By Larissa Gao, Riley Zhang and Zhenzhen Liu - NBC News
Nor was the 27th attempt lucky for a millionaire man from China who has been trying to get into college for two decades.
Liang Shi, 56, has been trying for 40 years to achieve the score needed to pass China's national university entrance exam, known as gaokao.
"I admire intellectuals. I've always been impressed by knowledgeable and well-educated people since I was a kid," Liang told NBC News on Tuesday.
Liang Shi in Chengdu, China, on June 6, one day before he was to sit for the 27th time for the national university entrance examination. AFP - Getty Images
Recognized as one of the most difficult and competitive exams in the world, the gaokao takes place once a year and lasts two to three grueling days. Unlike in the United States and other countries where the exam is only one part of the college application, in China the gaokao is the only factor that determines whether a high school graduate will be able to attend college.
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Of the record 12.91 million students who took the exam earlier this month, less than half will make it into bachelor's degree programs, according to data from last year.
27 failed attempts
Liang, a native of Sichuan province in the southwest of the country, took the gaokao for the first time in 1983 but did not achieve the necessary score to be admitted to the university, much less to the school of his dreams: Sichuan University. In the following decade, he took the exam 27 times, more than anyone in all of China.
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Meanwhile, he worked in a state factory, got married, lost his job when the company closed in 1992 and launched his own business. He became a millionaire in the late 1990s, when the average salary in China was about 8,000 yuan ($1,105) a year, according to official data.
During all those years, he never gave up his efforts to pass the gaokao, which he took on multiple occasions until he became ineligible because of his age. He retook the exam when the age limit was removed, and has done so since 2010.
A fireproof will
In the years he was preparing for the exam, Liang said, he studied most days from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., with small lunch breaks.
"It usually started the preparation process in September, when students started the new academic year, and continued until June, when the exam started," he explained.
Chinese students prepare for the university entrance examination in Huanian, China, on May 22, 2023.Getty Images
"But my schedule is not as well organized as other students. I have to do a lot of other things," Liang said, adding that he studied three to four hours less per day compared to high school students preparing for the exam.
Their efforts were not rewarded on this occasion. When Liang, like millions of other aspirants, received the results last Friday, he opened them in a live broadcast sponsored by a Sichuan media outlet. To enter Sichuan University, he needed at least 600 points out of a total of 750, according to a database on university admissions in Sichuan province.
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His score was 424, down four points from the previous year.
"It's a shame," said Liang, who hoped to at least receive the 450 points needed to get into a second-rate university.
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His highest score, 469, was achieved in 2018, but that did not satisfy him because it was not enough to enter Sichuan University.
An extremely difficult exam
Although gaokao is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most students in China, Liang is not the only one who has taken the exam multiple times. Tang Shangjun, 35, has made 15 attempts to gain admission to one of China's top universities, Tsinghua, which has a lower student acceptance rate than Harvard University.
"But this is only one or two very rare cases among tens of thousands of gaokao attendees, and it does not represent a social trend or current in China," said Peng Hongbin, a professor with a background in educational policy and law at South China Normal University in Guangzhou.
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Most Chinese students and their families, especially those who cannot afford to study abroad, see the gaokao as the most important exam of their lives, the one that will determine the course of their future.
To prepare, high school students in China must study six subjects for three years, including three compulsory subjects: Mandarin, Mathematics and English. For the other three subjects, students can choose between sciences (chemistry, physics and biology) and humanities (geography, politics and history).
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When students finally sit down to take the test, many parents wait outside, anxiously.
Even students who do well in the gaokao and graduate from a university then face fierce competition: Unemployment in China among 16- to 24-year-olds hit a record 20.08 percent in May, according to official data.
Parents wait for their children, who take the college entrance exam, on June 8, 2023 in northeast China's Jilin province.Getty Images
Rising college tuition in China has also meant that college degrees offer less of an advantage than they used to. In May last year, state media reported that the employment rate of university graduates was lower than that of vocational school graduates.
"With the declining birth rate and the aging trend of the population, China needs and is carrying out an educational reform. Otherwise, Chinese universities may fail to recruit students, as there won't be enough people to take the gaokao," Peng said. "Right now, the country is on the way to diversifying university admission rules. But with that goal still a long way off, China still has a long way to go."
"I still want to be an intellectual"
Lian is not sure if he will take the gaokao again next year." I'm afraid I won't get the score to get into college," she said. "Maybe in the end I don't get anything."
His friends have supported him, Liang said: "They have encouraged me not to give up. It's a shame to put aside that thing you've fought for so long."
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Some members of his family think otherwise, including his son, who took the gaokao several years ago but did not prepare with his father, who was also doing so at the time.
"He is very opposed to me taking the exam," Liang said. "He felt embarrassed because at my age and despite having presented myself so many times, I still haven't achieved a good score."
Although college degrees have been "devalued" due to increasing competition in recent years, Liang said, "universities are sacred in my heart."
"I still want to be an intellectual," he confessed. "Achieving that goal will be my greatest achievement."