As soon as they see a car with a license plate ending in '985,' students line up to touch it as they pass by.

Police officers standing in front of test centers with badge numbers ending in '985' or '211' are approached by students who reach out to touch the numbers on their uniforms.

Ahead of the Gaokao, China's national college entrance exam which concluded last week, students were seen touching anything marked with the numbers 985 or 211 and even bowing to them in hopes of achieving good scores.

These numbers refer to the "Project 985," a government initiative launched in May 1998 to foster world-class universities by supporting 39 designated institutions, and "Project 211," which aimed to build 100 top-tier universities for the 21st century.

Although both projects were officially abolished in 2016, they remain symbols of prestigious universities in China.

This year, 12.9 million students took the Gaokao, the Chinese equivalent of the college entrance exam.

This figure is 26 times the number of students who take the Suneung (college entrance exam) in South Korea, which has around 500,000 test-takers annually.

Since admission is determined solely by these exam scores, the competition is fierce; the admission quota for the 39 universities under Project 985 accounts for only 1.5% of all test-takers, while Project 211 schools account for just 5%.

The combined admission quota for Tsinghua University and Peking University, considered the most elite institutions, is 6,000, representing only 0.05% of all students.

With such intense competition, entrance exam marketing leveraging the "985" and "211" labels is rampant.

Customized counseling for these universities is standard, and hotel rooms with room numbers 985 or 211 command a premium during the exam period.

However, unlike South Korea, where there is a strong concentration of students aiming for medical school, China shows a clear preference for science and engineering fields.

This is because graduates in these fields have advantages not only in terms of scholarships and study-abroad support but also in employment, salary, and entrepreneurship opportunities after graduation.

(Video Editing: Kim Byung-jik)