China's problems with affirmative action, recruiting low income and geographically diverse kids

[cobrat]

If “geographical distribution” is not practiced, Beijing and Tsinghua will be overrun by students from places like Hebei and Zhejiang. Shanghai too would not be immune. There would be riots on the streets.

Of greater concern to me is the huge gap in performance among jurisdictions. Based on the results of 2012, a Cantonese needs to score 78.53% to get in a first tier college in the arts faculty in top scoring Guangdong, while a Tibetan needs only 42.67% to do the same in Tibet. I think this is where a lot of the discontent is coming from: those minorities simply can not compete.

Interestingly, during the heyday of the Imperial Chinese Civil Service Examination system, the 3 provinces with the most examinees who succeeded in passing all 3 main levels of the examinations(locality, provincial, and national levels) consistently with high scores were Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu. Seems like some of this carries over to the present day and probably accounts for set-asides for Beijing/Shanghai area residents.