WENTING TANG is quick to laugh, listens to high-energy bands like Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and OK Go, and describes herself on her Facebook page as “really really fun” and “really really serious.” Ms. Tang, a junior majoring in management and international business, speaks confident, if not flawless, English. That wasn’t always the case. When she applied to the University of Delaware, her English was, in her estimation, very poor.

唐文婷（Wenting Tang，音译）很爱笑，她听RedJumpsuit Apparatus和OK Go这类劲爆乐团的歌曲，并在她的Facebook主页上说自己“真的真的很有趣、真的真的很认真”。她是管理和国际商务专业的三年级学生，说起英语来自信十足，虽然还不是完美无瑕。但事情并非一贯如此。按她自己的评价，当初申请特拉华大学的时候，她的英语非常糟糕。

Ms. Tang, who went to high school in Shanghai, didn’t exactly choose to attend Delaware, a public institution of about 21,000 students that admits about half its applicants — and counts Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. among prominent graduates. Ms. Tang’s mother wanted her to attend college in the United States, and so they visited the offices of a dozen or more agents, patiently listening to their promises and stories of success.

唐文婷在上海读了高中，当初并没有特意要选特拉华大学。这所公立大学有大约2万1000名学生就读，录取率大约是50%，杰出毕业生中有美国副总统拜登。唐文婷的母亲想让她到美国念大学，于是她们跑了十来家中介公司，耐心听取了他们的承诺和成功案例。

Her mother chose an agency that suggested Delaware and helped Ms. Tang fill out her application, guiding her through a process that otherwise would have been bewildering. Because her English wasn’t good enough to write the admissions essay, staff members at the agency, which charged her $4,000, asked her questions about herself in Chinese and produced an essay. (Test prep was another $3,300.)

她的母亲选定了一家推荐特拉华大学的中介，他们帮她填写了申请材料，指导她完成申请程序，不然她会是一头雾水。由于她的英语还没好到能写申请论文，中介公司收取了4000美元费用后，用中文问了一些关于她本人的问题，替她写了一篇论文。（他们还另外收取了3300美元准备考试的费用。）

Now that she can write in English herself, she doesn’t think much of what the employees wrote. But it served its purpose: she was admitted, and spent six months in the English-language program before beginning freshman classes. And despite bumps along the way, she’s getting good grades and enjoying college life. As for allowing an agent to write her essay, she sees that decision in pragmatic terms: “At that time, my English not better as now.”

如今她能够自己用英文写作了，她觉得当初中介写得并不怎么样。但那已经达到了目的：她被录取了，花了6个月时间参加英语语言项目，然后开始学习大一的课程。尽管一路磕磕碰碰，但她现在成绩不错，也享受大学生活。她用很实用主义的说辞来解释为什么要让中介替她写申请论文：“那时候，我的英语没现在这么好。”

Most Chinese students who are enrolled at American colleges turn to intermediaries to shepherd them through the admissions process, according to a study by researchers at Iowa State University published in the Journal of College Admission.

爱荷华州立大学的研究人员在《大学录取期刊》（Journal of College Admission）上发表的研究称，绝大多数在美国大学念本科的中国学生都求助于中介来指导他们完成申请程序。

Education agents have long played a role in sending Chinese students abroad, dating back decades to a time when American dollars were forbidden in China and only agents could secure the currency to pay tuition. Admission experts say they can provide an important service, acting as guides to an application process that can seem totally, well, foreign. Application materials are frequently printed only in English. Chinese students often are baffled by the emphasis on extracurriculars and may have never written a personal essay. Requiring recommendations from guidance counselors makes little sense in a country where few high schools have one on staff. Many assume the U.S. News & World Report rankings issue is an official government publication.

教育行业中介一直在对外输送中国留学生方面扮演着重要角色，这可以追溯到几十年前，那时候中国还禁止自由兑换美元，只有中介能确保提供美金支付学费。申请专家们说他们可以提供重要的服务，为看似完全陌生的申请程序担任指导。申请材料通常都是全英文的，而中国学生常常会因为美国学校强调课外活动而一筹莫展，并且可能从来没有写过个人自述文章。在中国，向辅导员要推荐信也行不通，因为很少有高中会有这样的人员。不少人还以为《美国新闻与世界报道》（U.S. News & World Report）的排名是正式的政府出版物。

But while there are certainly aboveboard agents and applications, other recruiters engage in fraudulent behavior. An administrator at one high school in Beijing says agents falsified her school’s letterhead to produce doctored transcripts and counterfeit letters of recommendation, which she discovered when a parent called to complain about being charged a fee by an agent for documents from the school. James E. Lewis, director of international admissions and recruiting at Kansas State University, says he once got a clutch of applications clearly submitted by a single agent, with all fees charged to the same bank branch, although the students came from several far-flung cities. The grades on three of the five transcripts, he says, were identical.

虽然肯定有光明磊落的中介和申请人，但很多留学中介都参与了弄虚作假的行为。北京一所高中的一位行政人员说，中介假造了他们高中的信纸抬头来制作篡改过的成绩单并伪造推荐信，直到一名家长打电话来投诉说中介对学校出具的文件都要收费的时候，她才发现这回事。堪萨斯州立大学国际录取和招生主任詹姆斯·刘易斯（James E. Lewis）说，他曾经收到过一批显然是同一家中介提交的申请材料，因为申请费都是从同一家银行支行扣除的，而这些学生却来自几个相距甚远的城市。他还说，5份成绩单中，有3份的分数都是一模一样的。

Zinch China, a consulting company that advises American colleges and universities about China, last year published a report based on interviews with 250 Beijing high school students bound for the United States, their parents, and a dozen agents and admissions consultants. The company concluded that 90 percent of Chinese applicants submit false recommendations, 70 percent have other people write their personal essays, 50 percent have forged high school transcripts and 10 percent list academic awards and other achievements they did not receive. The “tide of application fraud,” the report predicted, will likely only worsen as more students go to America.

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