China Conservatory Admission Scandal

• Author: CNTV news probe

A feature article revealing an admission scandal at the China Conservatory, which has not made it past CCTV censorship, has recently become popular on the internet. In the feature, a China Conservatory professor and Chinese Musicians’ Association Erhu Society President, Song Fei, one of the fifteen members of the Erhu professional examination judging panel in 2004, revealed to a reporter that on March 14 of that year, the inside story on the division’s entrance examination, which “confused black and white.”

China Conservatory was established in 1964, and places special emphasis on traditional Chinese music research and education.

In the entrance examination, a student who performed badly and made major mistakes ranked among the top students, while several excellent test-takers took low scores and faced the prospect of elimination. Song said, “Because I am worried about the children, and worried about the future of this undertaking and of all professions, I have come out to make this report.”

According to procedure, an admitted student at China Conservatory first needs to pass a preliminary examination on musical performance and a reexamination. Only after passing these exams do they receive the qualification to participate in the cultural examination.

Test-taker Yu Yang said that midway through the preliminary examination, the test administrator, the head of the teaching and research sections and the department head, asked him to go to the bathroom, where he then asked him who he studied erhu with in Beijing. Song Fei explained that if a given candidate has no teacher in the capitol, the candidate can become the student of one of the professors. When a teacher takes the initiative to seek a student, it indicates that the professor thinks the student has talent and wants to take charge of the student. Yu Yang’s father thought...