In terms of whether paying the application fee, I do know that many
Chinese students tried to avoid
paying. That happened most frequently many years ago when Chinese were
indeed poor and could
not afford. Very often, it was the professors in the department used
their pocket money to pay. Although
Chinese students are now able to afford to pay but increasingly,
students did not pay because they wanted
to take advantage of it. That is something annoying. Chinese students
have generally good reputation as
hard workers and intelligent. However, they also have reputations that
are not so good, such as lying or
cheating, or not dedicated and not loyal. As a Chinese myself, I feel
sad to see the degradation of ethics.
In fact, many of Chinese students are ruining the reputation which will
hurt next cohorts. They may feel that
they took advantage of something and outsmarted Americans. But in
truth, they will eventually hurt themselves.