On the morning of November 9th, 2015, Zhu Yaruo, a senior student of School of Journalism and Communication in Nanjing University, was still studying hard in the library of Gulou campus. The sun cast a golden glow over Zhu’s feet through windows. He put down the pen, looked at the sky outside the window, then stretched himself and rubbed his eyes. He switched his gaze back to the true test papers of 2013, which said “Please briefly describe the three periods of Chinese media’s capital operation”. Zhu Yaruo is just one of more than 150,000 undergraduates all over China, who are preparing for the graduate school entrance exam of 2016. “There’s just little time left,” Zhu Yaruo said, tired but urgent. He has been busy for several months preparing it.
The exam will be held between Dec. 26th and Dec. 28th this year – actually it is an exam to select postgraduates of 2016. The process of taking this exam is called “Kaoyan” in Chinese. The subjects they will take depend on the exact school they apply to – all of them will take 3 to 5 separated exams, including 2 or 3 general ones (English, Politics and Math) and 1 or 2 professional ones.
For instance, Zhu Yaruo and Zhang Rui are classmates. Both of them applied to the School of Journalism and Communication in Nanjing University (where they finished their bachelor’s degree) for the master’s degree, and they will take English, Politics and two professional exams. As for those students who major in international trade like Jie Jiangyi from Beijing Institute of Technology, they will take English, Politics, Math and Economics.
In China, there are mainly three ways for the majority of students to choose after graduating from universities: taking the Chinese graduate school entrance exam, going abroad to continue studying with language test scores or joining the job market to look for a job. “I’ve been thinking about going abroad, but I have more friends at home. And my parents want me to accomplish the master’s degree before working,” Jie Jiangyi said.
Postgraduate recommendation is another means to enter graduate schools in China. Some students, usually 10%-30% of the total (the percentage can reach 50% only in few universities that are most outstanding like Tsinghua University and Peking University), are recommended by their universities. It means that they can skip the exam and enter graduate schools straight. But the selecting system is mainly related to GPA. In other words, those who get recommended are usually the top ones. Since Zhang Rui failed a professional course in the first year and did not satisfy the demand of passing all the professional courses, she lost the chance to apply for the recommendation system.
Jie Jiangyi is top 3 in his school, but this year only the two in front of him are recommended. Since 2013, the number of students who take the graduate school entrance exam has declined rapidly, from 1.76 million in 2013 to 1.65 million this year. It is predicted that this downward trend will continue next year, when those students including Zhu Yaruo, Zhang Rui and Jie Jiangyi enter the graduate school.
There are various reasons why it turned so. After 2014, there will not be formal government-supported graduate students, which may let a few of them give it up. Under great pressure of the job market, many students calmly treat the master’s degree, some of which choose to look for a job instead of taking the exam.
Last August, the Ministry of Education put forward a new policy for the graduate school entrance exam, which became really controversial in a short time. This may be another cause of the declining trend that was mentioned above. In this policy, the Ministry of Education cancelled the limit of the students who are recommended and apply for staying in their universities, which used to be less than 50% of the total enrollment number. It means that before 2015, a university should enroll outside students after the recommended students from this university reach a half of the enrollment number.
What is the result? Just after the policy appeared on the stage, China News Service asked Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the National Institute of Education Sciences, for his opinions about it. He said, “Many universities think that their undergraduates are better than those outside. So this policy will be beneficial for key universities to keep their own good students. But for students who come from ordinary universities and want to continue studying in top ones, ‘Kaoyan’ will be much harder.”
That is true, from the latest statistics of Nanjing University this year. In 2015, it enrolled 3858 students totally, and 1068 of them (equal to 27.7%) are recommended. Whereas in 2016, Nanjing University will enroll 3459 undergraduates, and the number of recommended students is 1875, which accounted for 54.2% in total. The proportion of recommended students rises. Therefore, the pressure on those who take the exam will get greater.
For most of them, the decision to take the graduate school entrance exam is usually made in the third year. “Then I started reviewing in July. It takes me 9 or 11 hours every day to review, and I can sleep 7 hours or so in average,” Jie Jiangyi said. In terms of the exam’s characteristics, some people say that this exam is just like Gaokao (the College Entrance Exam in China) – really tough, really difficult, and really important.
Nevertheless, all the interviewees think it is much harder than Gaokao. Jie Jiangyi, Zhu Yaruo and Zhang Rui all said that compared with Gaokao, when their teachers and classmates all had the same goal thus individuals would not feel lonely, only a minority choose Kaoyan. Hence, they ought to do all the things by themselves and sometimes feel exhausted and isolated.
“When I prepared for Gaokao, I kind of knew the content of the exam. But there were just too many reference books for Kaoyan. I was quite not sure what would be tested. So what I could do was only to study harder and harder,” said Dang Yue. She graduated from Modern College of Northwest University in Xi’an, passed the exam last year and now studies at China West Normal University.
Over the final month of preparation last year, she chose to review at home. “Because of the cold, I kept reading on bed with quilts wrapped round me.” Sometimes she reviewed at night and slept in daytime, for it was quiet at night and easier for her to study efficiently. “In fact, during the few days before the exam, I should overcome my own jet lag,” Dang Yue recalled this special experience and laughed brightly.
The application has already ended in October, and every student can apply to merely one school of one university (there is a choice to accept change of major if they do not reach the dream school’s minimum passing score). As a result, taking this exam is a big risk, like gambling: if you pass, congratulations; if you fail, then nothing.
What if they really failed? Zhu Yaruo replied, “Definitely I’ve thought it before, but didn’t make it very clear.” “I may choose to retake the exam next year or go abroad if I failed,” Jie Jiangyi said, without much hesitation. “But first, I should make my efforts to prepare it well,” they both added.
