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Private universities in Tokyo have an unofficial ranking according to highly competitive and extremely selective admissions. Sō-Kei-Jōchi (早慶上智) and MARCH are two terms used to identify Tokyo’s top two levels of private universities. Three private universities in Tokyo in the top level, and five in the second level, are considered the most prestigious. This ranking is not the same as the Tokyo 6 Universities or rokudai, the baseball league made up of six Tokyo universities, of which the five private members are included here.

The top level of private universities is known as Sōkeijōchi, which refers to Waseda (Sō/早), Keio (Kei/慶), and Sophia (Jōchi/上智) universities. The next level is known as MARCH: Meiji University, Aoyama Gakuin University, Rikkyo University, Chuo University, and Hosei University, respectively. These universities vary in enrolment, religious affiliation and history, but company hiring in Tokyo has shown that preference is typically given to new graduates of Sōkeijōchi or MARCH universities (see Daigakugun article in Japanese Wikipedia). Other selective private universities not included in these groups are Doshisha University, Gakushuin University, Meiji Gakuin University, Ritsumeikan University, International Christian University, etc. (Ando 1994, Ono 2003).

This categorization of universities is based on limited research. The separation of selective universies by Ando (1994) is based on the 1975 Stratification and Mobility survey, found to have very little systematic differences between groups, but continutes to be reported in publications on the topic (see Ishida et al 1997, Ono 2003).

Entrance examinations and employment preference

Those students with the highest entrance exam scores (less than the top 1% of high school graduates, although there are several different entrance examinations according to students’ educational backgrounds, and each varies in content and expectation of achievement), aim to enter a university with prestigious reputation, as graduation from these universities offers better opportunities for securing employment. Students who are not accepted upon initial entrance exam results may use the academic year studying (entering an intensive cram school program) to try again, rather than enter another university.

A percentage of students are offered admission to university by recommendation (suisen nyugaku), and are selected according to criteria similar to that in the US (high school performance and activities) rather than entrance examanation (Ono 2003).

With the widely accepted practice of job hunting, in which third- and fourth-year students spend significant time attending information meetings and interviews rather than attending classes, representatives of several of the larger companies in Tokyo visit the main campuses of these eight universities to allow students to have a better opportunity to secure a job as early as a year before actual graduation. It has been reported that graduates of highly selective and selective unviersities in Tokyo have higher incomes than those of non-selective universities (Ishida, et al 1997).


References

  • Daigakugun(大学群) [[1]]
  • College Quality and Earnings in the Japanese Labor Market. Hiroshi Ono. SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance No 395 (Revised March 11, 2003).
  • Educational Credentials and Promotion Chances in Japanese and American Organizations. Hiroshi Ishida, Seymour Spilerman & Kuo-Hsien Su. American Sociological Review, Vol 62, No 6 (Dec., 1997), pp. 866-882.
  • "Gakureki shakai kasetsu no kento" (Examining the educational credentialism hypothesis). Bunshiro Ando. In Kenichi Tominaga, ed., Nihon no Kaiso Kozo (1994) University of Tokyo Press, pp. 275-292.
  • A Review of Higher Education Reform in Modern Japan. Paul Doyon. Higher Education, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Jun., 2001), pp. 443-470.
  • Japan's Top 30 Universities. William Currie. International Higher Education, Winter 2002 [2]
  • Engineering Tasks for the New Century: Japanese and U.S. Perspectives (1999) Office of International Affairs [3]
  • www.yozemi.ac.jp/rank/gakubu/
  • www.toshin.com/daigakuranking/
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