Giving 'Gaokao' a Go

May 20, 2015
  • Industry News

Chinese applicants to the University of San Francisco need not submit a transcript or an SAT score under a newly announced pilot program. Rather, the private Jesuit institution plans to admit students based on their scores on the grueling, multiday Chinese university entrance exam, the gaokao, and their performance in an in-person interview in Beijing.

Students admitted through this pathway will not be required to submit standardized English language test results, although USF plans to administer its own English language test during the interview, according to Stanley D. Nel, the university’s vice president for international relations.

Nel said his goal is not to flood the University of San Francisco with additional Chinese students -- USF enrolled more than 1,000 students from China last fall, including 846 undergraduates -- but rather to identify 5 to 10 top students who do well on the gaokao but not well enough to get into the Chinese university of their choice (the gaokao is far more central to admissions decisions in China than the SAT or ACT generally is in the U.S.).

Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/05/20/u-san-francisco-gives-gaokao-based-admissions-try-china