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Comment by austinz | Hacker News Reader

That's real sad and all, but the root cause of the problem is far too much demand for a limited number of seats at the most prestigious schools. Until that underlying issue is solved (maybe through something akin to America's land-grant colleges?), the problem won't go away. Changing the admissions process will simply cause cram schools to be replaced by essay tutors, interview schools, students taking on an insane number of extracurricular activities, etc.

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This is a good point and we have this problem in the US and England currently. I was recently talking to my aunt (who lives in London) about her son's school and extracurricular activities. He's around 11 and has tutors to prepare him for his entrance exams for the next level of private school (I guess this is the equivalent to American high school?). He has German and Spanish tutors who he meets with several times a week, singing lessons, soccer/football practice, piano lessons, etc.

It seems like a really awful way to grow up.

I would argue the culture around education and what it takes to be successful in China is more of the driving force around the enormous pressure students face with the "gaokao". Although it is true there are way too many students than available spots at top flight universities, the perceived notion of success will never change in China unless success is redefined by something other than either having a really good education or making tons of money.

This definition of "success" is pretty widespread. In the US, a college education is widely seen as a prerequisite to a middle-class lifestyle (never mind skilled trades or trade schools). Highly prestigious employers (especially in the financial or tech sectors) tend to show favoritism towards students with degrees from prestigious universities. There are analogous problems in Europe and India (e.g. the oversize social importance that IITs, grandes ecoles, Cambridge/Oxford hold). Trying to convince people that success should be defined by happiness or personal fulfillment, rather than social standing or wealth, is a very difficult problem.

Another factor is that a lot of parents in China either experienced significant material deprivation themselves, or are one generation away from people who did. So to these parents "success" through wealth (and hence security from poverty) takes on disproportionate importance. This sort of dynamic can also be seen in a lot of first-generation Asian-American households, often to the detriment of the relationship between the parents and their children.

While the definition of "success" is pretty widespread, how "success" is defined in China is probably a more rigid and narrow idea compared to what "success" would mean in some Western countries. Some people in places like the US or England would define success as doing something they love to do everyday, which doesn't necessarily mean you have to have a good education or have a lot of money. From living in China and talking to a fair number of people there, I'm postulating their more narrow-minded views of success is imposed by the culture and to a varying degree by the government.

My impression from reading the article is that the gap between the lifestyles you can expect if you get into college or not is really wide in China. It seemed to mark the difference between comfortable white-collar work or being a laborer, with nothing much in between. If Chinese society were a hospital, it would have surgeons and janitors and nothing else.

Perhaps the parents who were interviewed for the article overstated the difference, but here in Canada the situation is a bit different for a couple of reasons. First, we send so many students to college that getting into and through the less prestigious colleges isn't particularly impressive. Second, the jobs available to those who couldn't quite make it into college are still pretty good. Electricians, mechanics, locksmiths, and paralegals don't come cheap around here. So there's a lot less pressure all around.

Isn't the root issue that the main value a degree from a selective school provides is valuable social connections and social proof rather than the transmission of a valuable body of knowledge?

And perhaps beyond that that the economy is such that many degrees from less selective schools are worthless regardless of how much a student learns to earn it?

Learn how to read and think first. Then perform the college ritual and learn the secret handshake if it gets you want.

>too much demand for a limited number of seats at the most prestigious schools

Prestigious schools are desirable explicitly because most other people were rejected by them.

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