to get into + university

[yuechu]

大家好！

I was wondering how to say "It's hard to get into certain universities (Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, etc.)." in Chinese. Would it be "有些大学很难考的“？（很难考得上？）
Also, if you don't need to take an exam to get into the university (as is often the case in Canada), should a different verb be used? How about "入"?

Thanks!

 

[Ida1]

’get into the university’ means 进入大学.
we can say 这些大学很难进.

Also, if you don't need to take an exam to get into the university (as is often the case in Canada), should a different verb be used? How about "入"?

We call this kind of university 野鸡大学.
E.g. 有些野鸡大学，不用考试，只要有钱，随便进。

 

[yuechu]

Those are great! Thanks again, Ida1!

We call this kind of university 野鸡大学.
E.g. 有些野鸡大学，不用考试，只要有钱，随便进。

哦，应该不是吧. I mean that most Canadian universities don't have entrance examinations for the majority of the programs (Do correct me if I'm wrong!), except for med school, MBA programs, (or small tests such as a language test for translations majors, an audition for music programs, etc.) or ESL exams such as TOEFL or IELTS for those whose first language is not English. They are not necessarily bad universities or 野鸡大学！(at least, I hope not ) They just look at your high school marks instead of entrance examinations such as SATs, at least for Canadians. At the end of high school (with the exception for those with IB programs), there is also no exam (besides the normal exams for each course).
(It seems almost impossible to google for information about this for non-international students... all the Google results are geared towards international students wishing to study in Canada!)

 

[SuperXW]

They just look at your high school marks instead of entrance examinations such as SATs, at least for Canadians. At the end of high school (with the exception for those with IB programs), there is also no exam (besides the normal exams for each course).

Thanks for the explanation!
Are the high school marks given by the high schools individually? I mean, if there's no national standard, how would the university justify, say, school A gives marks generally much higher than school B, and A's requirements are much easier, and the universities would receive lots of full-A students from school A, even though their real performance were not good at all?

 

[hx1997]

"有些大学很难考的“？（很难考得上？）

These are good and natural to me. (For colleges that require entrance exams.)

 

[Ida1]

These are good and natural to me. (For colleges that require entrance exams.)

Yeah, 很难考 is one of the reasons why it is hard to get into some certain universities.
很难考是一所大学很难进的原因之一，而大部分大学是通过考试的方式来录取学生，所以我们经常说这所大学很难考。

 

[Ida1]

They are not necessarily bad universities or 野鸡大学！(at least, I hope not )

You’re right. I misunderstood what you mean.I shouldn’t have said that. Not all the universities that are easy to enter are bad universities.

Some universities we call them 宽进严出, mean that they are easy to get into,but so hard to graduate from them and hard to gain a degree also.

野鸡大学 mean some universities that are easy to enter ,easy to graduate from,students can't learn from there and their degrees are not recognized.

 

[Jake_Chan]

"有些大学很难考的/很难考得上" implies that taking standardized tests is the primary or the only way of getting into a university, as is the case in mainland China.

if you wanted to express: it's hard to get into certain universities which do not require taking standardized examinations, you can say the following:
有些大学是很难录取 (得上)的 (spoken)
有些大学的录取难度很高
有些大学的录取率很低.

录取 in this context means to admit, to allow the potential candidates to enter.

 

[yuechu]

Are the high school marks given by the high schools individually?

Yes, that's right.

I mean, if there's no national standard, how would the university justify, say, school A gives marks generally much higher than school B, and A's requirements are much easier, and the universities would receive lots of full-A students from school A, even though their real performance were not good at all?

I agree completely. They apparently do know which high schools are better, but I'm not sure how they know this.
I find it odd that we don't have standardized exams at the end of high school like most countries do...

 

[yuechu]

Thank you all for your help! 😃

 

[Chris of Magnolia]

很难进
考不上
很难考

有些大学很难考的“？（很难考得上？）

 

[Chris of Magnolia]

免试
入学免试
不要求入学考试

f you don't need to take an exam to get into the university

 

[SuperXW]

I was wondering how to say "It's hard to get into certain universities (Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, etc.)." in Chinese. Would it be "有些大学很难考的“？（很难考得上？）
Also, if you don't need to take an exam to get into the university (as is often the case in Canada), should a different verb be used? How about "入"?

These are good and natural to me. (For colleges that require entrance exams.)

Thanks, yuechu. By the way, I agree with hx. Your original translation were all good.
And you can also use 入, e.g., 有些大学很难入/很难考入/很难考得入.

 

[rickqin]

感觉你的例子本身就不是很formal。不同语境下，get into应该有不同理解。要么就是很难进入校园hard to get into the campus，比如安保查的很严，校外闲杂人等无法进入。要么就是很难被录取（需要考生在升学考试中取得较高的成绩）。中文有时候没有英语这么specific，有时候会有歧义，需要由上下文来确定确切含义。

 

[SuperXW]

感觉你的例子本身就不是很formal。不同语境下，get into应该有不同理解。要么就是很难进入校园hard to get into the campus，比如安保查的很严，校外闲杂人等无法进入。要么就是很难被录取（需要考生在升学考试中取得较高的成绩）。中文有时候没有英语这么specific，有时候会有歧义，需要由上下文来确定确切含义。

确实不是formal的啊。
原句英文的get into本来就不specific，有歧义，需要上下文。
中文的很多表达也一样，并不是说英文很specific。
比如，如果翻译成“有些大学很难进入”，就和get into一样，也可以理解成hard to get into the campus。

 

[T.D]

野鸡大学 ≈ diploma mill