Student jailed for using fake record to enter Chinese University of Hong Kong
Mainland Chinese student sentenced to three months in prison for using forged New York University transcript in application to CUHK
A student has been jailed for three months for falsifying his academic record to secure a place at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) two years ago.
Sha Tin Court on Tuesday recorded a guilty plea from Bao Junyang on a count of obtaining services by deception after prosecutors agreed to withdraw a second charge of making a false statement for the purpose of obtaining an entry permit from the Immigration Department.
The court heard Bao, a 30-year-old former aircraft technician from mainland China, got into CUHK’s business school using a forged transcript purportedly issued by New York University in the 2023-24 academic year.
He became the subject of an internal investigation by CUHK in April 2024 as his academic performance fell short of what was required of a student in the Master of Business Administration programme.
Police took over the case four months later after the university confirmed Bao, who claimed to have obtained a bachelor's degree in Science at the American institution between 2012 and 2016, was never a student there.
The investigation revealed Bao passed an online interview and received a conditional offer from CUHK in early 2023 by hiring an impersonator through a foreign university agent on the mainland.