Fake admission letter for Tsinghua goes viral

After receiving praise and good wishes from his family and neighbors, a high school graduate in Guangdong province who claimed to have won admission to Beijing’s renowned Tsinghua University was found to have faked the admission letter.

The student, surnamed Cao, from Tiaofeng township in Zhanjiang, scored 235 points out of 750 in this year’s national college entrance exam, known in China as the gaokao, but he told his family he had scored more than 700, Nanfang Daily, a local newspaper, reported.

To convince his family of his good performance, Cao faked an admission letter from Tsinghua University that said he had been admitted to study artificial intelligence. The whole village celebrated the good news with banners and firecrackers.

But after neighbors pointed out some flaws in the letter, such as the misuse of several Chinese characters, Cao’s father asked his son, 18, to show him his gaokao score and discovered the lie.

“I do not understand why he has lied to us. It’s not like him to do something like that,” Cao’s father was quoted as saying. “After we found out the truth, he did not sleep well for days. He ran away from the house and said he would give up on further education.” Beijing Youth Daily said the youth had visited a relative in nearby Zhongshan city and expressed deep sorrow for what he had done.

The incident triggered widespread discussion on social media. Many netizens criticized the student for lying about his gaokao score and questioned how his parents had not realized he was deceiving them sooner. Others wondered whether the student had violated any laws by faking the letter.

An official from the local public security bureau told China News Service the student had not committed a crime as he had only fabricated one admission letter just to show off, and would likely be given a verbal warning, but the police would investigate the fabricator of the document and punish those responsible in accordance with the law.

Huang Zuteng, Tiaofeng’s Party chief, said the student and his parents were under lots of pressure after the incident went viral online.

“We have offered psychological counseling to them and the student knows that he is wrong,” Huang said. “We hope the public will go easy on them.”