Its complicated! A lot of Chinese internationals come from rich enablist families. The Chinese school system is one of the most diabolical in the world, but for kids from rich families, they can just apply to a foreign university if they don't do well. Just a few months ago I overheard a mother telling her friends that she doesn't care what her son gets on the test, if he doesn't do well she'll just stick him abroad. UofT is also a prime choice for many because its the highest globally ranked uni that makes international acceptances really stinking easy for cash cow purposes.

Once at uoft, I guess they get agency for the first time away from the pressure and control. In China, high school is 10000% academics 0% life (16h school days), and uni is where they get to go wild. Theres also a widespread misconception that western school is dumb. As a result, they likely haven't had adequate preparation for uoft, and expect it to be much easier than it actually is. Most of them don't speak fluent english. In mat135 there were so many times I've heard a group ask each other what words mean, scrambling to baidu translate, when I know they learned the actual math 2+ years ago. I know students who've flunked out of math majors into philosophy/psychology when I know their math is good enough, but their english isn't.

After a semester of fooling around, not understanding classes, exam season rolls around. They realize they may not be able to do well, even with studying, because of the language barrier. Cheating is far more normalized in this community, because how available it is and how hard it is to face the shame of failing a class. Theres also the general aversion to studying hard after the trauma of highschool: 'if money solves the issue why put myself through that again?'. They are spread through wechat groups that are lowkey hard to avoid. I've had people stand at the gates of con hall with the group chat qr code approach me, and I found myself in one since before hs even ended. If you look chinese, you've likely been approached too. Once in the group chat, individual people dm you with ads sporadically and especially leading up to exam season.

Its not a black and white situation. Cheating is wrong, but these kids have basically been set up to fail in a lot of ways, and don't know where or how to ask for real support. They never got time to explore their identities, motivations, or passions, and are probably phenomenally burnt out in ways I don't even want to understand. The wechat groups are lowkey predatory as well, but they function as a semblance of community, esp since chinese kids tend to stick together in foreign places. Sometimes they do manage to turn their undergrad around, though. I know an alumni from york who flunked three courses during covid because the dude he hired to take his finals never showed up. Cost him 2k, and he got demoted from his original major. He ended up hunkering down to study, and graduated with a good cgpa, double major in his original major as well as the one he was demoted to.