The craze for graduate school has spawned new business opportunities.
According to a set of the latest data, the number of applicants for postgraduate examinations in 2022 is 4.57 million, an increase of more than 800,000 over 2021, and a growth rate of more than 20%.
Fresh graduates prepare for self-study at school, but where are the classmates from World War II and World War III? For more former students, boarding institutions that provide closed teaching and self-study have quietly grown. The big brand of education and training is equipped with teachers to recruit students with the integration of residence and study, while small institutions only provide venues to create a sense of learning atmosphere for more postgraduate candidates.
These boarding classes, which cost thousands to tens of thousands, create a closed learning atmosphere, provide study rooms and dormitories for the whole process of postgraduate examinations, and some also claim to provide supervision services, attracting students who are expecting to go ashore from all directions.
What exactly is the boarding class experience like? Is it really helpful for graduate school entrance examinations? "Houlang Research Institute" found four students with boarding class postgraduate examination experience, some of them have lived in boarding class for more than 500 days, there are post-00 fresh graduates who will graduate next year, those who have prepared for the postgraduate examination for the third time, and those who have already landed, the four have different schools and majors with the academic examination, but the only thing that is the same is that when they come to the boarding class, they look forward to establishing the habit of self-discipline, so as to devote themselves to the postgraduate examination and study, and finally go ashore to achieve success.
Here's what they said.
Written by | Qiu Yumin
Edit | Vivizi
There was hard work and gossip in the boarding class
Cancan, female, post-95, went ashore at China University of Political Science and Law after three wars
My undergraduate major is marketing, after graduating in 2019, working for a period of time, I found that this is a relatively 10,000 essential oil industry, in the face of fierce competition, this industry has no barriers, at that time I had an idea of changing careers, then I plan to change the track through graduate school entrance examination. I found that the legal industry is a relatively barrier-free industry, and I thought that I was more suitable, so I chose to cross the examination of law.
I have been in an ordinary school for a long time, and I especially want to know the ceiling of this industry, what is their group of people, I want to be with a group of smart heads, then the highest score of the entire legal profession is Peking University, so I applied to Peking University at that time.
My first year of graduate school was in September 2019 when I went to boarding school, and I was out of work for three months. Because I was working in Beijing at that time, so the institutions I looked for in Beijing, the institutions I saw at that time were quite unreliable, one was in Yanqing, it took three hours by car, too far, and some institutions had a very bad learning environment, so many people in a particularly large classroom, I couldn't stand it, so many people's breaths mixed together, I think it would make my IQ, which was not rich, affecting my brain thinking.
Later, I chose a more suitable institution, and the four-person room was about 13,000 yuan, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. These three years have been prepared for the exam in this institution, not to say how good the services provided by this institution are, I have considered the cost of time replacement, and if you change places, you have to get used to it again, which is also troublesome.
Boarding classes are not like at home, where a person feels particularly lonely, has a lot of emotional problems, and is easy to become lazy, and you feel that you have worked hard after a little study for four or five hours. But if you look at boarding school, some people come to learn it at six or seven in the morning at one or two in the morning, and if you only study for four or five hours, you will have a deep sense of guilt in your heart.
Moreover, in the boarding class, the sense of competition between students can make it easier to focus on the exam, and the information at hand will be wider, and everyone can communicate with each other and share information more accessible.
Cancan's study notes Photo courtesy of interviewee
However, there are always imperfections in the postgraduate boarding class. Boarding classes are different from universities, and universities have a score line for the college entrance examination here, but boarding classes do not screen students' backgrounds, which will lead to many students from two books or even junior colleges coming in together. I don't mean discrimination, but some of their classmates are not focused on their studies, which may distract people who just want to concentrate on their studies.
Once a classmate asked me what school I was going to enter, I told them that I wanted to take the Peking University, but as a result, later I may have a bad relationship with some male classmates in the study room, they would give me nicknames, call me Peking University sister, saying that I have not been admitted for several years, the whole person has learned stupidly, and arranged some such gossip, some of which are actually quite excessive. I have even heard that in other boarding schools, boys were slandered by girls and went out to prostitute, and the students forced people to collapse and drop out of school.
The girl in my dormitory had turned off her lights at 1 a.m. and was still on the phone with her boyfriend, so I told her about it, and she moved away. When I encounter a conflict in the boarding class, I think that when it is time to deal with it, I must concentrate all my attention and solve the problem at once, if I ignore the attitude of avoiding tolerance, the other party will continue to disgust me for half a year or even a year. By the time I was in December, there was another person in the dorm talking to his boyfriend at one o'clock in the morning, so what happened?
For three years of graduate school entrance examination, I spent most of the first two years to earn money to support the next few months of graduate school entrance examination, and the annual expenditure on graduate school entrance examination was almost 50,000 or 60,000. In the 2021 graduate school entrance examination, I was fully prepared from March to December, and I was admitted. Since the graduate school entrance examination, I have calculated that I have spent hundreds of thousands, but that little money is nothing, it is my time that is the most precious, three years have been spent, what is this money?
Why do I keep insisting on the matter of entering graduate school, I think its sunk cost is too high, and for me personally, I want to do something, as long as I think this matter is very important to me, I will not compromise.
The only compromise was to switch from Peking University to the University of Law, and when I didn't get admitted for two years in a row, by the third year, I was really defeated and could only lower the school's goals. Many people think that my admission to the University of Law is a success, but I think it is a failure because I withdraw.
In the past three years, I have been very stressed, I am very tired every day, my head is stuffed with too much knowledge, so that I will be in a bad mood while sitting for graduate school, I will regularly let myself cry, and then come to vent my emotions. I think crying is actually a physiological state that you can regulate. If you're tired, take a day out on Sunday to play for a day, feel as if you haven't studied before, and then study the next day.
In fact, graduate school boarding is also a sense of atmosphere for selling, if you are particularly willpower, close the door to graduate school for ten hours, then you don't have to spend money to sign up for classes. Most of the students who come to the boarding class are not very self-controlled, and signing up for the class is actually more useful for this part of the people.
I was the doorman of the study hall and left at three in the morning
Oda male, post-95, three wars to prepare for Jilin University
I have already been in the third war this year, and my undergraduate major is new energy science and engineering, but because my favorite has always been history, I decided to cross the exam. In fact, although I studied science in high school, I always liked history in my heart, and when I graduated from college, I felt that the things I liked could not be worn out even after a long time, so I chose the subject of history.
I graduated in 20 years, and when I was 19 years old, I was preparing for the exam in school, and I was admitted to Ningxia University, but I was pressed that year, and all my volunteer classmates did not cross the line, which hit me a lot, and then I went to work. I worked in Tai'an for most of the year in construction-related work, the salary is quite high, after the probation period can be almost more than 8,000, the life is quite moist.
But slowly, I still felt unwilling, and I didn't want to waste the previous year's efforts, so I took the exam for another year. In February 2021, I resigned from World War II. At that time, I began to look for some boarding institutions, and I studied in Qingdao as an undergraduate, so I also found some schools in Qingdao.
Studying in the graduate boarding class is a path that I will definitely take during World War II. I don't think my self-control is very strong, and if I was preparing for the exam at home, I would definitely sleep in and not get up. Coupled with the graduate school entrance examination, it is also an information war, and it is definitely more efficient for you to collect information alone than to have a group of like-minded partners sharing data and learning together.
Study room where Oda is located Photo courtesy of interviewee
I decided on this institution in March 2021, when I came by train from Tai'an to Qingdao, I used to come to Qingdao to go back to undergraduate school, but this time I was preparing for graduate school, to be honest, I was very anxious, but I also felt excited, because at that time, I felt that for another year, I was a little closer to my dream.
I stayed in a single room last year, so it cost a little more, from March to the end of the retest, I stayed for more than a year and spent more than twelve thousand. The living expenses cost about 2,000 a month, and before July, I spent all the money I saved, and after July, it was really gone, that is, the family subsidized a little.
When I was in Qingdao last year, I got up between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., and then I kept studying, studying all night, and going to bed at 6 o'clock the next morning.
The added bonus of studying at this institution is that I have met good friends. The boss of that institution in Qingdao, he and I are first-level graduates, he did not choose World War II in the first year, and after landing in World War II, he chose to open such an examination institution, everyone is the same age, there will be some common topics.
There are also many friends I met who prepared for the exam together, and they also helped me a lot. After the end of this year's transfer, because many schools did not want to cross the examinee, I directly collapsed, so I went to Heze, to the home of the classmate I was preparing for the exam with, and I lived in his house for a month, as a healing and adjustment. He is a bachelor of Shihezi University and wants to be admitted to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and he was in the first few places in the first examination, because his spoken English was not very good and he was passed. He has now found a job with a salary of more than 10,000 a month, but he talked to me the other day and still wants to take the exam again this year.
Oda dormitory Photo courtesy of interviewee
This year, I went to a new institution on June 25th, and this time I chose an institution here in Shandong, because of the epidemic, I was afraid that some changes would affect the exam, so I found a boarding class at home. This school is in a vocational high school, using the school canteen and classrooms. I have been here for more than a month, and I feel that everything is still decent. Of the four people I live in, one is my cousin, we came to study together, and two are freshmen and sophomores, who come to experience life. When they came, they were not preparing for the postgraduate exam, but also felt that there was no learning atmosphere at home, so they came out to find a place to prepare for the fourth and sixth levels and computer exams.
My current schedule has changed a little compared to last year, I get up every morning at about 8:30 a.m. to wash and study, and I go back to the dormitory around 3 a.m. and sleep for about 5-6 hours. I am the door god of the study room, and I will guard the door here.
In fact, this year is quite confident, compared to last year to prepare a little more fully, even if it is just a multiple-choice test point, this year I will do a comprehensive recitation according to the essay questions. But sometimes I still feel anxious when brushing the circle of friends, my friends either went ashore last year, and the mentor has been in touch, or they have already studied for a Ph.D., see that others have been moving forward, have been improving, say that envy is false, and then look at themselves, are working towards such a humble and small dream, the third time may not necessarily have a chance.
In fact, I also know that the employment prospects of history are very slim, compared to my original undergraduate major, I must not earn much, but I can't bear the things I like to love. Persisting in the postgraduate examination for three years is also an affirmation of myself. The road ahead is still very long, choose to persevere, this is a road that I will not regret at this stage and in the future, as for the future things, let it be said later.
In my sophomore year, I studied in boarding classes
Xiaotian male 00s preparation for Chongqing Jiaotong University in World War I
I am a fresh graduate next year, majoring in civil engineering at a second school in Jiangsu, and I have been thinking about entering graduate school since my sophomore year.
According to my dad, for students like me, going to graduate school is all about bleaching and gilding.
My school is not very good, and I feel that there is no difference between reading it and coming out of the specialty, so I still upgrade my academic qualifications. And the major of civil engineering, there are quite a lot of market talents, and to put it bluntly, if you graduate from a bachelor's degree, you will go to the construction site as a coolie, so you should upgrade your education. But I know that my foundation is not very good, my learning is not solid, and the hope of rushing to the 211 and 985 schools is not very large, so I set up a double-African school in the southwest region, my family is over there, and the exam is also developed there.
There are about 40 people in our class, and almost 20 of us are entering graduate school. In the second semester of my junior year, I found that too many people began to prepare for graduate school and public examinations, including those around me who used to play every day without even going to class, and hanging a few subjects on the exam, suddenly wanted to enter graduate school, and went to the study room to stay for a day, and then I suddenly felt nervous.
In fact, when I was in my sophomore year, I was preparing for graduate school, when my father saw some graduate school institutions on the Internet and recommended one to me, and then I signed up for a boarding school for a month.
Because the headquarters of the institution is in Beijing, I also went to Beijing to study, it was my first time to Beijing, I felt very fresh and curious about everything, but I didn't expect that the headquarters was in Changping, far from the city, although I came to Beijing, but because of closed classes, the epidemic, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen, I have not been there.
Now that I am officially preparing for the exam, I am back in Beijing. The institution has branches all over the country, but I feel that Beijing is the headquarters after all, and the teachers must be better, so I came here. I actually also observed that this institution except me, basically World War II and World War III, I am World War I, but I don't want to stay in school, firstly, no one in the school cares about self-awareness, and secondly, in the dormitory, some people do not study, and they will also interfere with themselves.
Since the summer vacation of 2021, I have signed up for this boarding class, and it has cost more than 40,000 yuan in these two years, including accommodation and tuition. However, the water and electricity, Internet bills and food money in the dormitory are all taken by themselves.
The school environment is the same as a general university environment, the institution is in cooperation with a vocational school, and it should rent their classrooms and canteens. We have a very tight schedule every day, 7:50 in the morning, 2:00 in the afternoon, 6:30 pm to the classroom roll call, classes are arranged during the day, and self-study in the evening. In terms of my own feelings, it is similar to the third year of high school, and even more tired than the third year of high school, because the time is particularly tight and the study tasks are heavy.
The study room where Xiaotian is located Photo courtesy of the interviewee
The good thing about this is that the teachers who attend public classes also live in the dormitory and answer our questions in the office every day. As for professional courses, the institution will find you a senior from your target institution to answer your questions one-on-one.
However, the management of this institution is not as good as he says, and personal consciousness is still very important. Nominally there is a class teacher supervising, but in fact you still have to rely on yourself, for example, you don't want to go to morning self-study, don't want to go to class, the class teacher will not come to you, I once because of a cold, did not go to late self-study, and there is no teacher to manage me. The institution will also say that the teachers will help everyone channel their emotions, but if you don't take the initiative, he won't come to ask you
In fact, every day of the boarding class is very dull, and the only feeling is that the time is too fast. Last month, July 29th, when I had to pay the monthly Internet fee in my dormitory, I realized that a month had passed again. But not seeing your own progress will bring some anxiety, especially when doing English reading, five wrong four, the heart is cold.
Life here is very regular, dormitories, canteens, study rooms at three o'clock, occasionally indulge in a whim to order takeaway, or go to a small open-air restaurant in the school to eat a small barbecue, without thinking about anything else. Even on Sundays and holidays, I have made it a habit to keep studying. I also wanted to sleep in, but I woke up on time around eight o'clock, and at most I got up to study after a while, and if I didn't study, I would feel a sense of guilt in my heart.
Now that there are more and more graduate students and the competition is getting fiercer, I came here last year in my sophomore year to experience it, when two first-year students in the class came to the summer vacation class and began to prepare for the exam from the first year.
I have paid attention to the school I am admitting to, my major a few years ago, I was able to be admitted to the national line, but last year, suddenly, it rose by 30 points, and I still feel anxious when I think about it. Isn't there a news recently, Tongji University's civil engineering, college entrance examination admission score plunged, ranking down 40,000 compared with last year. This profession is all going downhill.
But as a graduate student in civil engineering, how do you plan for your future? I really didn't think about this problem, and the only thought now is to get admitted first.
If it wasn't for the boarding class, I probably wouldn't have been able to go to graduate school
Gale female 95 years ago ashore at Nanchang University
I graduated in '19, and the employment environment was good, and I went to work after I got a job. I studied business English at a university in Xiamen as an undergraduate, and then went to work in a teaching and training institution to do work in the postgraduate examination section, with a monthly salary of about 6,000, which is also okay.
Slowly I found that the professionalism of this job is not high, the follow-up development is quite difficult, more suitable for people with families who want to be stable to do, I mentioned a resignation, but at that time the boss wanted to keep me, so I changed positions to try, and later found that no matter what position is the same, tired and unfulfilled, plus there are many friends around me in graduate school, I plan to go to graduate school.
I resigned in January '21, and I wasn't affected by the double reduction at that time, when I went back to my hometown in Henan after the New Year, and I started looking for boarding schools in March.
Because I myself have been in the education industry, I also have some understanding that boarding schools are the most devoted to learning than all forms of postgraduate examinations. At that time, I looked at the two institutions, and the biggest criteria I chose were whether the security environment was safe, the closure should be good, whether there was security at the door, and the entry and exit personnel should not be particularly chaotic.
Countdown to the Gale Study Room Photo courtesy of interviewee
The institution was paid for a year, and I signed up for a class with classes that taught English and politics in public. If you stay, it is a four-person room, and it costs about 14,000 to go to bed and get off the table. In this boarding class, its intensity may be between high school and college, and you have a certain degree of autonomy, but in the state of learning, someone will take care of you.
My institution, when admitting to pay a deposit of 200, a student has 20 points, one point is 10 yuan, if there is a violation, points will be deducted. In every class, the teacher checked the attendance, and I was caught playing with the mobile phone deserting students, and I was caught and deducted points.
In the dormitory, the lights are turned off at 11 p.m. every night, just like in college. Of the four people in my dormitory, two decided not to go to graduate school and left. One is that the family has found a job in a public institution, and the other situation is more complicated, it seems that I am not very satisfied with the choice of school, I was also very hard, but then suddenly said that I would not take the exam.
I usually arrive at the classroom around 8 o'clock, about an hour and a half, with a 20-minute break in between, two classes in the morning, two classes in the afternoon, and two classes in the evening. In our kind of class class, each class is fixed, about forty or fifty people. But we were very unlucky to encounter the outbreak of the epidemic in Zhengzhou, when we were in the dormitory school, could not go to the classroom, half a month later the epidemic eased, but the street office asked all the students of the institution to go home, and finally it was quite unpleasant. Then I moved to a different organization.
The signature wall of the research institution where Gale is located Photo courtesy of interviewee
In fact, in the process of entering graduate school, I didn't think so much, just focused on studying. Get up every morning, go to eat, and then study, and you don't feel like a machine, how can you be like a machine? Learning is the most fulfilling time, as long as you feel that you have learned something yourself, it must feel good.
By the last November, everyone was not in a good state, crashed, I was no exception, I was very badly placed in the later stage, and I always brought my mobile phone to self-study, and I played with my mobile phone to watch TV. But I loved talking to my dad on the phone back then. Because they have more experience, he will explain me, he told me that this exam is too normal, there is not much matter, if you can't pass the exam, you will work, or you will come for another year, because he gives me more emotional support.
So in my heart, anxiety is anxiety, but the gain and loss of the heart is not so heavy, and if I can't pass the exam, I can't go on the test.
In fact, in general, I think that going to the boarding class is still very important for me. I know myself very well, if I am alone renting an apartment outside, going to that kind of library, or if I stay at home with my parents and learn my own, then I must not have learned. I knew very well that I needed an environment where I could focus on my studies, and this kind of boarding class provided me with the environment and atmosphere to enter graduate school.
(At the request of interviewees, the characters in the article are pseudonyms.) Cover image source: IC photo)
Have you ever boarded for graduate school? Do you think this kind of boarding class is useful for graduate students? Welcome to share your views in the comment area~