4-3 Entrance Exam Systems and Evaluation of Prestigious Colleges(Q. 12, 13)

The term "entrance exam hell" easily tells us the great difference we face on the subject of entrance exam systems. As is expected in Japan, fewer than 1% of the respondents are quite satisfied with the system, and only one third of students are fairly satisfied with the present system. College students are dissatisfied with the entrance exam system, suggesting those who have gone through the system express greater dissatisfaction.
On the other hand, less than 20% of American students are dissatisfied with the present system in the US of getting accepted to college based upon the SAT or other standardized scores and the high school GPA. The students of less competitive M public college feel similarly. For Japanese who have been trying hard to find an avenue to the notorious entrance exam system, it is amazing to see the satisfactory level of admission American students maintain. We speculate that in the US there is more than one yardstick to assess individual ability in a larger society.

[Are you satisfied with the way students are admitted to college?]

In the responses to "What significance do you think a diploma from a prestigious university has in getting a job?" in the US, we can find additional explanations of the variety of assessment American society has to offer. Generally speaking, Americans seem to value a college diploma and the name of university much more than the Japanese do. More often than not, because the starting pay of junior high graduates is typically one third of that of college graduates, the name of an alma mater matters as much as in Japan. Since the number of colleges in the US surpasses by far those in Japan, the American public at large is more conscious of which university a person graduated from.

[What significance do you think a diploma from a prestigious university has in getting a job?]

To prove a point, the amount of recognition accorded the graduate of a prestigious college is a lot more significant in the US than in Japan. The academic institution is considered as a stepping stone to a future career by the general public throughout the nation regardless of its location or the age or socio-economic status of the student. While many American students have a notion that the ability to get into a 'first-class' university and the ability to manage other aspects of life often go hand in hand, many Japanese students, except for students who supposedly attend a 'first-class' high school, believe the test score is merely a criteria to evaluate one's ability, and nothing else.
Thus, particularly non-prestigious track students maintain a mixed feeling toward 'first-class' universities, if not twisted or distorted. For instance, one half of the students of N High School, the majority of whose graduates cannot enter a college, let alone a prestigious university, responded that a diploma from a renowned university has little significance in getting a job. On the contrary, three quarters of the Japanese college students who eventually went through the entrance examination avenue and ended up attending a non-prestigious university admitted that the name of one's school matters, granted that the evaluation of 'first-class' is too uniform and over-simplified.