Introduction

This study aims to investigate how Chinese high school students perceive Tsinghua and Beida, the top two elite universities in China, and how this perception influences their selection process. With growing concerns about the establishment of world-class universities in China, understanding the factors that influence students’ choices and universities’ recruitment strategies is critical. Previous research has overlooked the importance of studying prospective students’ expectations and perceptions of elite universities prior to their enrollment. Through analyzing survey data from 10 senior high schools in Henan province, this study examines students’ construction of two prestigious universities, Tsinghua University (Tsinghua) and Peking University (Beida), and the factors that influence their university choices, including the impact of enrollment strategies. This study is crucial for universities to shape their student body and improve their recruitment strategies. This study tries to answer the following research questions:

  1. (1)

    How do students perceive themselves and the university?

  2. (2)

    What is the influence of significant others on students’ university choice?

  3. (3)

    How does the university’s admission strategy affect students’ university choice?

This article is composed of five parts. We first provide background information on China’s university admission system for higher education and information on the two elite universities of interest: Beida and Tsinghua. We then offer a theoretical framework based on Simon (1957, 1982)’s Bounded Rationality Theory and a literature review focusing on the literature of elite universities and students’ choices. This is followed by our research design and data collection process. Next, we give our research findings on students’ perceptions and the factors affecting their perceptions. Finally, we suggest ways to develop universities’ recruitment strategies to attract world-class students.

Research background

The National College Entrance Examination (NCEE) in Mainland China, commonly called the Gaokao (高考), is a high-competition, high-stakes, and high-risk large-scale selection examination. It is arguably the most important and influential examination in China (Liu, 2010). Unlike American colleges and universities who admit students for reasons other than (or in addition to) academic performance, and although Chinese colleges and universities adopt various admission methods such as independent enrollment, the Chinese government still advocates the concept of equality based on scores (Niu et al., 2018). Thus, students choose colleges and universities based on their scores on Gaokao, and colleges and universities have no right to reject any student with high scores. The relatively fair and open talent selection mechanism constructed by the Chinese government through the college entrance examination system has mobilized students’ enthusiasm for learning and attracted widespread attention in society (Yang, 2009).

People tend to evaluate the quality and reputation of a university based on its admission scores. If a university has a high admission score, they assume the university is of high quality. To capitalize on this general assumption, colleges and universities have started to compete for students who score high in the college entrance examination (Qin, 2015a). In effect, the reform in college applications has heightened the competition for outstanding students. After 2000, the format and time for students to apply to the university began to change in different provinces in China. Previously, students chose universities based on the scores estimated before the college entrance examination; after the reform, the choice was mainly based on the scores announced after the examination. Under the new model where students know their scores and then choose a university, the target group of high-scoring students is very clear, and the competition for these particular student resources in Chinese universities has intensified (Zhao & Zhao, 2005). China’s elite universities, including Tsinghua and Beida, strive to recruit outstanding students, and the student source competition is a hot topic every year (Zheng, 2011).

Tsinghua and Beida have received extensive attention because of their unique status and influence in China’s higher education system. Founded in 1898, Beida was the first national comprehensive university in China and the highest educational administrative institution in China at that time. Tsinghua was founded in 1911; its establishment was related to Boxer Indemnity, so it was also called the “American Indemnity College”. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, it focused on cultivating engineering and technical personnel and was colloquially known as the “cradle of red engineers.”

Since the 1990s, China has implemented the 211 Project, the 985 Project, and “Double-First Class” initiative to promote world-class universities (Song, 2018). Tsinghua and Beida quickly established leading positions in China’s higher education, and their positions in the world university rankings increased significantly as well. According to the World University Rankings published by Times Higher Education, for the first time, two Chinese universities entered the top 20 in 2022. These universities, Tsinghua and Beida, are tied for 16th place worldwide and ranked first in Asia (Times Higher Education, 2021).

In China, Tsinghua and Beida are considered to be at the top of the higher education system and, as such, draw top students. Data on the minimum scores of liberal arts and science students admitted to universities and colleges in 31 provinces from 2008 to 2017 show that these were the top two universities in Mainland China. This reflects the attractiveness of these universities to Chinese students (Qingta, 2020).

As suggested above, the increasingly fierce competition between Tsinghua and Beida for high-scoring students is related to China’s college entrance examination and admission system. Because of the implementation of unified examinations in different regions (provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government), the enrollment quotas of each university in each region are allocated in advance. Therefore, examinations, college applications, and university admissions in different regions of China are independent (Wu & Zhong, 2012).

In their effort to attract students, Tsinghua and Beida have set up enrollment working groups in 31 provinces (with the exception of Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan). In 2015, the Sichuan enrollment teams of Tsinghua and Beida fought on Weibo. They accused each other of using higher scholarships to buy students, slandering other universities, and deceiving students (Sohu News, 2015). Although the fight lasted only a few hours and ended quickly, the media attention and public sentiment triggered by it continued for a long time.

The source of the “Tsinghua-Beida War” can be traced to the status of these two universities (Wang, 2015). Due to the prevalence of “score worship” in Chinese society, high-scoring students are simply equivalent to high-quality students. The fierce competition for high-scoring students stems from the impact of the quality of students on the universities’ comprehensive reputation, but it also reflects the impact of good students on universities’ talent training and scientific research (Tan, 2014).

In their attempts to win this competition, Tsinghua and Beida are trying to attract candidates to apply through various methods, including advertising, home visits, scholarships and promises of unconditional changes of study major. Students, parents, and high schools enjoy the “negotiation” between Tsinghua and Beida. People from all walks of life pay close attention to the competition between these two universities for high-quality students, but they often overlook how students finally choose between Tsinghua and Beida. In the context of this ongoing battle to attract students, we critically examined the factors influencing students’ final choices. This paper presents the major findings of a survey conducted in 2016 on students’ perceptions of themselves and higher education institutions in Mainland China, and factors influencing their choice of Tsinghua or Beida.

Theoretical framework

This paper adopts Simon (1957, 1982)’s Bounded Rationality Theory to investigate students’ decision-making tendencies in situations where they lack adequate information. The Bounded Rationality Theory (Simon, 1957, 1982) proposes that human decision-making is limited by a variety of factors, including time constraints, cognitive limitations, and the availability of information.

Over the past decades, there is a heated debate between the Rational Choice Theory (e.g. Becker, 1976; Coleman, 1990) and the Social Constructivist Theory (e.g. Berger & Luckmann, 1966). On the one hand, Rational Choice theorists (e.g. Becker, 1976; Coleman, 1990) assume that individuals are rational actors who make decisions based on their preferences and the available information. They further assume that individuals could process all relevant information and make optimal decisions. On the other hand, Social Constructivists (e.g. Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Giddens, 1984) argue that decision-making is shaped by social, cultural, and historical factors. They argue that individuals do not make decisions in isolation, but rather are influenced by their social contexts. However, Simon (1957, 1982)’s Bounded Rationality Theory remedies the deficiencies of the Rational Choice Theory and the Social Constructivist Theory. The Bounded Rationality Theory challenges the Rational Choice Theorists’ assumption by arguing that individuals have limited cognitive capacity and are unable to process all relevant information. Instead, individuals make “satisficing” decisions, meaning they choose the first option that meets a minimum threshold of acceptability. This theory acknowledges the role of social influences in decision-making but also emphasizes the cognitive limitations that individuals face. Thus, it can be seen as bridging the gap between Rational Choice and Social Constructivism by recognizing the role of both cognitive limitations and social influences in decision-making. It suggests that individuals make decisions that are both bounded by their cognitive limitations and influenced by their social context, rather than being purely rational or purely socially constructed.

Based on the Bounded Rationality Theory, we aim to study the factors that influence Chinese high school students’ choice of elite universities for understanding how individuals make decisions in situations of incomplete information. According to Simon (1957, 1982), individuals have limited cognitive resources and cannot always process all available information when making decisions. Instead, they use heuristics, or simplified decision rules, to make choices that are “good enough” given the constraints they face. In the context of the study of Chinese high school students’ choice of elite universities, this theory provides a lens through which to analyze how students weigh different factors when making their decisions. For example, students may rely on heuristics such as reputation, location, or social expectations to choose between Tsinghua and Beida, even if they do not have complete information about the quality of education, career prospects, or other important factors.

By applying the Bounded Rationality Theory to the survey data from 10 senior high schools in Henan province, the study identifies the decision-making tendencies of Chinese high school students when choosing between elite universities, despite their lack of complete information about their choices. The results of the study could help inform universities’ recruitment strategies and provide insights into how to better communicate with prospective students about the benefits of attending their institutions.

Literature review

Recent studies on elite universities focus on the relationship between the university degree and their graduates’ salaries (Sullivan et al., 2018), universities’ educational reform policies under the global university project (Black, 2018), and under-represented students’ experiences at elite universities (Stubbs & Murphy, 2020). In the Chinese context, studies include faculty members’ participation and engagement in creating world-class universities (Li & Xue, 2021), the academic background and characteristics of newly recruited faculty in elite universities in Mainland China (Li et al, 2018), the reform of the personnel system implemented by Chinese elite universities based on the experience of universities in European and American countries (Tian, 2011), and China’s high-level universities’ promotion of the practice of industry-university-research collaborative innovation through school-run industries (Cao, 2014).

Elite universities look for quality students (He, 1999), but few studies focus on their recruitment procedures. The United States has some of the top universities in the world, but even here, there are only a few books, such as The Chosen, that expose the system of enrollment at elite universities such as Harvard and Yale (Karabel, 2014). Some research on enrollment in elite universities in China considers the influence of the design of the college application on the quality of enrolled students (Wu & Zhong, 2012). Less work asks about prospective students’ perceptions, construction, and expectations of an elite university before they enter it. However, this is a crucial aspect of enrollment, with major implications for students and institutions alike.

Completing a college application is an aspiration among students (Pan, 1988), but on a practical level, it is a “two-way street”, with both candidates and higher education institutions involved. Students can be regarded as buyers and show their preferences to a university by filling in the respective application intent form. Colleges and universities, as sellers, screen students according to the signals given by the college entrance examination scores and consider whether to provide products to the buyer (Zhong et al., 2004).

Students’ college applications are affected by multiple factors, including personal tendencies, the influence of significant others, characteristics of the university, and national policy orientations. Personal factors include personal interests, hobbies, specialties, and scores obtained in the college entrance examination or overall academic results (Zhao & Fu, 1998). Parents, relatives, friends, teachers, classmates, and experts can influence application choices as well (Guo & Zhang, 2006). University factors refer to the reputation and popularity of the university, the employment situation of alumni, the university’s environment, and the location of the university (Gao, 2007). Some scholars also say that the advertising and consulting work of colleges and universities has an impact on the choice of students (Xu, 2004). To increase the acceptance rate of college offers, some American universities offer to provide students with financial assistance such as scholarships and to attract outstanding students, they adopt “early decision” (ED) and “early action” (EA) strategies (Karabel, 2014). Finally, national policy refers to the national macroeconomic policy, education policy, enrollment policy, and so on (Zhang, 2005). While the student’s intention to choose a university seems to be personal, it is a comprehensive manifestation of the candidate’s qualities, family social background, university image, and society’s value orientation (Nie & Yang, 2008; Qin, 2015b; Tie, 2015; Xu, 2005; Zhong & Lu, 1999).

In China, scholars have comprehensively discussed academic performance. However, there are few large-scale data surveys, and while some scholars are concerned about the influence of social concepts on students’ choices, they mainly focus on matching different types of universities, majors, and gender. There is a serious lack of research on whether the public’s stereotypes of some universities, especially Tsinghua and Beida as elite centers, have an impact on students’ construction of universities and their choice of which to attend. In addition, these two top universities in China have invested a lot of time and money in promotion in recent years, but the discussion of the effectiveness of their enrollment strategies is inadequate.

Research method

Research design

This research was carried out because of the authors’ questions about how students choose between Tsinghua and Beida. One of the authors served as a student assistant and key team member on the admissions team of Beida in Henan province from 2013 to 2018. The job responsibilities of the admissions team include promoting Beida through various channels in Henan province, encouraging outstanding students to apply, and selecting outstanding students to participate in Beida’s summer camps, winter camps, and various independent enrollment plans.

Every year after the local education authority releases students’ scores on NCEE, the admission teams of Tsinghua and Beida dispatched to Henan province are engaged in fierce competition for high-scoring students. In addition to communications and exchanges with high school principals, teachers, students, and their parents, the teams mobilize local alumni, seek help from the local government, and jointly persuade excellent students to choose their respective universities. Because one author was a member of the Beida admissions team, we were able to adopt a variety of research methods, including participatory observation, interviews, and questionnaire surveys.

Sample and research instrument

Given the strong predictive effect of individual tendency on behavior, we used a self-designed “questionnaire on the influencing factors of college application tendency”. It was distributed from June to August 2016 among students who had participated in NCEE in 10 key high schools in Henan province. In order to reduce the impact of the author on students filling out this questionnaire, the author invites high school teachers to distribute the questionnaire among students and invites students to respond based on their own real thoughts. As the province has a large population, it usually has the largest number of students participating in the college entrance examination, thus making Henan province a key target for recruitment by Tsinghua and Beida. The questionnaire included a question on how students would choose between universities if they were allowed to make a choice freely without consideration of scores. We collected 2641 valid questionnaires. Of these, 1354 students chose Beida or Tsinghua, accounting for 51.3%; 938 and 349 students chose other universities in Mainland China or overseas universities, accounting for 35.5% and 13.2%, respectively. We focused on the 1,354 students who chose Tsinghua or Beida and analyzed the factors that influenced how these students chose between the two elite universities.

The questionnaire contains four sections. The first section collects students’ background information, including individual factors (such as gender, students’ enrollment methods, students’ discipline category, academic performance, dream university, familiarity with the dream university) and family socioeconomic status (such as father’s occupation, father’s educational background, family income). In the second section, presented 10 items on a 6-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = slightly disagree, 4 = slightly agree, 5 = agree, and 6 = strongly agree) to collect students’ self-perceptions and their perceptions of universities and majors. The third section collected students’ application tendencies among Beida, Tsinghua, other universities in Mainland China, and overseas universities. The final section presented 14 items on a 6-point Likert scale (1 = very unimportant, 2 = unimportant, 3 = slightly unimportant, 4 = slightly important, 5 = important, and 6 = very important), which aimed at eliciting students’ viewpoints regarding the factors influencing students’ application to universities, including university factors (such as top university, environment and facilities, reputation, teaching and research, easy employment, further study), influence from significant others (such as peer effect, idol effect, relatives’ opinions, high school’s opinion), and enrollment strategies (such as meet students’ major needs, provide scholarship, promotion, admission officers’ persuasion).

Variable design and descriptive statistics

We used binary logistic regression to examine the factors affecting students’ choice of Beida or Tsinghua. The dependent variable was students’ college application. We set Tsinghua University as the benchmark. The key explanatory variables are university factors, influence from others and enrollment strategies. To isolate confounding factors, we controlled for a large set of covariates that might simultaneously affect the key independent variables and the dependent variable. They can be grouped into two categories, including individual factors and family socioeconomic status. Descriptive statistics of each question are shown in Table 1. It should be noted that there are many missing values for family income, which may be due to students’ ignorance of family income or reluctance to inform it due to privacy concerns.

Table 1 Descriptive statistics of each question in the questionnaire
Full size table

Results

Students’ self-perceptions

We investigated two aspects of students’ self-perceptions: whether they knew their own interests and abilities, and whether they had a clear plan for future career development. If we consider “strongly agree”, “agree” and “slightly agree” as expressing “agree” to this item in the questionnaire, only 43.6% of participants had a clear awareness of their interests and abilities, and 27.8% had a clear plan for a future career. It is worth noting that nearly one-third of the students chose “slightly agree”, showing vague agreement. In addition, if “strongly disagree”, “disagree”, and “slightly disagree” are combined, 41.2% of participants had no plan for a future career, and 25.4% did not know their own interests and abilities clearly. These percentages strongly suggest students do not necessarily make fully rational choices on their college applications (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Students’ self-perceptions

Full size image

Students’ perceptions of universities and majors

The data showed that the proportion of students with clear preferences in their university applications and study majors is 62.9% and 60.6%, respectively. That is to say, nearly one-third are unclear about universities and majors. Students who know how to choose a university and major only account for 36.8% and 32.4%, respectively. A rational choice is generally based on knowledge, but those who know about the universities and their major areas of study only respectively account for 31.2% and 25.4%. This undoubtedly affects choice, with possible negative consequences, if students choose incorrectly. In China, many colleges and universities enroll students according to majors, but many students have no full understanding of majors when choosing. As a result, some students’ interests are not in line with their majors, leading to boredom or disinterest (Table 2).

Table 2 Students’ perceptions of universities and majors
Full size table

The data also showed that students may not have an objective understanding of the disciplinary advantages of China’s elite universities. According to the survey, nearly half (46.7%) of the students believe Beida’s disciplines related to science are weak. In fact, the overall strength of its science subjects ranks first among Chinese universities. At present, the recognized discipline evaluation in China is organized by China Academic Degrees and Graduate Education Development Centre (CDGDC) under the Ministry of Education. CDGDC conducts the China Discipline Evaluation (CDE) every 4 years. The fourth round of CDE was carried out in 2016. A total of 513 HEIs and 7,449 disciplines participated in this evaluation, including 94% of the disciplines with the right to confer a doctorate. In the “discipline overall score”, the top 70% of the disciplines ranked are divided into 9 grades: the top 2% (or top 2) is A+; 2–5% is A (excluding 2%); 5–10% is A−; 10–20% is B+; 20–30% is B−; 30–40% is B−; 40–50% is C+; 50–60% is C; 60–70% is C−. The results of the fourth round of CDE (Table 3) ranked Beida’s humanities and social sciences and science at A and A+ levels, respectively—a better ranking than Tsinghua. It is worth noting that people generally believe Beida focuses on liberal arts; the formation of this concept has brought huge challenges to the admissions teams.

Table 3 Results of fourth round of China Discipline Evaluation (CDE) (Beida vs Tsinghua).
Full size table

In addition, 57.7% of students believe Tsinghua is dominated by science and engineering, and liberal arts are relatively weak. In fact, since the Chinese government made large-scale adjustments to the departments of universities in 1952, Tsinghua’s disciplines have been dominated by engineering. In the 1980s, Tsinghua gradually realized the importance of science and liberal arts for building a world-class university. In 1999, Tsinghua submitted the Tsinghua University to Create a World-Class University Plan (1999–2001) to the Ministry of Education. The plan proposed to build Tsinghua into a “comprehensive, research-oriented, and open world-class university.” The main goals of discipline construction included accelerating the construction of science, economics, and humanities and developing arts disciplines. The plan estimated it would take 3 years or longer to adjust the discipline structure and become a comprehensive university. In recent years, Tsinghua has vigorously promoted science and humanities, and social sciences, with remarkable results (Zhuang et al., 2011; Tsinghua University, 2021). As shown in Table 3, the humanities and social sciences are currently at the B+ and A levels as a whole, slightly inferior to Beida, but still ranking in the forefront of Chinese universities.

Analysis of factors influencing students’ application to Tsinghua or Beida

We used binary logistic regression to analyze the factors influencing where students are likely to apply. Tsinghua was the benchmark. The log-likelihood value of the model was 574.488, the Cox and Snell R-square was 0.276, and the Nagelkerke R-square was 0.377. The overall model test was significant, indicating that the model fit well. The regression results are shown in Table 4.

Table 4 Binary logistic regression analysis of factors influencing students’ choice of Beida or Tsinghua
Full size table

First, among individual characteristics, gender, students’ category, and academic performance are factors affecting the application. The possibility that boys will apply to Beida is only 46.5% of that for Tsinghua. In other words, girls tend to choose Beida, while boys tend to choose Tsinghua. Students of liberal arts are 15.3 times more likely to choose Beida than Tsinghua. The results show that students of science generally prefer Tsinghua while students of liberal arts prefer Beida. Students generally believe Beida’s disciplines are mainly Humanities and Social Sciences; this belief limits their choices to a certain extent. In terms of academic performance, compared to the top 1% of students, the possibilities of the top 5% and 10% of students choosing Beida are respectively 2.48 and 2 times that of choosing Tsinghua. The results suggest the higher-scoring students (top 1%) prefer Tsinghua.

Second, in terms of family socioeconomic status, the father’s occupation and family income have an important influence on students’ choices. There are significant differences in the choices of students from families whose fathers are senior management or technical staff (including administrative cadres at the department level, senior managers of enterprises, and professional technicians) and junior management or technical staff (including nurses and other technical auxiliary personnel, clerical personnel, business, and service personnel). The possibility of students whose fathers are junior management or technical staff choosing Beida is only 34.5% of that choosing Tsinghua. In fact, for every 1% increase in family income, the probability of students choosing Beida increases by about 31%. These findings may be related to the discipline setting of the universities. Beida is mainly composed of basic disciplines such as liberal arts and sciences, while Tsinghua is mainly composed of applied disciplines of science and engineering. This may lead to a situation wherein most disciplines of Beida seem to be “detached” from the job market, and their future applicability does not seem strong. In contrast, Tsinghua’s disciplines are well connected to the job market, with strong technical applications, and rapid economic benefits.

Third, interestingly, the university characteristics, such as whether it is a top university, whether it has teaching and research strength, whether it is easy for graduates to find a job or to continue further study, do not have a significant influence on students’ choices. Because Beida has a better environment and facilities, the proportion of students choosing Beida for these reasons is close to twice that of Tsinghua. This might result from the higher recognition of Beida’s iconic campus scenery among high school students, such as BoYa Tower, Weiming Lake, and Peking University Library. The influence of significant others, such as the peer effect (“excellent students in our high school generally apply for this university”), the idol effect (“I admire some alumni of this university”), the opinions of other people (including parents, relatives, head teachers, or teachers of high school), also seems negligible, suggesting that students are relatively independent in the selection process.

Lastly, in terms of enrollment strategy, factors like scholarships do not have a significant influence on students’ applications. Students are unlikely to change their original choice if, say, a scholarship is offered. It is worth noting, however, that other strategies work: promotion and admission officials both have a significant influence on students’ choices. Frequent promotion in high schools makes a difference: the number of students who hope to apply for Beida based on what they have heard is 4.7 times that of Tsinghua, indicating Beida’s promotion has achieved remarkable results. Yet when we turn to the influence of front-line admission officials on students’ applications, there is a gap between Beida and Tsinghua, with the latter outperforming the former.

Discussion

Closing the information gap through effective information support

The initial finding of this study reveals a disparity between the information available to students regarding these two elite universities and the actual information they are able to access. The impact of information support on students’ access to higher education cannot be ignored. The students, as disadvantaged groups, suffer from information dilemmas about higher education opportunities (Bao et al., 2019). To a certain extent, students’ college applications are not only a competition of scores, but also a game of information. Students’ decision-making behavior is not fully rational and is limited (bounded) by their ability to process information. As a province with a large population, students in Henan are facing great competitive pressure to enter universities. Examination-oriented education is generally implemented in high schools in Henan. Students need to study in school most of the time and have a few holidays. And high school students are generally prohibited from using mobile phones and network devices in school. In addition to course learning, students have limited access to external information.

So it’s not surprising that we found students’ perceptions of universities and majors are not clear, and students’ college applications are not based on a full understanding of what universities and majors have to offer. Such information asymmetry will inevitably lead to mismatched choices between Tsinghua and Beida. The information gap highlights the necessity of information support for high school students. This study reveals that the serious disconnection between high school education and university education in China. Basic education and higher education are separate systems and relatively closed, thus causing some students to express low satisfaction with higher education, simply because they are unaware.

According to a survey conducted by Beida in 2015 among national science and engineering universities, the proportion of college students who want to change majors is as high as 30%, but the proportion of those who manage to so do is only 4.2% (Zhu, 2020). Even though students are not interested in their majors, few students have successfully transferred to other majors, which is due to most colleges and universities set a certain threshold for changing majors, stipulating, for example, that students can apply to transfer majors only if they have outstanding performance in the original. However, if they lack interest in their study major and, as a result, have lost interest in learning, students may have low performance, making it difficult to meet the requirements for transfer.

The implicitly detrimental impact of socially perpetuated university image

Though another research finding indicates that the influence of significant others, seems negligible, social concepts or socially images of universities may subtly play a crucial role in students’ decision-making processes. Based on the Bounded Rationality Theory, it has been established that individuals have limited cognitive abilities and access to information when making decisions. Simon (1957, 1982) posited that decision-making is a complex process that requires individuals to make choices based on incomplete and imperfect information. Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier (2012) emphasized that it is difficult for people to have sufficient information, so their decision-making is inevitably influenced by many factors, such as social beliefs (p. 86). Socially images of universities, which indicates the net result of the subject’s beliefs, ideas, feelings and impressions about universities, will affect students’ behavior and choices (Azoury et al., 2014). This study try to illustrate how elite universities are socially constructed and how social images influence students’ individual choices.

In recent years, the main challenge faced by the admissions team of Beida in Henan province is the socially images of Beida in Henan. First, the stereotype is that Beida’s disciplines are mainly liberal arts, while Tsinghua’s focus is on science. This has implications for students’ choices. In 2017, the highest-achieving science student in Hebi City, Henan province was a student hailing from a rural background. As a member of the admissions team at Beida, one of the authors of this study made several visits to his home, aiming to persuade him to choose Beida. However, despite the efforts, he ultimately prioritized Tsinghua as his university of choice. When asked about the reasons behind this decision, his mother, who, along with her son, expressed illiteracy, candidly explained their lack of awareness regarding the distinguishing features between Beida and Tsinghua, further highlighting their difficulty in making an informed decision. Nevertheless, their neighbors, who demonstrated benevolence, apprised them of Tsinghua’s unparalleled reputation in the field of science within China. Taking into consideration their son’s strong inclination towards science, the neighbors recommended that he apply to Tsinghua.

Second, people tend to believe that universities and majors with high admission scores and scarce ones are of high quality. Tsinghua admissions team in Henan is not satisfied with more outstanding science students choosing Tsinghua over Beida, and strives to achieve a higher admission score for liberal arts than Beida, attracting more top liberal arts students. Tsinghua strategically create a scarcity of enrollment quotas to improve admission score and the reputation. For instance, during the first author’s tenure in the admissions team of Beida in Henan province from 2013 to 2018, Tsinghua limited the number of liberal arts students enrolled to under 8 in the case province’s first batch of NCEE, while Beida often enrolled over 30. This resulted in Tsinghua’s admission scores for liberal arts exceeding those of Beida in Henan province, leading people to gradually change their beliefs, believing that Tsinghua’s liberal arts are no worse than Beida. So some of the top ten liberal arts students in the province, even top scorers, have chosen Tsinghua in recent years. The competition between Tsinghua and Beida is to attain higher admission scores overall, shaping the social images of better education quality at their respective institutions.

Class differentiation in students’ college application

Furthermore, our study reveals that students’ university and major preferences also reflect the educational expectations of different social classes for their children. Each social class has different resources and may have different expectations for the education of future generations (Lu, 2002). Those with lower family socioeconomic status prefer their children to choose majors and universities with a strong market orientation, while those with higher socioeconomic status are more inclined towards basic disciplines or humanities and arts, thus confirming the statement that “the first generation is keen on engineering (manufacturing), the second is keen on finance, and the third is keen on art or basic science” (Sohu, 2020). Another study conducted in China also shows that students from socio-economically advantaged families, demonstrate a stronger propensity to major in liberal arts fields rather than science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields (Hu & Wu, 2019). The established market system since 1978 rewards STEM majors because the technology specialties of STEM are generally profitable to business interests (Hu & Vargas, 2015).

In a broader context, with the advancement of economic and social conditions, children and parents hailing from more affluent social strata may tend to assign diminished importance to material gains. Conversely, children belonging to lower-income households may prioritize the prospects of employment when considering their choice of academic majors. It is worth noting that certain high school principals actively promote the pursuit of STEM disciplines at Tsinghua among students hailing from disadvantaged backgrounds. One of the authors of this study once visited a prestigious high school in his hometown on behalf of the Beida admissions team and attempted to persuade a high-scoring student to choose Beida. The principal politely refused the invitation of the author. He said,

I understand that you, as our alumnus, want to invite this student to choose Beida. However, this student’s family is very poor. I would recommend that he study more technical majors at Tsinghua to ease the financial burden on his family. His parents also believe that, compared to Beida, he can earn a higher salary in the future by choosing Tsinghua.

Give full play to the educational role of college promotion

In our study, we find that students exhibit rational decision-making tendencies and are less likely to be swayed by external factors such as scholarship offers. Additionally, we found that frequent promotion of universities in high schools can have a positive impact on students’ application decisions, making it an important strategy for universities to attract potential students. In general, students with preconceived notions and traditional ideas about colleges and universities may not easily alter their perspectives after only brief interactions with admissions officials. It often requires a significant amount of time for students to change their perceptions, and establishing a long-term mechanism of close contact with students is crucial. It is worth noting that both Tsinghua and Beida have recognized that cutthroat competition between colleges and universities is detrimental (Qin, 2015a). In an interview, a professor from another province’s admissions group at Tsinghua said,

The vicious competition between Beida and Tsinghua has no social significance. In my submission, I propose that the main role of Tsinghua’s admissions work is not to compete with Beida for outstanding students, but to encourage students to establish their dreams and work hard to realize them.

Conclusion and implication

In this paper, we used the data from 10 senior high schools in Henan province to analyze students’ construction of China’s elite universities (Tsinghua and Beida). We explore the influencing factors of individual tendencies between Tsinghua and Beida. We find that the students did not have a clear understanding of Chinese universities and majors. Students’ misperceptions of Tsinghua and Beida relate to insufficient information, and socially entrenched images of these two universities. Moreover, their social surroundings may had a subtle influence on choice, with different classes of families having different expectations. We conclude that university promotion could be an effective way to influence students’ choices.

We recommend that elite universities expand their reach through effective publicity to help students develop a more accurate understanding of the university and avoid selection bias caused by information gap and socially entrenched images of universities. It is important for colleges and universities to avoid unhealthy competition and encourage students to pursue their interests. Furthermore, they should fulfill their social responsibilities to establish a positive social image while serving students. To better serve students from different socio-economic backgrounds, a classification guidance system should be established. Colleges and universities should increase funding for students from disadvantaged families and take measures to alleviate their concerns about financial burdens when making application decisions. This will help reduce the impact of economic factors on students’ selection and subsequent development.