University education is very expensive in terms of both money and time that should be devoted, and students and parents usually do not have enough knowledge and information about the institutions before they have actually spent some time there; under these circumstances buying university education for kids is in fact a potentially risky conduct for many Chinese families.

I know that in the U.S., campus fairs and visits are common, at least students read brochures before making the decision to attend a particular institution. But in China, these are rare. You can ask some of your classmates who are from other cities and provinces in China, I bet that many of them had never visited the campus, or even visited Nanchang before. I can even bet that some had never HEARD this university before they had already been enrolled into the institution.

Furthermore, although many degree programs in Chinese universites are modularised, it is still difficult for students to transfer institution. Students tranfer is under strict control of and must be sanctioned by the official educational authorities.

I could still remember clearly that when I was in high school, the senior teacher told the class that we “will have to enter the top universities of the country”, if we finally ended up in some local universities, for example, Nanchang university (which I thought was very good and wished to enter), it would be the “family’s shame” (although at last many have entered there). This probably will not happen in your country. You can see the difference. You may think that the Chinese education is freakish.

However, the flaws in the Chinese education and university admission system leave space for improvements. I hope we will make it in the future.

It is clear that many Chinese students and their parents follow a different pattern of choice than their western counterparts. As you have pointed out, this may be very well due to Chinese people’s distinguished consuming habits, but there are many other differences between the Chinese reality and the western one, which may have contributed to the cause of the different choice patterns. For example, it is undeniable that currently the Chinese university graduates are facing a very critical employment market, if you do the maths, you can realise that for a very substantial number of university graduates, their income in terms of salary increase after graduation does not match their input, including the increasing tuition and board fees, high living costs in cities, and four years’ income. Furthermore, unlike in other developed countires, the contemporary Chinese higher education was only started in the 80s’, so a vast majority of current students’ parents have not received higher education, their experience are limited, and their influential suggestions might not be that rational. I believe that as the Chinese economy and educational level gradually catch up with the developed countires, the differences in consuming habits may diminish (of course this will be a very loooong process).

We may look at an extreme case: Germany. In that country every high school graduates who have passed the final exams (Abitur) have the right to attend a university, basically any one he/she wishes. At least ideally, in that country all universities are equally good (or bad). But I do not know if this is a good policy or not, as recently the German universities have not performed well in the ranking tables (ranking again..)

Even in the same country, different people may employ different choice criteria. For example, the National Center for Educational Statistics which was set up by the United States Federal Government, examined the factors that American students’ consider in choosing an institution for higher education. Their result shows that in the US, students at four-year universities and colleges were more likely to rely on reputation when choosing the institution and students at public four-year universities and colleges were more likely than students at private, not-for-profit four-year unverisites and colleges to identify location or monetary factors as the most important reason determining their choices.

I would argue that over-relying on brands is not rational in choosing a university. But it is also the reality that brands are the easiest way to get information in terms of access. In addition, in this country, you know, there are so many fake things, (including low quality institutions pretending to be world class ones: http://it.sohu.com/s2004/xiaozhangpaihang.shtml, or you can google for “西安翻译 五十州” this is not an isolated case, but a very typical and infamous one). so brands are used to guarantee a safe-buy, although not necessarily the best-buy.

I recently did an empirical research on Chinese students’ choice of undergraduate institutions, but I cannot publish it here, if you are interested you may let me know your email.

For Canadians, the Macleans rankings are the only widely recognized rankings in Canada even if most Canadians — not just the schools themselves — are skeptical of their findings; at the bare-minimum, we all respect that the Macleans rankings are based on a criteria that is applied equally, even if you do or do not consider the criteria fatally flawed. Since Macleans provides the only widely recognized rankings, it would follow that for a foreigner (perhaps my Chinese friends), cursury research into what Canadian school is “the best” or the “most famous” would naturally lead a reasonable person to accept their list at face value. My friends might easily believe the #1 ranked school could possibly actually be a #4 school, but they’re more concerned that the school they choose is at least in the top-ten.

In the July/August edition of “Business Forum China” magazine, the bi-monthly publication from German Industry & Commerce China, Claire Trivette indicates that “quality, service, and brands — in that order — are the three most important factors determining consumers’ choice of shopping destination… Surprisingly value ranks only fifth, challenging conventional wisdom that the Chinese consumer is focused mainly on price.” Magazines are not the only ones talking about the importance of brands, in my year in China I constantly hear local people discuss their favourite ‘famous brand’. This common phrase, ‘famous brand’, is synonymous with, or at least indistinguishable from, ‘good quality’ in the minds of most people. An educated person may understand that ‘brand’ is not always synonymous with ‘quality’, but a brand may support the gut feeling of an individual when information is lacking. For example, many people believe that Harvard University is the most difficult American school to gain admissions to, when it is MIT that holds this distinction; where information lacks, people often expect a brand is a reasonable substitue for this missing information — and certainly this can be true in the rapidly changing and competitive Chinese market.

I certainly can’t fault my friends for wanting the best education possible for their money spent. It’s certainly not easy to make such an important and complicated choice. I hope my friends will at least challenge their occassionaly blind faith in these lists and think about their education in different terms. Most of my friends are busy studying for TOEFL, or post-graduate entrance exams and are accustomed to thinking about their university search in a very linear way. Perhaps that’s appropriate in China, but it could be hit-and-miss abroad.

As a Chinese student studying in the UK, how did you choose your school? Would you do anything differently now that you have the experience of studying abroad? Perhaps your personal experience might be the most valuable information of all.

Regarding this ranking topic, there are many academic articles commenting on university rankings. Most of these criticise the rankings (of course, most academic articles criticise), but some have pointed out the advantages of conducting and employing university rankings due to asymmetry of information, cost of information, blah blah…

In fact, all of those ‘responsible’ rankings indicate their imperfection very clearly.

For example, the US News & World Report says:

“Simply because a school is tops in its category does not mean it is the top choice for everyone. A prospective student’s academic and professional ambitions, personal preferences, financial resources, and scholastic record, as well as a school’s size, atmosphere, and location, should play major roles in determining a college choice. (US News & World Report, 2001b, para. 23)”

I have seen similar statements in the official introduction of many university rankings, including Macleans and Shanghai JiaoTong University’s rankings.

There is also a variety of other rankings of universities and colleges from mainly non-academic, but very interesting perspectives. I can list you some:

As early as in 1987, Playboy presented its first rating of the 25 ‘America’s best party schools’ (Mikkelson 2002).

In 1980, The Official Preppy Handbook ranked the most preppy and party colleges (Birnbach 1980).

In 1982, the musical magazine Rolling Stone published its College Guide, rating institutions and towns by the theaters, record stores, radio stations, and music festivals (Eliscu 2005).

The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) ranks American college football teams every week (BCS 2006).

The Black Enterprise published the 50 Best Colleges for African Americans (Black Enterprise 2003).

Out Magazine published the Gay Guide to Colleges in 2004.

The Webometrics rankings rank world universities based on Internet presence of the institution. Factors indicating productivity, visibility, and impact of the institutional websites are compared (Webmetrics 2006).

The girl and her mother in your article should really have a lesson about this. But is OK and understandable, it is a Beijing expo, Beijing people are usually intensively bureaucratic, if not the most bureaucratic ones in China. It is so natural that they believe in something ‘official’, ‘central’, or ‘state-recognised’.

The university ranking itself topic is a very interesting and controversial one in the educational issues, if you are interested here is a list of readings which also include the references for the above refered articles:

Altbach, Philip G. (2006), ‘The Dilemmas of Ranking ‘, International Higher Education, 42.
BCS (2006), ‘BCS Standings’, , accessed 6 Mar 2006.
Birnbach, Lisa (1980), Official Preppy Handbook (New York: Workman Publishing).
Black Enterprise (2003), ’50 Best Colleges for African Americans’, , accessed 6 Mar 2006.
Bradley, Gwendolyn (2005), ‘New College Rankings Focus on Social Service’, Academe, 91 (6), 7-7.
Dill, David D. and Soo, Marja (2005), ‘Academic quality, league tables, and public policy: A cross-national analysis of university ranking systems’, Higher Education, 49, 495-533.
Eliscu, Jenny (2005), Schools That Rock : The Rolling Stone College Guide (New York: Wenner Books).
Fombrun, C. J. (1996), Reputation: Realizing Value from the Corporate Image (Boston: Harvard Business School Press).
Hunter, B. (1995), ‘College guidebooks: Background and development’, in D. Walleri and M. K. Moss (eds.), Evaluating and Responding to College Guidebooks and Rankings (New Directions in Institutional Research; San Francisco: Jossey Bass).
Litten, L. (1986), ‘Perspectives on pricing’, in D. Hossler (ed.), New Directions for Higher Education: Managing College Enrollments (San Francisco: Jossey Bass).
Maclean’s (2006), ‘University Rankings ’05′, , accessed 5 Mar 2006.
Mathews, Jay (2005), ‘Long Live College Rankings’, , accessed 5 Mar 2006.
McDonough, Patricia M. and Walpole, MaryBeth (1998), ‘COLLEGE RANKINGS: Democratized College Knowledge for Whom?’ Research in Higher Education, 39 (5), 513-37.
Mikkelson, Barbara (2002), ‘Playboy’s Party Schools’, , accessed 27 Sep 2002.
Morse, R. J. and Flanigan, S. (2000), How we rank colleges. In America’s Best Colleges 2001 (Washington, DC: U.S. News & World Report) 26-29.
Pascarella, E.T. (2001), ‘Identifying excellence in undergraduate education: Are we even close?’ Change, 33 (3), 19-23.
SJTU (2005), ‘Academic Ranking of World Universities 2005′, , accessed 5 Mar 2006.
Solorzano, Lucia (2004), BEST BUYS IN COLLEGE EDUCATION (8 edn.; New York: Barron’s Educational Series).
Stecklow, S. (1995), ‘Colleges inflate SATs and graduation rates in popular guidebooks’, Wall Street Journal, 5 April 1995, p. A1.
Stuart, D. L. (1995), ‘Reputational rankings: Background and development’, in R. D. Walleri and M. K. Moss (eds.), Evaluating and responding to college guidebooks and rankings (New Directions for Institutional Research; San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers), 13-19.
Sykes, Charles J. and Miner, Brad (1993), NATIONAL REVIEW COLLEGE GUIDE : AMERICA’S TOP LIBERAL ARTS SCHOOLS (2 edn.; New York: Fireside).
THES (2006), ‘World University Rankings 2005′, , accessed 5 Mar 2006.
US News & World Report (2006), ‘America’s Best Colleges 2006′, , accessed 5 Mar 2006.
Webmetrics (2006), ‘World Universities’ ranking on the Web: Methodologies of Comparative Analysis’, , accessed 6 Mar 2006.
Yale Daily News (2005), The Insider’s Guide to the Colleges, 2005 (31 edn.; New York: St. Martin’s Griffin).

11 major universities recently withdrew their support for the Maclean’s ranking system on August 14th. Check it out:

http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2006/08/14/macleans-universities.html

Cheers-Stephen Z