American pair put Chinese students on the right track with US education

Take a typical high school student in Beijing who grew up in the Chinese test-focused system. He played the erhu, a traditional Chinese instrument commonly studied among his peers, planned to major in math in college, a subject in which Chinese students are known to excel, and anticipated a career in finance.

He also regarded his passion for folk rock as just an unorthodox outlet to his otherwise standard student career.

But as he began planning his college applications to study in the United States, the college consulting business that helped him apply encouraged him to weave his passion for music into his personal essay. They encouraged him to make his after-school rock club official, as a stronger point on his resume. Their efforts helped him stand out among the increasing number of Chinese students like him trying to study in the US and landed him a spot at New York University.

Following the vein of his application process during his freshman year, this student ventured into a couple of music classes and eventually declared himself a music major. This summer, he will intern at a music company in New York - and his parents are opening to the idea that you do not have to get into Julliard to make a career out of music.

This story was one of the most fulfilling success stories for Andrew Sohn and Michael Novielli, who co-founded their own college consulting business in Beijing two years ago.

"The undergraduate experience is all about experiencing and learning new things and pursuing your passions," Sohn says. "As long as you do things and you are genuine about it, it will lead to many different jobs."

In the China market dominated by middlemen, many notorious abroad for fabricating transcripts, forging recommendation letters and pulling personal essays from a stack of papers, Sohn and Novielli founded Due West Education on the premise that authenticity is key to the success of their students.

Ultimately, it is not just about winning at the college admission game but identifying what makes students unique and asking which of the 4,000 universities in the US will best match them, the pair says.

"That's how admissions officers are approaching it from the beginning," Sohn says.

"'Is this someone who is going to enjoy themselves at this school and do well here?' In many cases they decide a great student probably won't like it or won't do well here. They decide to reject them."

Sohn and Novielli say they aim to lead Chinese students to share in the same experience they had in college, where Novielli majored in history and East Asian studies and served as student body president, while Sohn majored in English and was captain of the varsity fencing team. The two became close friends during a summer study abroad program in Beijing.

"We both loved our Columbia experience so much," Sohn says. "We were major ambassadors of Columbia. We supported everything Columbia related."

The summer after their freshman year in 2001, they joined almost 50 students from various top US universities to study Mandarin at Tsinghua University in Beijing. There, they found language partners and marveled at their Chinese counterparts' academic diligence and vastly different backgrounds.

That summer, Beijing won the 2008 Olympic bid and exploded into a party on the streets. It was a summer that planted a sense of possibility, not only in China but in two US college students who watched history unfold.

"It was an incredible summer to be in an academic environment," Sohn says. "It left a long-lasting impression on me. I made up my mind to come back to China at some point in the future."

In the next few years, through graduation and graduate studies, as Novielli worked in admissions and student services at Columbia and Sohn entered the financial sector, they kept their eyes on China and made visits traveling, teaching and doing business. All the while they contemplated ways to bridge the gap between China and the US.

Meanwhile, the Olympics came and went, China's GDP grew and Chinese student enrollment in the US increased at an average rate of 20 percent a year to 157,558 in 2010-2011, according to the US Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Open Doors report.

"We got opinions and they said, 'Yes, there's a need for this sort of thing," Novielli says. "You should do it now.'"

Two years ago, they formed a team of six former admissions officers and graduates of elite colleges. During the last admissions cycle they coached about 20 students and have expanded to more than 100 this year.

The hardest part of starting their own business in China, Novielli says, was sorting through conflicting information. Similarly, with the students they teach, the largest problem they find is misinformation.

Education is the most frequent dinner topic and often the biggest financial investment in an extended family's lives, the two have observed. Yet to their own detriment, parents often ignore the holistic approach of the US college application process and put too much emphasis on their children's test scores.

"In society in general, not just in China but especially in China, there's too much emphasis on rankings," Novielli says. "For some students, a school ranked 18 is not a better fit than a school that's 25th."

Parents often ask them to write essays, as it has come to be expected. When refusing such requests, they frame the issue, not just as one of ethics, but usually more effectively, as a practical one: If students get in not on their own merits but on the merits of an intermediary, how will they adapt once they get there? If they fail, that is not only a wasted investment but a huge loss of face for the entire family.

"Once you can educate on how the admissions process works, they usually jump right on board with your view of ethics and are completely supportive of that," Sohn says.

As awareness of shady practices in China is growing, schools are introducing checks and balances - clearing houses to detect forged transcripts and interviews to check English proficiency. Simultaneously, as more qualified students apply, schools are able to be more selective.

One particularly fierce challenge for Chinese students is to stand out. From the perspective of an admissions counselor, who is looking for diversity even in international applicants, most Chinese students look too similar.

"What we always emphasize is building that admissions story around your interest and passions and ensure the application reflects a complete kind of message," Sohn says.

The company prefers to work with middle-school or early high-school students, taking on a mentor role to help them discover their passions throughout high school. An increasing number of graduate and boarding school applicants are also contracting their services, which can vary from 200 yuan for a session to 30,000 yuan for their early-start program.

"A lot of our job is focused on diving deep into what they have done and what they have accomplished, helping them to see and pull together different pieces of their story," Sohn says.

The personal essay, the most daunting task for most prospective students, is especially foreign for Chinese.

In a culture that emphasizes humility and filial piety, many students want to spend most of their essay focusing on their parents.

Misunderstandings arise on both sides. Admissions officers in the US often do not have time to understand the nuances of scores and extracurricular activities in all countries. They often know the top schools in Beijing and Shanghai but due to lack of information, reject students from top schools elsewhere. Novielli and Sohn see their role beyond that of counselors to one of ambassadors between schools in China and the US.

China Daily