6:30 a.m., Shanghai. A 14-year-old student in his third and final year of middle school wakes up. Today is a big day. His future depends on how well he does in the Gaokao (National Standards Higher Education Examination).

A high score means a future, a hope for becoming a rich man and living comfortably. A low score means the end of his education; he will go to a “job school”—a school that will train him in a low-paying job, such as a car mechanic or an iron smelter—and his life will be devoted to making a pittance doing tiring, often dangerous work.

With so much emphasis placed on a single test, the Chinese system is very different from the U.S. system.
U.S. college admissions are determined by many factors: grades, SAT scores, extracurriculars, the college essay and even personality. However, other countries like China have a system in which college and high school admissions depend solely on test scores.

“You had to take a test in order to get into a high school and another to get into college. The admissions depended entirely on these tests,” said sophomore William Hua, who went to school in China from kindergarten to eighth grade.

Admissions are not the only place where the American and Chinese systems differ. The style of teaching is also different.

“[Schools in China] focused on rote memorization rather than creativity, solo work rather than group projects and grades more than everything else,” Hua said. “Everything we did prepared us for that one test.”

The test is sometimes called “the most pressure-packed examination in the world,” because of the sheer number of people taking it (up to 9 million) and the importance placed on it.

“It was like a single-elimination tournament. One bad test and you were out,” Hua said.

Both systems have their benefits and drawbacks. The Chinese system is more objective and simple, since everyone takes the same test, but it doesn’t see the other facets of a person—personality, extracurriculars, etc.—and many critics say that the test is too stressful.

The American system judges many qualities of applicants and gives more weight to extracurriculars, but the application and admission process is convoluted and subjective. Different colleges have different requirements and want different people. Admissions officers select applicants not only by their achievements, but also by their “likeability.”

“There’s just too much difference between the two systems,” Hua said. “Having seen both [systems], they’re as apart as they can be.”