Universities work to keep applications up

With tests by the National Center for University Entrance Examinations kicking off the university entrance examination season Saturday, students are doing their best to score high marks to enter universities of their choice.

Universities, on the other hand, are struggling to fill enrollment quotas amid a dwindling population of 18-year-olds, a situation that will soon see the number of university applicants matching placements available.

The gap between major universities, which attract more than 100,000 applicants, and those having difficulty meeting their quotas has become apparent.

Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto received 98,800 applications last year, but Vice Chancellor Masatsugu Hongo said the university will try to increase that number to more than 100,000 for the first time in four years.

To reach this goal, Ritsumeikan increased its number of examination venues from 19 to 30 in cities across the country.

Hongo said the number of applicants is a barometer of a university's popularity.
"Once application figures decline, it's hard to return them to old levels. We want to secure 100,000 applicants to remain a 'winner,'" he said.

Last year, three universities received more than 100,000 applicants. Waseda University had the largest number with 125,000 applicants.

This year, to speed up procedures for enrolling students, three Waseda faculties have set up an intake quota to accept students solely based on results of the standardized exams.

Waseda charges 20,000 yen to 35,000 yen for each entrance examination. In the 2006 academic year, its examination fees came to 4.98 billion yen, or 5 percent of its total revenues.

Last spring, Meiji University adopted a unified test that enabled applicants to apply to several faculties with the results of one test, breaking the 100,000 mark for the first time in 16 years.

This year, Meiji established a new faculty--School of Global Japanese Studies--and will hold a unified test for all faculties in seven cities in hopes of increasing the number of applicants.

Kansai University, which drew more than 100,000 applicants for the first time by holding entrance exams in 21 cities last year, decided to also hold exams in Kagoshima this year.

As Kansai University's examination fees totaled about 2.78 billion yen, or 6.5 percent of its revenues in academic 2006, the university said the fees are very important for university finances.

Hosei University had 90,000 applicants last year.

According to estimates by a major cram school, last year Nihon University had 71,000 applicants, Rikkyo University 68,000 and Chuo University 66,000.

According to a survey last spring by the Promotion and Mutual Aid Corporation for Private Schools of Japan, an external organization of the Education, Science and Technology Ministry, the 559 private universities in the country had 3.02 million applicants.

Of them, 1.44 million concentrated on 23 major universities.

As such, the number of universities failing to meet intake quotas has risen.

In academic years 2006 and 2007, about 40 percent of private universities failed to meet intake quotas.

Since peaking at 2.05 million in 1992, the population of 18-year-olds hit 1.24 million this year, a factor expected to further increase the number of universities with unmet enrollment quotas.

Universities' deviation value--which indicates a university's entrance examination difficulty--and name recognition are the main factors that sway the number of applicants.

Sundai Yobiko, a major cram school, believes that Nihon, Toyo, Komazawa and Senshu universities are the borderline that divides universities into major and minor categories.

In addition to those four, Daito Bunka, Asia, Teikyo and Kokushikan universities, which have an even lower deviation value, used to be students' second or third choice when they applied to more than one university. However, with a decline in the number of examinees, the number of applicants for universities of their second choice and third choice also has dropped.

Kokushikan University saw its number of applicants for general entrance examinations plunge from 45,000 in 1992 to 9,500 last year. Asia University's applicants fell from 32,000 in 1991 to 11,000 last year.

Shinzo Ishii, head of Asia University's entrance examination department, said it was hard to compete with first-rate private universities that have launched reforms.

"As a decline in the number of applicants would lower the university's deviation value, we're trying to keep the current number from falling," he said.

Iwate, Akita and Kagoshima universities, which are local national universities, will hold entrance examination tests in Tokyo to attract students from other areas. Two other local national universities, Toyama and Yamanashi universities, will hold similar tests in Nagoya.

Since 1983, Shinshu University has held entrance examinations for the Economics department in Tokyo. Last year, it held tests for its Economics and Arts departments in Tokyo and Osaka.

About 20 percent to 40 percent of the applicants took the two departments' first tests in Tokyo and Osaka.

Yuji Nishimura, section chief of Shinshu University's entrance examination department, said the university holds entrance exams in Tokyo and Osaka because of their large populations.

"If local national universities don't actively promote themselves to students, able students won't apply," he said.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080121TDY03103.htm