My language partner and I would often compare our respective educations, and I learned alot about the Chinese college application process that I would probably forget if I didn't post it here for posterity, so here goes.
According to my yuban, and to parts of our textbook (thank you 高考 lesson) the only thing that matters in a Chinese high school student's application to college is their score on one test, the gaokao. Let me be clear here: nothing else is factored in except for their score. After taking the test, students can apply to one A level college, with a few other lower level colleges as backup. The top colleges in Beijing (Beida and Qinghua) take the students with highest combined scores on the test, stopping admission after the quota of top scores has been reached. If you are a point too low, you try to enter your safety school in another round but often the quotas have already been filled and you are out of luck. Some people are forced or choose to wait another year and take the gaokao again. While the Chinese compare the test to the SAT, it is much more comprehensive, testing student's English skills as well as higher level math and other subjects (I don't remember anything on the SAT that we didn't learn in middle school) so these students all take that time to review. However a few don't get a satisfactory score even on the second time and end up waiting another year or two to make a good score.
The gaokao doesn't only decide where you go to college. Once you get into a school, your scores on the gaokao determine your major. You can write a list of your top major choices, but if your combined score is too low compared to your peers, the quota for the major could be filled before you are chosen and you could end up in something different. For instance my language partner was placed into the German major by his scores (the test itself has no German).
As an American, I initially thought that this method was ethically questionable for not allowing students to totally follow their interests, both by having quotas for a major and by only weighing the gaokao during the college process (thereby discouraging students' participation in extracurricular activities and in non-gaokao-related classes). However despite its problems, it is certainly an efficient strategy for China. With such a huge population and a comparably small network of high-level learning institutions, this method is a simple way to single out traditionally "smart" people and get the highest scoring students into the best institutions. Major quotas also ensure that each job sector always have educated people willing to work in it. (My yuban explained it to me this way: if students could choose here, everyone would take economics because making money is socially the most important thing.) There are of course plenty of negatives to the method, but in general its outcomes seems to fit with and perpetuate the current pattern of efficiency and rapid progress in China.
Well thats all I really can think to say about this now. Always willing to talk though...
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