of the former One-Child Policy) to attend Harvard. Not just a ranked school or even an Ivy League school but Harvard in particular. It is a nearly maniacal obsession. (To anyone who attended Harvard, as I did for graduate school, their single-minded veneration is quizzical at best.)
I worry that perhaps each of those seats has a Harvard-level score in mind when they sit down for the test. To be sure, the SAT is light-years easier than China’s Gaokao exam. I hope, though, that many of them and their parents will be delighted with any of the thousands of other great schools in the US. And I hope that they will understand that even a 2400 does not guarantee admission anywhere because of the subjective nature of college admissions.
The good news is that all of those schools—Harvard included—can now trust the SAT scores of their Chinese applicants. And it means that applicants have to study hard, get great test prep, and earn their scores fair and square.
Even so, I hope students and their parents approach the application process with sober minds and good spirits. There were more kids in that one exhibit hall than there are spots in a freshman class at Harvard—or at nearly any other university, for that matter.
--Josh Stephens
Editor's Note: This post has been updated to correct errors regarding the College Board's policies on testing in China.
--Josh Stephens
Josh Stephens is ArborBridge's Director of International Development. He can be reached at Josh@ArborBridge.com.
