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Peking University, June 24, 2011: "The students thereby recruited will not be as ‘good’ if measured merely by gaokao scores; however, under this renewed evaluation criterion based on comprehensive quality and potentials, it is the best students that are thus recruited."
That’s the remark by PKU educational administrators on the 2-year-old enrollment system that will continue the coming year. Among other enrollment reform efforts, the idea of the “high school principal's real name recommendation system” was brought up three years ago, but not carried out until last year due to the complexity of China’s education system.
The most prominent innovation is that students recommended by high school principals will have direct access to the interview round of zizhu zhaosheng, or the “independent recruitment,” without having to pass the written round. The oral test, several months before gaokao (or China’s national college entrance examination), is held by PKU experts with various academic backgrounds.
Successful candidates could enter the university on condition that their gaokao score is over the first-class university admission line (yi-ben xian), which may lower the threshold of Peking University by as many as 100 points.
Usually, the full marks of gaokao are 750, and admission standards vary by province.
A candidate waving to his parents as he walks into an exam hall of an "independent recruitment" test at PKU (Xinhua/Cui Xinyu)
According to a recent interview with head of the Office for Undergraduate Admissions, this change is a continuation of the efforts in the past to build a selection system that uses other enrollment criteria besides the gaokao score in order to provide a chance for students with special talents to enter China's best university. With an increasing number of students applying for universities after the release of their gaokao scores, the importance of the score has been raised to an unprecedented level. Against this background, students who get the highest scores are put under the spotlight like superstars, while students with low scores considered good for nothing.
“The larger objective of the selection process is not to pick people who have the best high school transcripts,” said former Harvard College Dean Harry R. Lewis. “(B)ut to pick people who will make a difference in the world.” That’s also what major world-class universities have realized. The traditional recruitment system which revolves around scores needs reform.
Peking University seeks to break up the exam score-oriented set pattern so that students will have a broader range of choices, a chance to develop their interests and hobbies, and an opportunity to pursue their dreams, said the administrator. Although this effort may not replace the current examination system in the near future, it marks a change of the direction of basic education — as the current one is widely criticized for its ignorance of teenagers’ individuality and overall development.
In November last year, 11 PKU professors jointly called for the change of its enrollment system, proposing a new scheme that combines both test scores and professor-led interviews. PKU President Zhou Qifeng replied that he "personally completely agrees with the proposal."
“Some 100 students have to quit school every year because they cannot adapt to campus life and studies at PKU,” said Wu Guosheng, professor with the Department of Philosophy and one of the 11 renowned scholars during an earlier interview. “The education should focus on comprehensive quality of each individual.”
“PKU has accumulated rich experiences in recruitment; what to do next is just spread the interview-oriented evaluation criterion,” added Professor Wu.
PKU News journalists also inquired of China’s Ministry of Education about the enrollment reform, but the latter refused to comment.
The recruitment process for international students and graduate candidates always includes an interview, according to the Office of International Relations and Graduate School respectively.
“The experiment for undergraduate admissions has already been carried out on a relatively limited scale,” said Wen Dongmao, dean of the Graduate School of Education and another member of the reformist professors. The recommendation system today, coincidentally, has the interview round heavily weigh.
Despite the innovativeness of this new selection system, it has been subjected to doubts on its fairness, equality, and openness. Addressing these issues, the recommendation-based enrollment system will be carried out to such an extent that "does not impair the authority of gaokao," according to the interview with the admission administrator.
In addition, the social and economic gap between urban and rural areas is taken into consideration in the selection process to ensure fairness. Although students from underdeveloped areas may not be able to as well play the piano or speak fluent English, as long as they have a clear goal, diligence, and social responsibility, PKU will offer the opportunity.
Some people also question the effectiveness of this system in selecting the best students. To this, the excellent performance of the students enrolled through this system is a sound reply, said the administrator. The principals who are authorized to recommend with their real names endorsed have been proved trustworthy and respectable; the office has received no complaint from the public in terms of fairness.
Besides, the list of all the recommended candidates have to be made public, according to the embodiment of the system released on June 23. The interview round has been subtly arranged as well to make it fair, just, according to Professor Wu. “For example, we applied avoidance system, confidential list of interviewers, and drawing lot to decide which interviewer to interview which interviewee during our ‘independent recruitment’ process in the past few years.”
Under the participation and supervision of the whole society, the new enrollment system has been smoothly carried out, said the admission administrator.
“Hopefully, PKU’s experiment will turn to be a fairness standard widely recognized by the society,” said Professor Wu on the interview-oriented proposal.
The change of the enrollment system and criteria reflects a change in the evaluation of a student’s merits, the administrator added. By taking the students’ uniqueness into account in selecting the “right students for the right school,” the university can play a more active role in eliciting students’ potentials and shaping them into future global leaders.
“Universities should enjoy the autonomy to run,” said Professor Wu. “And of course including the autonomy to recruit.”
Jin Ludi, Xu Xinyi, and Lim Yee Chuin contributed to report.
Written by: Su Dongrui
Edited by: Jacques
