Fake your way into a University

By Alice Berenfeld

MOSNEWS.COM

A university degree is prestigious — no doubt about it. In Russia, it's often prestigious as a thing in itself, not as the mark of education that it's meant to be. Whereas in the West, people pay for the privilege of being taught, in Russia people are often willing to employ someone else's services to avoid learning.

Thus, anyone who knows their English, math, or history by heart, and doesn't have a moral issue with cheating, stands a chance of earning a nice wad of cash by passing a college entrance exam for someone else. People who'd like a diploma at any cost (except actual studying) don't mind paying $200 per written or oral exam to get a degree of their choosing.

In Russia every college or university requires applicants to show up in person and take several written and oral entrance exams. Several people who could have qualified for studying in Moscow's prestigious colleges, but chose to pass the honor to paying customers, have agreed to share their experience with Mosnews on condition of strict confidentiality.

" Inna" had studied in the US on exchange and had had ample chances to polish her English. She was asked by a friend of a friend to take graduate school entrance exams for a young woman who had to satisfy her college's English requirement but didn't feel confident enough to actually take the test. Since Inna's customer was planning to take a correspondence course and no one at the college would actually see her, Inna went in and took the exam in her place. " I have never even met the girl, " she says, " she contacted me through two middlemen."

The young woman's prospective scientific advisor knew that someone else was going to take the exam for her —he just didn't know she was paying. He sympathized with his student and wanted her to get in but realized she didn't really need to use English in her work, so he agreed to have her " friend" help his student pass the requirement she wasn't able to meet. " 1 came to the college and called up the professor from the entrance. He came down and took me to the exam room, " Inna recalls. " I took the written assignment and turned it in. I wasn't asked for any ID or student record."

With her perfect English, Inna passed both exams with flying colors, spending 40 minutes on the written exam and 10 on the oral — while other applicants, who were trying to get in on their own ability sweated away, translating an article from the Financial Times. Another young man was taking the test for money at the same time as she was — for the second or third time already.

" Ludmila" has passed several undergrad entrance exams, including Russian and history, at the Moscow State University in place of applicants whose fathers contacted her. " I was obviously recommended to them, " she says, " that is, their choice wasn't random. There's a certain underground market for these kinds of services."

Unlike Inna, Ludmila had to have her test results checked off on an official application form with the student's name and photograph. " The exam sheet had my picture on it. I assume it must have gotten exchanged somehow later. It remains a mystery to me — it involved some kind of complicated scheming." She surmises that someone must have been bribed to arrange the whole deal.

How high is the risk of getting caught? " I think it's close to zero, ” Ludmila says. 'It's not what everyone's thinking of at the time of the exam."

Exam falsification has been practiced for years and there have been many ways of doing it. " Margarita" recalls writing the entrance essay for her " friend's father's boss's mistress." The woman badly wanted to get into a management program but made three spelling mistakes every second word.

The year was 1999. " It was after the crisis [Russia defaulted on its debt in 1998, prompting a nationwide financial disaster] and I didn't give a hoot as to how to make money, " Margarita recalls. She filed an application to the institute together with the woman whose exam she was supposed to write and sat next to her in the exam room. " I wrote two essays, for myself and for her, and then I pretended that I had changed my mind about applying." She retrieved her own application and got paid $100. " I was happy with my money and my friend's acquaintance...well, I don't know whether she got educated, but she did get accepted."

Nikolai Belokobylsky, Deputy Dean of the Law Department at Moscow State University where Ludmila had passed exams for a paying applicant) commented on the fraudulent entrance exam situation: " I don't know of any such cases." The University does not have any policy of dealing with fraudulent applicants, he said, because applicants are assumed to subscribe to an honor code: " First of all, we always presume innocence. Secondly, there have been no seminars or instructions about this, which allows me to make the judgment that there have been no such cases."

Text 3