Tokyo Medical Univ. OKs Entry of 101 Applicants Affected by Score-Rigging

November 8, 2018

Tokyo, Nov. 7 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo Medical University said Wednesday that it has decided to grant admission in fiscal 2019 to 101 applicants who were denied entrance in fiscal 2017 and fiscal 2018 due to the school's score-rigging although their exam scores were above passing marks.

They will be allowed to attend the university from next April, the starting month of fiscal 2019, the institution said. Some of them, however, may not be able to enter because of the admission capacity.

"I'm deeply shocked as the number of applicants affected (by the admission fraud) was so large," Yukiko Hayashi, president of the university, told a press conference the same day. "I'm truly sorry for them."

Hayashi, the first female chief of Tokyo Medical University, assumed the post in early October, after the admission scandal came to light.

In an interim report released last month, a third-party investigation committee set up by the private university said that a total of 69 applicants were denied admission in fiscal 2017 and fiscal 2018 although they earned passing scores in the entrance exams.

A detailed investigation by the university based on a list by order of their original exam scores found that a total of 101 applicants--32 in fiscal 2017 and 69 in fiscal 2018--earned scores above the pass marks. Of them, 67 were women.

The applicants will be asked to inform the university by the end of this month whether they want to enter the school. Based on the results, the university will finalize in early December the exact number of applicants to be accepted.

As they will be accepted within the fiscal 2019 admission capacity, the move is bound to affect high school third-graders and others who are considering taking exams for admission in the year.

"The number of new admissions in fiscal 2019 is highly likely to be small," Hayashi said, adding that she is very sorry for this.

The decision to grant admission to the 101 applicants affected by the score-tampering was made by a committee of six professors, which was set up last month following the interim report from the third-party panel.

Tokyo Medical University will improve its entrance exam for fiscal 2019 by increasing the number of interviewers for greater transparency and having the exam process audited by third-party experts. Jiji Press