Today, many of those who skipped gaokao are top students, while others are not. The top students may receive multiple undergraduate acceptance letters from top foreign universities. And average students may be lured to attend lower-tier institutions that are eager to accept foreign students but not capable to accommodate their special academic and personal needs.

Many 18-year-olds are not mature enough to take proper care of themselves. In April, a Chinese youth from a rich family was kidnapped and robbed of his Porsche after attending a university in Boston for only a few months. This happened largely because he was flashing a lot of cash and paying big bar tabs for friends around campus. Luckily, he was later rescued by police.

Then there are students with financial worries. In the same month, a student returning from a college in Japan stabbed his mother at Shanghai airport after he got into an argument with her over tuition.

Money can be a burden. If having too much money but not knowing how to spend is a burden, not having enough and not knowing how to make the requisite adjustments is also a burden.

To take the gaokao, attend a university in China, work a few years, and then go overseas for advance study would be a sounder approach for a more mature individual. The proper arrangements, still required, would be less complicated than the case for undergraduate overseas studies.

To take gaokao or opt to study abroad either can be a good choice. The question is "when" and for "whom". To answer this one needs self-knowledge. As an expert has summed up the requisite self-knowledge, "yin ren er yi, liang li er xing", which roughly translates into: "Use different measures to fit different needs. Do what is only within one's ability to do."

The author teaches Western and Chinese philosophy at Montclair State University, Upper Montclair, New Jersey, US.

(China Daily 06/09/2011 page9)