8,000 Chinese students dismissed last year from schools in United States

An estimated 3 percent of Chinese students studying in the US - or about 8,000 - were dismissed last year, according to a white paper.

The White Paper on Dismissal Issues of Chinese Students in the United States 2015, recently released by WholeRen Education, a US-based agency providing services to Chinese students, analyzed a sample of 1,657 Chinese students who were dismissed by schools at all levels in the US from 2013 to 2015. It found that more than 57 percent were dismissed because of poor academic performance, the leading cause for dismissal.

A low grade-point average was common among undergraduates and postgraduates who were dismissed. The white paper said that 61 percent of the dismissed undergraduates had a GPA lower than 2.0, and 72 percent of the dismissed postgraduates scored lower than 3.0.

Improper learning attitude, mental problems and physical problems were factors that contributed to poor academic performance, according to the analysis in the white paper.

Other major factors

Maladjustment to the learning environment in the US and insufficient learning ability are also major factors, said Andrew H. Chen, chief development officer of WholeRen Education.

"Everything about the US education, from the curriculum system to the teaching approaches and question types in exams, is so different from China. It takes a lot of time and effort for students to adjust themselves to that, and some who can't get used to it may fail," Chen said.

The white paper also said that academic dishonesty, including cheating in exams and plagiarizing, was the second-largest cause of dismissal, with nearly 23 percent of dismissed Chinese students expelled for this reason.

"These incidents sometimes happened among some Chinese students who are too eager to get good results, while sometimes Chinese students were implicated when others cheated or plagiarized," Chen said.

Li Fengna, deputy director of the US department of Chivast Education International, an overseas study consulting agency in Beijing, said she realized that the number of Chinese students dismissed has been increasing in recent years, as the number heading to study in the US continues to grow.

In the 2013-14 academic year, 274,439 Chinese students were studying in the US, a 16.5 percent increase from the previous year.

"Some students from rich families don't go abroad for study but for the overseas experience," she said, adding that some students were dismissed for lack of knowledge about school regulations.

"More related training and briefing should be given to these students, even though there are orientations at school in the beginning of the semester," she said.

zhaoxinying@chinadaily.com.cn