Standardized tests may be under attack in America but they turn out to be a godsend for Russian parents. That nation's college entrance exams, relics of the Communist era, are specific to each university and usually involve professors drilling applicants in an oral exam. The system is rife with corruption, with professors charging fat sums to serve as "tutors" who give students the exact questions they will face, or simply taking outright bribes for letting students pass. Those who don't pay face a barrage of unanswerable questions and have little chance of admittance, while those who can't afford the bribes are often forced to pay in other ways. (One woman went to work for free at the university her daughter studied at, a kind of latter-day indentured servitude that many American parents can at least sympathize with.) Now a new standardized entrance test, the Unified State Exam, is leveling the playing field and tamping down the corruption of Russian college entry.
"Admissions fee," by Masha Gessen, The New Republic, October 13, 2003 (subscription required)