A total of 9.4 million students sat China's annual college entrance exam, or "gaokao," on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The number is 20,000 less than last year, a fall authorities attribute to hundreds of thousands of would-be candidates choosing to apply to foreign universities instead or having been granted early admission.
The sole bridge to university admission, the gaokao has suffered ubiquitous criticism, and is undergoing a major overhaul.
Still, the overwhelming majority of Chinese students and parents regard the exam as the fairest way of universities selecting people for enrollment and a competition none of them can afford to lose.
Different Choices
The gaokao is traditionally seen as a fate-changer that determines whether one can be enrolled for higher education and climb up the social ladder, go back to high school for another year and try again, or try to find a job in a fiercely competitive society.
The emphasis on exams and the high likelihood of not reaching the standards for admission to a top university have led more and more families, especially wealthier ones, to look for alternatives.
Zhou Shifang, a mother waiting outside a test center in Beijing, told Xinhua she had been very nervous about her son's performance in the exam.
Zhou's son, Huang Rui, is an art student who has passed an independent recruitment test and partially secured a place at Tsinghua University's Academy of Arts and Design.
As long as Huang can reach the minimum score of Beijing's admission line, he will be admitted by Tsinghua, the best university in China.
But Zhou has still reserved other plans for her son. Huang has applied to more than a dozen American colleges and received offer letters from several of them.
"My best hope is that my son will do well in the gaokao, and stay in China instead of going abroad," Zhou said.
Like the case of Huang, there has been a growing trend of Chinese students applying for overseas study. Students now can choose a battery of TOFEL, AP, ACT and SAT exams to complete their admissions portfolio as a backup plan in case their gaokao scores turn out unsatisfactory.
Total Chinese enrollment hit 124,552 in the United States in 2014/2015 academic year, up nearly 13 percent year on year, representing more than a quarter of the international students, according to the U.S. Open Doors Report.
Still Most Fair for Common Family
Unlike Huang's multiple choices, many kids from poorer families have the gaokao as the only path to change their destiny.
Li Mingze waited for his son outside a test center in Shanglin County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, south China.
As a farmer living in his native village with an annual household income of about 20,000 yuan (3,050 U.S. dollars), Li said his son's education had definitely been no match for that received by children born to the middle class.
