This weekend, the Shanghai Spring Examination will hold a written test, and senior high school students in Shanghai will face their first actual college entrance examination.
When talking about this year’s spring exams, there is one bright spot that must be mentioned: Shanghai International Studies University has joined the program for the first time as an affiliated institution, once again increasing the “gold content” of the spring exams.
In addition, according to the enrollment brochure published by the Municipal Education Commission, in 2024, the Shanghai Spring Examination enrollment plan will increase by 243 compared to 2023, with a total of 3,019.
Whether it is the growth of the enrollment of colleges and universities or the increase in the number of enrollment plans, these visible benefits point to one point: as an important measure in the reform of Shanghai’s college entrance examination, the spring entrance examination recruitment model is now very popular.
achieves a "win-win" between universities and candidates. What did Shanghai do right in the Spring Examination?
Many colleges and universities have added special majors to attract outstanding candidates
Among the 26 colleges and universities enrolling students for the 2024 spring examination, Shanghai International Studies University has attracted a lot of attention.
Many people are curious, why does SISU want to join the spring recruitment team? In this regard, Zhang Jian, director of the Admissions Office of Shanghai International Studies University, said in an interview with reporters that in order to better serve the "One Belt, One Road" initiative and Shanghai's social and economic development's demand for high-level minority language talents, this year, SISU has launched two spring recruitment programs. The majors are all double first-class disciplines, namely Arabic and Korean, and both have undergraduate, master’s and doctoral training systems. In particular, SISU’s Arabic major is the only key discipline in this field in the country. The school hopes to explore and create better conditions through more comprehensive evaluations to attract outstanding students who are interested in joining related fields. From the perspective of students’ future graduation “exports”, it meets the current needs of quite a few agencies, media, large state-owned enterprises and private enterprises for foreign affairs, foreign publicity and foreign trade.
This year, many colleges and universities have added special majors in spring recruitment, demonstrating the "sincerity" of admissions. In interviews, the heads of many university admissions offices said that based on feedback data over the years, students admitted in spring admissions tend to have higher academic performance and overall quality than students admitted in autumn college entrance examinations after entering university. Talking about the reasons, some experts believe that this may be related to candidates’ loyalty to their majors. "Students who are interested in participating in the spring entrance examination are generally well-positioned and have a high degree of recognition of the school and major."
In fact, some admissions colleges are increasing their spring entrance enrollment because they have tasted the benefits. The preschool education major of Shanghai Normal University is a "big player" in the expansion of enrollment for this year's spring examination. It plans to enroll 150 students, an increase of 30 compared to last year. Shanghai Rieter College has added four new majors this year, including financial technology, Chinese language and literature, artificial intelligence, and accounting, and has correspondingly added 100 enrollment plans.
Zhang Yifan, deputy director of admissions at Shanghai Sanda College, told reporters that this year the school has 13 majors participating in the spring exam enrollment, with a total of 400 enrollment plans to meet the different needs of students for future employment, further education, etc. For example, the school's nursing program plans to enroll 70 students this year, and the employment situation has always been ideal. Students usually go to Shanghai's top tertiary hospitals for internships in their junior year, and most of them stay and become full-time students in their senior year. In addition, Chinese International Education has joined the spring recruitment for the first time this year, adopting the "3+1" model of Sino-foreign cooperative education, which is suitable for students who are interested in studying abroad.
Preparing for the spring exam is both "troop training" and actual combat
For most senior high school students, preparing for the spring exam is more like a "troop training". They hope to experience the atmosphere of a major exam and test their mental state when taking the exam. Of course, there are also many students who successfully pass the spring exam every year.
At Dongchang Middle School affiliated with East China Normal University, the number of students who have passed the spring examination and been admitted to various universities in Shanghai every year in the past three years is basically around 20 to 30. Principal Xue Zhiming remembered that last year and the year before last, many students from the school were admitted to Shanghai University and East China University of Political Science and Law in the spring examination. "The comprehensive strength of these students is good. If they had taken the autumn exam that year, they might have achieved better results. But at that time, they all had their favorite majors in the spring exam, so they firmly seized the opportunity."
In recent years, the Spring Examination has not only remained popular in the minds of candidates, but has even become more popular. What is the reason? Xue Zhiming said frankly that for some students whose scores in Chinese, Mathematics, and English are good but whose "Principal Three Examinations" are relatively weak, For students, the spring exam is often regarded as the "first goal."
According to Lu Zhenquan, principal of Shanghai Minhang Tianyuan Senior High School affiliated with Beijing Foreign Studies University, the total number of Shanghai spring exam enrollments in 2024 will exceed 3,000, but compared with the five-year college entrance examination every autumn For more than 10,000 candidates, the proportion is not large. His suggestion is that the steps for the spring examination can be bigger in the future, for example, further increasing the number of applicants from various application-oriented, technical colleges and vocational undergraduate colleges. Admission quota, which should play a more positive role in alleviating the pressure for further studies.
