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Sohn's teacher not only included details of volunteer work that Sohn never did in his recommendation letter but he also helped Sohn win an award for an art piece he never made. According to reports, the teacher had switched the original student artist's name with Sohn's and submitted the work on Sohn's behalf.
Sohn's mother claims that multiple other students have done the same, and university admission officers admit that it is difficult for them to catch the multiple fabricated documents that come their way, especially when the students are helped by teachers.
Some believe that the college application process needs to be changed in order to fix this issue. Some universities have loopholes that make cheating easy for students. Konkuk and Dongguk universities and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies don't need reference information to be included in applications. Sunkwan, Hanyang, and Kyung Hee universities skip the interview process, meaning that they don't require oral confirmation from the students.
According to the Korean Council for University Education, one in every five local universities only have single admission officers who look through more than 400 applications; therefore, it would be difficult for these officers to identify a lie after monotonously screening through papers all day.
There are even admission consultation companies who offer to write cover letters for students at a price. Lee Man Ki from the admissions consultations company Uway suggests that if universities would like to reduce the cheating issue, they should start filing criminal charges so that students are less likely to make the attempt.
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