The Insider is reporting that UC Irvine and UC Riverside have been favoring wealthy Chinese applicants by garnering special considerations to students from the Pegasus California School, an elite Chinese high school that “guaranteed parents, in writing, that every graduate would gain admission to one of the top 100 U.S. universities.” The most alarming allegation involves an individual who worked simultaneously at both UC Irvine, in the office of the president no less, and the Chinese high school.
While we see some validity to claims that the US universities can not control the claims made by their Chinese counterparts, we also believe that the schools should have taken more responsibility to diligently monitor their partners’ marketing claims and have such concerns expressly contained in their initial agreement contracts. It’s 2021 after all and there’s no excuse for ignorance about the sales claims often made by in certain markets.
There is never a good climate for a story like this, but after the frustrations many Californians have felt about the UCs seeming to favor out-of-state and international applicants who pay higher tuition, now is a particularly bad time for such a story.
