Editor's Note: It's gaokao season in China. 9.5 million Chinese high school students are lining up for the two day, ultracompetitive make-or-break college entrance examination that has ruled over their entire academic life. Years of preparation culminates in once chance to earn one score that will determine if you can apply to a good university. The results of a survey and follow-up study was just released showing where top-scorers attend school, where the they come from, and if they are male or female. The translated article details the study.

Tsinghua University recruited 402 top college entrance exam scorers from 2005 to 2015. In the last 11 years, the university narrowly beat Peking University, who also recruits a high number of top-scorers. 90% of top scorers on the gaokao chose to attend Tsinghua University or Peking University.

Airuishen Chinese University Alumni Alliance Network recently released a report on the 2016 Chinese college entrance exam or gaokao. The report covers exams taken from 1952 to 2015, and includes a follow-up study on nearly 3,000 provincial-level top scorers.

Top Scorers Prefer Mainland Universities
From 1957-2015, the most popular universities for top scorers were Peking University and Tsinghua in Mainland China along with the University of Hong Kong, and National Taiwan University. However, Hong Kong universities are currently struggling to recruit top scorers—less than one percent chose to attend universities in Hong Kong.

Not counting those in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing, the highest number of top scorers in 2016 came from Guangzhou, Yinchuan, and Urumqi. Yunnan Normal University Affiliated High School produced 38 top-scorers, ranking first in the nation.

Airuishen researcher Zhao Deguo pointed out that the gaokao or college entrance exam is different in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In Mainland China, the gaokao refers to the “China National Higher Education Entrance Examination,” which is given in all provinces and autonomous regions excluding Tibet. The top-scorers in each province and municipality are recognized. Hong Kong students take the “Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination,” and the top scorers are accepted early into the city’s Joint University Programmes Admissions System (JUPAS). Taiwanese students take the Joint University Entrance Exam.

What Percentage of Top Scorers are Female?
College entrance exams were dominated by males before 2000. 70% of top Mainland scorers were male. However, after 2000, over 50% of top scorers in Mainland China and Hong Kong are female.

Airuishen research team leader Professor Cai Yanhou of Central South University said that men dominated the exams in Mainland China and Taiwan before 2000. In Mainland China 71.05% of top-scorers were male and 72.55% of top-scorers in Taiwan were male. However, from 2000-2015, women accounted for 52.64% of top-scorers in the Mainland and 58.22% in Hong Kong.

Female students do even better in some regions of Mainland China. In Beijing, 69.44% of top scorers were female. In Liaoning province 68.57% of top scorers were female, and 66.67% were female in Fujian. The percentage of female top scorers was higher in 19 different provinces and regions including Heilongjiang, Tianjin, Hebei, Fujian, Liaoning and Beijing.

Choosing a University and Major
Zhao Deguo reported that Peking University and Tsinghua University were the most popular choices for Mainland Chinese top scorers. The University of Hong Kong is popular with top scorers in Hong Kong and National Taiwan University is popular in Taiwan.

From 1977 to 2015, 835 provincial top scorers attended Peking University. Peking University was the most popular university for China’s top scorers for ten years in a row. Tsinghua University was number two, with 668 top attendees.

55 provincial top scorers attended Fudan University, 54 attended the University of Science and Technology of China, and 50 chose the University of Hong Kong. Others chose Renmin University (30), University of International Business and Economics (25), the Chinese University of Hong Kong (14), Sun Yat-Sen University (11), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (10), and Nanjing University (10).

The research team pointed out that Mainland Chinese universities are popular with top-scorers for economics, business management, and engineering. Top scorers at Hong Kong universities generally study business, medicine or law. In Taiwan, top scorers favor medicine, electrical engineering, and foreign languages.

In Mainland China, 343 top scorers from 1977 to 2015 studied economics in university (20.40%). 324 studied business administration (19.27%), and 113 studied electrical engineering. Other choices included law (102 students), finance (89), life sciences (89) computer science (88), architecture (66), physics (57), and Chinese language and literature (48).

From 2000 to 2015, 51 top Hong Kong scorers enrolled in business administration majors (38.06%). 33 studied medicine and 16 studied law.

In Taiwan, from 1954 to 2000, 14 top scorers studied medicine, 7 studied engineering and 6 studied foreign languages.

 

Source: QQ News 

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Keywords: gaokao top scorers gaokoa examination