Expansion of graduate admissions: the largest increase in admissions is in engineering

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The registration for this year’s national postgraduate entrance examination officially concluded at the end of October. According to the official Weibo account of the Ministry of Education, the number of applicants for the 2016 postgraduate exams reached a new high, with 1.77 million people applying, representing a 7.33% increase compared to 2015. Compared to the 63,000 applicants when postgraduate education was reinstated in China in 1978, the number of applicants in China has increased by 28 times over the past 40 years. 　　As can be seen from Figure 1, since 2013, the admission ratio for postgraduate programs has shown a continuous downward trend. The admission ratio reflects the likelihood of being admitted to a university; according to the data in the figure, although the number of applicants for postgraduate exams keeps increasing, the chances of admission for these applicants have not decreased – instead, they have shown an upward trend. This is closely related to the ongoing expansion of enrollment in regular higher education institutions. 　　According to the postgraduate enrollment data published by the Ministry of Education over the past five years, the number of students enrolled in universities for both doctoral and master’s degrees has been increasing year by year. The data shown in Figure 2 below indicates that the total number of graduate students admitted in China was 541,000 in 2011, rising to 637,000 by 2015; an increase of 96,000 students over those 5 years, representing a growth rate of 17.72%. 　　In recent years, a clear trend in the enrollment of postgraduate students in our country has been the increasing number of students admitted to professional degree programs (a concept that corresponds to \"academic postgraduate programs\", with an emphasis on training applied talents). These programs represent the typical type of enrollment associated with the large-scale and rapid expansion of higher education institutions. Since 2009, China has made significant efforts to develop professional degree graduate programs; the number of students enrolled increased from 156,000 in 2011 to 260,000 by 2015, representing a growth rate of 66.38%. Professional degree graduate programs have seen a steady increase in popularity over these few years, offering candidates more opportunities to pursue postgraduate studies and thus gaining greater favor among them. The latest data in Figure 3 below show that in 2016, 850,000 people applied for professional degree postgraduate programs, accounting for 48% of all applicants. 　　Which region has the least competition for postgraduate entrance exams? What are the chances of being admitted? Which graduate programs are the most popular? Through the latest data on graduate admissions released by the Ministry of Education for 2015, we can get an overview of the current situation regarding graduate admissions in China. In terms of regional distribution, the data shown in Figure 4 indicates that the top five provinces (municipalities, autonomous regions) with the highest number of graduate admissions in 2015 were Beijing, Jiangsu Province, Shanghai, Hubei Province, and Shaanxi Province. Beijing, home to many first-class universities, led the way with over 100,000 graduate admissions, far ahead of the other regions. The five provinces (municipalities, autonomous regions) with the fewest enrollments are Guizhou, Ningxia, Hainan, Qinghai, and Tibet, which are relatively weak in terms of education and economy. 　　Looking at the different categories of graduate admissions in various universities, in 2015 China admitted a total of 636,900 students, of whom 564,400 were master’s degree candidates and 72,500 were doctoral candidates. Figure 5 shows that among the postgraduate students enrolled by universities directly under the Ministry of Education and other central departments, and those affiliated with local governments, each group accounts for half, at 320,900 and 316,000 respectively. Statistics show that universities under the Ministry of Education enroll the largest number of postgraduate students, accounting for 41% of the total nationwide. 　　Engineering, management, and medicine were the three fields with the highest number of graduate students admitted in 2015; the total number of admissions in these fields accounted for 60% of the overall number. Compared to the data from 2014, we find that the fields with the highest enrollment expansion rates at present are the two traditional popular majors of medicine and economics, as well as the emerging popular major of art ； On the contrary, **the fields of study and philosophy have seen a decline in popularity, with a decreasing number of students enrolling in them.** 　　Finally, University Network wishes all students applying for graduate studies success in their exams, and hopes that teachers can find the right graduate programs for themselves!