As the Chinese mainland has transitioned from elite to mass higher education, the race to attend university has escalated to become a race to attend selective universities. This study focuses on rural female university students and explores how they make sense of their higher education admission experiences.

The authors rationalize that the inquiry into fairness is crystallized through examining rural female students’ voices, which remain largely marginalized from the literature. Drawing from in-depth interviews with 22 rural female undergraduates from five selective universities in northern China, the authors focus on their perspectives towards three key issues in higher education admission: entrance exams, region-based quotas that put them at distinct disadvantages, and new reform initiatives.