Today, a video titled "A Day of Internship in a 985 Freshman Investment Bank" blew up the major WeChat groups of Homepage.
In the video, a first-year student who claims to be an intern in the investment banking department of China Securities Construction Investment Co., Ltd. shows his extremely luxurious internship life in an extremely high-profile way-
In the morning, I drove a Porsche to the company for an internship, and I didn't check in until 10 o'clock, and I didn't forget to flash the clearly visible logo of China Securities Construction Investment Company;
Then I made a cup of coffee slowly, prepared to start work, and then began to leak customer information-
Expose the IPO information of a certain round technology, a certain ability information control, and a certain soft innovation in the video
Two of them are IPO companies with China Securities Construction Investment as the sponsor, and they are in the critical stage of listing, and the result is that he can directly put customer information and even regulatory confirmation letters in short videos...
When they get off work at 5 o'clock, they will go to play golf with full energy, come to a game of badminton in the evening, and go home to end the day!
This day really makes people can't help but sigh: Where did the young master come from?
After the video fermented on the Internet, the boy's identity information was quickly picked up by netizens-
Wang is a student at the School of Physical Education of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, who won the men's traditional boxing event at the Asian University Wushu Championships.
Even though CSCI responded that it had ordered the student to terminate the "study" and initiated an accountability process against the person in charge:
But I still can't stop everyone's doubts - why can a freshman sports student actually intern in an investment bank?!
In fact, the answer has already appeared in the response of China Securities Construction Investment:
"Study"
The second line of sports students entered 985, took an internship offer in investment banking, went abroad to study for a master's degree in finance, and directly entered the securities industry or family business after coming back, isn't it "the perfect first half of the young master's life".
The internship experience in the investment bank, which is called "research", is precisely a kind of background improvement, and through the internship experience, the "personality" that the admissions officers of famous schools want to see is established, and this kind of business has long been played in the study abroad circle....
Not only Wang's internship program, but also scientific research experience, professional internship, personal exhibition, entrepreneurship, charity fundraising, international public welfare activities, and any other experience that can be written into the resume and reflect the knowledge and skills that match the application direction have become common background improvement projects nowadays.
To put it bluntly, all your conditions are actually your background.
(The admission situation of the TOP20 and TOP50 in the US graduate school application: it is difficult to open the gap in terms of GPA and standardized scores)
Behind this is the quiet change of the times.
As the track to elite schools has become more and more crowded, it has become difficult to distinguish applicants only by academic performance and standardized test scores, and the application season in recent years has become more and more "metaphysical" and "subjective".
The background has been improved, and it has gradually become the standard configuration of domestic study abroad intermediary service agencies.
According to media surveys, since around 2015, more and more third-party background improvement platforms and scientific research platforms have developed in the domestic study abroad market, which provide paid scientific research, internships, public welfare and other activities to enhance students' "soft power" in the application stage.
If the objective conditions of the students are not outstanding enough (double non/low GPA/low language/major mismatch, etc.), the institution will say that the hardware disadvantage can be made up for by improving the soft background.
Even if the hard power has passed, many institutions will PUA:
"If you want to go to the top project, the competitors are all good in school + good grades, you don't do a few more memorizations, what are the advantages?
"I have two students with 4 A*s and IELTS 7, but in the end, the results are very different, one entered Oxford, the other entered Manchester, and the background was improved."
...... Words like this often directly give anxiety to some students who are bored with GPA.
(Synthesized from: the "offer wall" of a back-lifting agency)
What's even more exaggerated is that some institutions will post a lot of legendary stories of "students changing their lives against the sky" -
Some poor students in the traditional sense "counterattacked" to prestigious schools just by carrying the package on their backs.
These narratives, with mixed truths and falsehoods, have made many people who originally wanted to rely on the limited resources around them and apply on a down-to-earth basis gradually get involved in the anxiety and hidden worries of studying abroad application and consumption.
After all, who doesn't want to roll up the possibility again and again to enhance the competitiveness of 100 million points.
As a result, more and more bizarre and diverse niche side projects have been created -
Study Tours, Summer Camps, Laboratory Experiences, International Volunteers,
Humanistic Tours, Patented Inventions, Hiking in Tibet,
Animal rescue, intangible cultural heritage, medical services, high-end dinners...
It seems that the more novel, niche, or even activities that others won't do, the more special they are.
Among them, the public welfare volunteer projects with a relatively low threshold, especially the volume within the volume:
First of all, going to Nepal to help the poor build houses is of course more "high-end" than a child who volunteers in a library in a nearby community;
Gradually, picking up garbage in the Maldives, protecting sea turtles in Fiji, and building houses in Southeast Asia are not rare experiences;
In fact, some students will directly establish a service organization in Africa and become young CEOs;
But none of the above can compare to the "Arctic scientific research project that only recruits 15 people in the world......
Behind all the backing projects, there is naturally a burning family fund -
A parent in Beijing complained: "If my child takes a one-week project, my one-month salary will be spent." ”
According to @Xinhua News Agency, a reporter visited the back mention agency and found that in the mouth of study abroad consultants, even "relatively cheap" domestic scientific research projects start at 16,800 yuan.
Every back-mention is a huge "shrinkage" of family funds.
(Academic program of an institution |.) Source: Xinhua News Agency)
Could it be that crazy involution, burning money, and exploding gold coins have become the standard for applying for overseas universities?
And can these expensive and seemingly "unpopular" activities really make the study abroad application "unique" and worthwhile?
Just as after the release of the Ivy League school list every year, a group of "enthusiastic" volunteers who volunteer in Africa will disappear, and more and more so-called "humanistic care" will be alienated into a tool to gild their resumes under the setting of many institutions.
Although, it is a good thing that young people are concerned about social issues.
However, in practice, whether it is the protection and education of women and children, wildlife conservation, or environmental protection projects, many students are not encouraged to conduct in-depth research on whether and what kind of help is needed.
In addition to the paid public welfare at the bottom of the "water and fake" wind review, there is also a kind of water called "Famous Guide Takes Me Water Paper"——
Some students participated in the so-called "scientific research project led by a professor of a certain academy in China", but in fact, they spent 2 weeks in the laboratory and produced a water paper that they were embarrassed to sign;
There are also students who see a project that claims to have a "fairy-level professor lineup" and can publish articles in "international academic journals" after the completion of the project; However, before paying the application fee of 50,000 yuan, I checked the past publication results of the institution and found that all the disciplines and various articles were published in the same English-language journal, and the authors of the journal were all Chinese high school students and undergraduates......
What's even more outrageous is the direct falsification:
Driven by performance, some study abroad agencies have launched the so-called "all-inclusive service" - directly forging various specialty certificates and certificates, and then fabricating "students' experiences and experiences" in personal statements and other text descriptions.
The results are also quite fake-
A high-level paper that is difficult for even a doctoral student to send in a few years, and you, a high school student, send it out in a few months?
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
What's even more suffocating is that some of the "internships" that students and parents have bought at great expense are not compliant at all:
You must know that projects that have not gone through the compliance process through the company's HR and are privately peddled by employees in the name of the company will not be able to show a truly useful internship recommendation letter issued by the company's email address, or an internship certificate with an official seal.
There are also some study abroad agencies that claim to cooperate with university researchers, but only after the students pay the money do they find out that the pure · goods are not right - even the tutors are fake, and the so-called "recommendation letter of famous professors" advertised by their institutions is naturally nonsense.
There are even some "bonus experiences", which are high-risk projects in themselves, and they will pay a tragic price for their lives if they are not careful!
In August 2021, a 16-year-old high school boy from the overseas department of a foreign Chinese school in Beijing died unexpectedly while participating in the youth Tengger Desert exploration project organized by the China Exploration and Exploration Association.
The classmate said bluntly: Most people in the school participate in this activity just to study abroad to add points, not to like outdoor sports......
(Information about the project |.) Source: Red Star News)
It can be said that in this money game called "Study Abroad Personality", it has long been a group of demons.
Even if all goes well, the vast majority of intermediaries will only be able to provide a fixed template and will not "customize" the student's own views, perceptions and abilities.
Batches of students who seem to be perfect and have the same face are just made by the assembly line, which is not competitive at all, and is completely disproportionate to the high price.
Ghostwriting, falsification, excessive packaging, and even students paying with their lives to memorize it, are nothing more than just trying to get admissions officers from prestigious United States universities to review their materials for a few more seconds.
But in the end – can it really be "safely ashore", as the hype says?
The person in charge of a study abroad agency said frankly in an interview:
Teaching in poverty-stricken areas, donations and materials in Africa, there have been countless in recent years, and admissions officers have already seen the numbness, and they will also ask a series of questions about the specific material details of a certain experience during the interview, and there is no way to prepare in advance.
Many students think that college admissions officers don't go to great lengths to verify the "authenticity" of an event experience, but a student on the Collegeconfidential forum shared that the library where she volunteered received a call from a college admissions officer to verify whether she had worked there.
Once it is proven that the duration of volunteer activities is exaggerated, the work experience/internship experience is fabricated, and the extracurricular activities and award experience are fabricated, it will be considered as material fraud and serious cheating.
As for the Great Leap Forward-style faulty scientific research and internships, many foreign universities will hire third-party background investigation agencies to check students' experiences in detail, leaving little room for fraud; And once found, the offer will not be issued.
(For example, CMU only accepts background investigation from HR channels, and it must be an official internship who has been officially admitted)
Even if you are successfully enrolled, there is no guarantee that you will have no worries about it, and once you are caught falsifying the materials when you applied during your studies, you will face more serious penalties such as withdrawal and revocation of your degree.
Many readers should remember the "largest admissions fraud case in United States history" in 2019, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it set off an earthquake in the global education circle——
Among them, Zhao Tao, chairman of China Buchang Pharmaceutical, spent as much as 6.5 million US dollars (equivalent to 43 million yuan per month) to make his daughter Zhao Yusi a "United States college entrance examination champion" with sailing expertise.
Funnily enough, although Miss Zhao did get into Stanford University, she was not admitted to the East Asian Studies program through the sailing program.
In other words, if you don't falsify your experience and go through the normal admission process, Zhao is likely to be admitted smoothly.
(After illegally obtaining a Stanford offer, Yusi Zhao made a live broadcast on his own, claiming to be the "top student in the United States college entrance examination")
But after the fraud was exposed, Stanford University finally expelled her in 2019 due to Zhao's fraudulent behavior in the application process.
And after that, all United States colleges and universities that want to face will silently block Zhao Yusi in the application system...
can be admitted normally, but you have to spend money to buy a "prestigious school pass", and you will eventually be expelled.
This wave of operations also made Chairman Zhao nicknamed "the biggest leek in China", and bought a joke for 43 million.
Having said that, even the Zhao family was expelled after being found guilty of fraud, for the majority of middle-class families, what pie can really fall from the sky...
What's more, every time the "perfect persona" of Chinese students collapses, it is faced with more countermeasures by overseas universities regarding packaging, cheating, and counterfeiting.
If you are unfortunate enough to encounter this kind of "study abroad version" · Zhai Tianlin", you just say that you are not angry.
To put it bluntly, background improvement is only a dimension for overseas university examiners to refer to, and it will definitely corroborate each other in multiple dimensions according to academic performance and standardized test scores.
The reason for the formation of the illusion of back-mentioning > hard power is not only their own anxiety about going to school, but also related to the fact that institutions often play poor information and fool prospective international students and parents who are relatively unfamiliar with foreign evaluation systems.
Once there are extreme cases with low scores and high records, they will become the object of special books from the organization.
This makes it easy for students and parents to have the illusion that "even if I don't study hard, as long as I do a particularly good job, I can still get into such a good school." ”
(Source: Screenshot of an organization's webpage)
Therefore, students and parents want to gain a greater competitive advantage by increasing their soft power among the candidates who are fighting like clouds and immortals - this is understandable.
Paying for purchase is not the core of the chaos in the background improvement industry.
The key is whether the students really love and participate in it, and whether they convey their authentic voices.
Even if parents and intermediaries forcibly package a "flawless", even if they "win" an exam or an application, it is not the real you.
All the "gifts" given by fate have long been secretly marked with a price.