Question Why is college exams have such insane importance in Asia?

In the US we just take the SAT & ACT. We dont have exam days and can take it whenever we want. As long as our GPA is a 3.0 average and tests scores average we could still get in to a good university ie. A state university if not Ivy League or private. And for those who got rejected from the university students could just go to community college for 2yrs and transfer to a good university. Heck I know some people who did not accept university invitations even when they got accepted and instead went to community college before transferring because it saves money. So I just dont get why some Asian countries ie China and Japan are way to dedicated to college exams to the point they prepare their children for the test at a really young age. Or that when they fail it is like the end of the world for them and they commit suicide. Couldn't they have gone to their second choice? Cant they take it again? Couldn't they have gone to a CC and then transfer later? I just dont get why they treat the exams as a end of the world thing. And if CC or university are too expensive there are vocational schools too. It is not like your career is all over.

 

The simple answer? Competition. There are less number of quality colleges, and millions of applicants every year who have been preparing for half their life. I don't think I can quite explain to you the cultural difference present between the West and Asia (both the Oriental and Indian subcontinent).

Let's just say that the stereotype about Asian kids getting less than an A is true. Now, imagine you got a million kids who never got even a B+ in their entire life. Now imagine them writing a test, and only 10k getting accepted.

EDIT: Also, social mobility. A single difference in ranking/percentile can mean that you never, ever get another shot at gaining a fat paycheck.

 

societal expectations, there are worse examples like whit the 1 child rule where they literally protected human traffickers just to get rid off little girls or straight up murdering they're own children since they weren't boys.
it also ties in to a bunch of small things like job competition since in Asian culture you're kinda expected to stay at one company for life so the higher your education the better your life will be.

 

Well I remember reading this article https://www.japan-talk.com/jt/new/ronin-students-in-Japan about Japan years ago which describes this exactly.

 

Because they're born holding a calculator.

 

Somehow, with your avatar i feel like you're involved

 

That 1 company rule has changed a lot since the gaming industry. a lot of Japanese in this era especially in the entertainment field switch companies quite often.

 

Not sure if its true for china but from 1 of the novel, it said that secondary choice will not accept you if you're their second choice. So its either you get in the school you want the most(primary choice) or don't get accepted at all.

 

Numbers, there are so many childs than given jobs, its the same as putting a bunch of poison insects in a jar and get the surviving one. PLus the competitions is extremely fierce since there are so many adolecents taking the examn that the standar for ANY university is for example getting a minimun of a B+. Also China likes to humilliate their people, the results are public and if im not wrong there is even a "Rejected or Low Score Students" board

 

In Japan and some other Asian countries, the ‘levels’ of universities have much more meaning than they do in most of the rest of the world. In the rest of the world, it is acknowledged that most of the people who could get into the highest ranked schools, don’t go to those schools because they cost too much. In Japan and some other parts of Asia, there is a reverence for the highest level universities.

My advisor went to Japan several decades ago. He was asked to come and work with people at Tokyo University for a year(at the time the number one school in Japan). When he and his wife moved into an apartment, the neighbors were of course curious and asked what he did. He started by saying he was working with a university. They were mildly impressed. He then mentioned it was Tokyo University. For the entire rest of their stay, he and his wife were treated with extreme deference by the entire neighborhood, and by anyone else who learned where he worked.

They also did a bit of traveling around the country. Again, he said it was shocking to see how fast people’s attitude changed when Tokyo University was mentioned.

Nowadays you combine that with the sheer number of people trying to get into each school, and I am sure it has only become worse.

 

Simple.
Reputation of the school.
If the school got a higher percentage in board exams or the amount of them passing is more than 70%, then its a good school to enroll to. Good grades, passing the exam and graduating to a very very known one gives the child a higher chance of getting a job.

Ex.
10 applicants, all board passers, but company needs only 2-3.
If even one of those 10 applicants came from a very known school, he gets a slot already for interview. Then other ones will be based on how high the scores went to where the hell is the school at.
Theyll immediately not gonna take those from rural areas unless they scored 85% in the board exams.

 

I read something regarding this quite a while ago, so take my faulty memory as it is.

The gist of the explanation is that Asian countries rely heavily on relationships, much more than the US. In addition, Asian universities are easy and one can usually just coast through your time there. So the real purpose of your time in university is to establish relationships because it's all about being part of the in-crowd.

The children of political and business big-shots will all pretty much go to the Top Universities by default (because of reasons that don't need to be mentioned). Thus every commoner's family's goal is to get their kid into the social group of these rich kids of which there will be a heavy concentration in the Top Universities. If you can become chums with a kid who's destined to get a political post, you'll get backing with whatever you want to get into. If you can become chums with a kid who's destined to inherit his family's business enterprises, you'll be guaranteed a high management position. Even if you aren't directly chums with one of these heirs, as long as you weren't bullied by them, just by being a fellow alumni will get you preferential consideration over others from their families.

Anyway, whether this is true or not, I don't personally know. However, some stories have elements that seem to back this up.

 

this feels a bit exaggerated. Might be true for the chaebol type schools of Korea. From India, there is less focus put on relations with rich kids. But of course... the middle class escaping their social class by hoping for a fat paycheck is the universal dream, I guess.

 

It's not quite like this anymore (things are getting more westernized now), but back in the day (in Taiwan, at least), your grades on the National Exam actually determine exactly which school you get into. So students weren't able to actually choose which college to go to, it's literally based on scores. (They were also not able to choose majors either -- again, they're assigned based on exam scores.)

And, unlike in America, where you actually still have to job hunt in college, in Taiwan, recruiters are far more aggressive and will often hire someone straight out of university simply based on their university name, and their grades in said university. (So, yes, grades did matter.)

So basically a good score on the National Exam basically guaranteed 1) a good college which then guaranteed 2) a good job. It was basically the make-or-break moment of your young adult life.

Again, I don't think it's like this now, since all of what I mentioned was based on anecdotes from my mom and aunts, so this was back in the... late '70s and early '80s. Taiwan is actually experiencing an oversaturation of colleges right now, to the point where it's often joked that as long as you show up at the National Exam and manage to write your name, you're guaranteed a place in college.

Also, colleges in Taiwan (and, I assume, China) don't work the same way as colleges in America. There are no "community colleges" -- there are national universities and private universities. National universities are funded by the government and, in contrast to America, are the prestigious "brand-name" universities which are the most difficult to get in. Private universities are, uh, private, and while exam scores do sort of matter, spots in them can also be kind of "bought", so they aren't considered nearly as prestigious. They often require much lower test scores in exchange for higher tuition requirements. (Though tuition is nowhere near as ridiculously high as America's, so it's often not a huge issue.) These are the universities that a parent will reluctantly allow their kids to go to because they know that they'd never get into 台大 even if they took another year off for the next exam.

Transferring also isn't, to my knowledge, a thing. I've never heard about a university transfer from any of my family members living in Taiwan. I'm not sure they'd even understand what it was if I brought it up.

 

Most of Asian countries I guess, because my school also had that board.

 

Tl; dr : competition, prestige, connection, job opportunity, and social expectations.

Spoiler: Some explainations

Take this with a grain of salt, since my experience only entails the college system in Indonesia :

1. The higher the university's rep, the easier it gets to be accepted for a job. There are literally job offers that specifically includes "graduated from a reputable university" as one of the main requirement, and it's a common sight. The gpa of graduates from reputable university vs non reputable uni hold different weight. Not to mention, the power of networking is real. A lot of potential graduates in top-tiered uni get scouted early, ended with high position, interview an alumnus, and ended up chatting about this devil of a professor or that fraternity that they both entered. You know the ending.
2. There's also a marked difference in treatment towards you and your family, if you're a graduate or a current student of a top-tiered uni. Why? Who knows. Maybe because being labeled as "the best of the best" sounds worthy of reverence? When i entered a college prep institution years ago, i remembered my tutor keep belittling any 'unknown uni' that's not in the top 10, including vocational school. This behavior perhaps aimed to motivate their student. Maybe it was effective, seeing that people spent + 14 hours, 7 days a week, for a whole year to study for the public entrance exam, and this action is heavily encouraged by their parents (1 hour of mandatory extra lesson before the school start, 6 hours of private lesson after the school ended). Last i heard, it's still the same for now.
3. The tuition cost for those who enter the uni through the national/public entrance exam is much, much cheaper. So in my country, the most sought-after uni are all state owned. There's this public entrance exam where people from all over the country fight for the top 10 uni, and you can only enter it 3 times, in the span of 3 years since the date of your hs graduation. Your score in the exam only mattered as to your rank in the exam, the quota of seat that your selected univ's program has opened, and if the people who scored higher than yourself also aims to be in the same program/uni as you. That means, you need to beat more than +500.000 people and secure a high enough position in the exam to enter your first choice. Keep in mind that most of the state-owned univ doesn't accept anyone who put them as a second choice.The Government has heavily invested on these "top-tiered", state-owned uni so that as long as you're in through the public entrance exam, you can finish your education with as little as + US$400 if you also meet other required criteria. Not to mention, there are a lot of companies and institutions that offers a wide selection of scholarship as long as you're in through this route. Compare it with tens of thousands dollars of tuition cost that might be incurred if you enter through other means, or private yet well-regarded uni.
4. "Community college" concept isn't really a thing. Of course, there are exceptions. But, the most common pattern of higher education that I've encountered consist of the student fully entered their desired program right from the start. For example, A wants to graduates with a bachelor degree in architecture. Then, A should apply for the Architecture program in univ X right from the start in their public entrance examination. I've yet to find an institution that's fully dedicated for "community college" in my country though.
5. There are a lot of people that wanted to go to uni, but there's only a handful of "top-tiered uni". In some cases, uni was seen as the main goal after 12 years of mandatory school. That's probably why people work so hard to succeeded in the entrance exam. That aside, most entry-level job now also requires a bachelor degree, even the data entry position.
6. Not every program has its vocational school. Vocational school has been losing popularity in here. Ex. once, there was a vocational school for law. Now, it's abolished. Although the difference between Vocational school and uni is ideally only in the matter of " Practical vs academical" approach, and thus, should theoretically have more edge in job-hunt, it was somehow seen as being a tad lower than bachelor degrees except in some very specific line of jobs. I don't know why though.

 

I also wonder if, at least in some asian countries, it relates to how different jobs are perceived. Like a 'jobs hierarchy' where the 'fancy' office jobs which require degrees and university are rated higher than more working class "trade" jobs?

the whole thing just feels so odd to me but then i come from a country where some of the highest earning real jobs (ie not nebulous or vague office jobs) are trades and working class jobs.

 

It's the over expectations by your family amd the resources they have invested in you that kills you.

Suppose your parents spent money equal or half of thier entire annual income to your studies like cram/prep school fee but you still failed the college entrance exam.

How will you face them? The same thing happened to me. I actually feel like shameless coward for not killing myself.

It's been 3.5 years since ive become a neet.

Though I do am trying to change myself. I've joined a diploma course in a technical College and will transfer to good university later.