Yes, Let’s Change the University Admissions System! Oh, wait…

George T. Sipos, PhD
Associate Professor on Special Appointment
Global Admissions Office
Osaka University

I will always remember my university admission exams. I was 18 and scared for my life.Not passing the four examinations spread over a week and a half meant literally losing one year of my life. It was 1993 in Bucharest, Romania and for 18-year old men not getting accepted to the university was not only the equivalent of wasting one year, but also having to join the compulsory military service for 18 months. My life was about to change dramatically if I didn’t manage to pass that entrance examination. It made no difference whatsoever that I had finished valedictorian in my high school class, that I was the initiator and leader of numerous school initiatives and projects, that I had participated in national competitions and won national awards. Now, it was all up to four exams that could change the rest of my life.

Luckily, I passed and entered the University of Bucharest’s Japanese language and literature department, one of the most prestigious at the time and most difficult to get in (there were about 25 applicants for one seat, if I remember correctly). Others, equally great students in high-school never made it. I knew applicants who took the exam several years in a row and failed. Early on in my life, it was clear to me that that system was antiquated and wrong and that access to higher education should not be based on one week of tests that can make or break your life at 18. Today, the entrance examination I had to take is mostly a thing of the past.

The fact that Japanese universities, Osaka University included, are finally at the point where they are ready to break with the past and change their admissions system, as part of the Super Global Universities initiative is nothing short of admirable. As someone who has managed university admissions in the United States for a number of years, coming to Japan to try to affect change in the system here, I am able to see the challenges as well as the possibilities.
One major challenge is the fact that centralized admissions offices in Japan must cater to the needs of the departments a lot more than in the United States. The higher education system being what it is in Japan today, departments have a much larger stake in admitting students who have the minimum background knowledge to become 1st-year students in mathematics, physics or foreign languages. While most colleges in the United States make their students choose a major during their 2nd or even 3rd year of study, which allows for more general admissions requirements, in Japan that is not possible. As such, based on examples from Europe, Japan’s newadmissions system will have to accommodate both a US-like admissions procedure based on review of school transcripts and comprehensive examinations such as the SAT or the ACT coupled with personal essays, volunteer and athletic activity and recommendation letters as well as a face-to-face interview with the applicant.