Criteria for assessing student abilities, as well as the degree of difficulty for admission, vary among colleges. Those colleges whose social prestige is very high usually require a high academic standard for applicants. It is very hard to get admission to these colleges. It should be added that these colleges select entrants not only on the basis of the applicants' academic performance. They assess the students' abilities in terms of diverse criteria including the applicants' high school activities other than academic studies and the results of interviews.
Some colleges spend much time, even one year, on screening applicants with scrupulous care.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that the level of the applicants' academic performance is a major element in the selection process. College applicants are required to work hard during their high school years, like university applicants in Japan. In France and West Germany, where all qualified secondary school graduates can enter universities, only a limited number of students remain to be university-bound students at the higher grades of secondary school, on the basis of the level of their academic achievement. This fact means that university admission requires students to maintain a high standard of academic performance in these countries as well. However, while students are required to work hard at school, student competition for university admission is not necessarily severe in these Western countries.