[ 英文摘要 ]

Since 1980s, Taiwan's education system is undergoing significant change. As part of reform, the college admission system, which constituted of an annual unified and standardized entrance examination since 1954, has been enlarged to include other channels of recruitment. Since 2002, a so-called multi-channel system was adopted. In addition to the old-fashion allocation by exam scores, students now can opt for recommendation by their high-school, or application to college by themselves.

The first part of this thesis is a historical study of the post-war Taiwan's education system and the reform movement since 1980s. It is shown that the reform of college admission system was carried out under political compromise without thorough study or deliberation.

The second part of this thesis uses statistical data to exam the strategies adopted by college departments in recruiting students under the new multi-channel system. Results show that college departments' choices of admission channel do not reflect clear recruitment strategy as envisioned by the system designer. Instead they appear to adopt new admission system in response to social pressure and the need of legitimacy in this age of reform.

The third part of this thesis, based on my extensive interviews with high school teachers and students, and college freshmen, shows that high school students make their choice of admission channels with rational calculation of opportunity that is constrained by the limited knowledge of the system. Neither the initial tracking design of the system, nor the rational calculation model can fully explain students' choice. An alternative multi-factor hypothesis regarding high school students' choice of admission channel was suggested; then a small survey data collected by myself is utilized to test my hypothesis. The result is inconclusive.