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After Acing the College Entrance Exam
Drawing on in-depth interviews with 62 graduating students from top Chinese universities, *After Acing the College Entrance Exam* unpacks the hidden inequalities shaping elite students’ post-college trajectories. Beyond the hype of the gaokao (China’s high-stakes college entrance exam), the book reveals how class background, cultural capital, and access to unwritten campus rules divide students into two distinct groups: goal-driven strategists who navigate academic and career systems with intentionality, and intuition-reliant learners who struggle to adapt to elite university norms. It explores four career identity types—autonomous strivers, opportunistic achievers, lost navigators, and value-aligned contributors—and highlights how marginalized students face "cultural disembedding" and identity confusion as they navigate unfamiliar elite spaces. Crucially, the book emphasizes that individual agency can break class barriers: many students redefine success, reframe their goals, and leverage campus resources to carve out meaningful paths, challenging the myth that elite education only reproduces social hierarchies.
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