The Secrets of School Admissions

Despite regulations and laws to guarantee fair access to education, students whose families lack connections or wealth find it difficult to gain entrance to prestigious junior high schools in major cities like Beijing.

For years, the greatest educational sources have been allocated to schools that are projected to produce the greatest number of college entrants. This is called the "key school system," an arrangement that was halted during the Culture Revolution (1966-76) but reemerged in the 1980s.

The Compulsory Education Law enacted in 1986 set up a hukou-based randomized allocation system that requires students to enter primary and junior high schools close to their residences. But parents and schools do everything they can to bypass the allocation system, giving birth to alternative admission methods that give enormous weight to power and money.