Pressured by social status and the idea of “losing face,” many Thai elite and upper-middle class families feel the need to secure for their children an education abroad at a top university, preferably in the United Kingdom or United States, because it reflects the family’s wealth.
By pampering their children with interview coaches and private mentors to help them pad and lie through the process of admission, the credibility of Thai students in general has worsened. We can’t help but feel sorry for those smart kids who fight for a scholarship fairly and work hard to pay to study abroad, only to automatically be suspected as one of the “liars” in a stack of submissions.