Transformation of Enrollment Procedures

2021/04/30

Photo: Handing over enrollment documents to successful applicants at the enrollment office set up in the First Building (1987)

In the 2021 entrance examinations (General Admissions), the mailing of enrollment documents to successful applicants was discontinued, and enrollment procedures are now completed entirely online.

During the Showa era, large lists of successful applicants' numbers were posted on bulletin boards, where examinees and their families would experience a mix of joy and sorrow. Successful applicants, beaming with smiles, would climb the stairs of the former South Building, cross the courtyard, and head to the enrollment office in the First Building to receive their enrollment documents along with a "Congratulations." From that point on, all procedures were conducted in person at the counter.

In 1991, the third year of the Heisei era, the mailing of enrollment documents began. Simultaneously with the announcement of results, the list of numbers was sent to all examinees via electronic mail, allowing them to check their status that same day, with the acceptance notice and enrollment documents arriving the next day. The process changed to making a bank transfer, filling out documents, and sending them in an envelope. This significantly reduced the burden on examinees and their families, and for those living in regional areas, it was a reform of immeasurable benefit.

Subsequently, with the end of the 20th century, the large postings of successful applicants' numbers were replaced by small A2-sized ones. From 2004, online announcement of results was partially introduced, and from 2005, a system to check results by examinee number was provided via both the internet and telephone. As this system became established, the posting of results ended its long history and disappeared after 2009.

Following the trend of expanding internet use, online applications were introduced in 2017. This marked the end of the era of "buying application forms at bookstores," as examinees now download the PDF of the application guidelines and enter their information into an online form. While the mailing of transcripts remains, a completely new form of examination began, where even the examination voucher is printed by the students themselves.

This online application system was designed with the goal of completing the entire process from application to enrollment in a consistent flow, and with the intention of introducing it to special admissions such as recommendation-based entrance exams. The announcement of results was integrated into this system the following year, in 2018, and the process changed so that successful applicants download enrollment guidelines and various documents and enter the necessary information into a form. The scope of use also expanded to include procedures for recommendation-based admissions and students progressing from within Keio. Then, in 2021, the third year of the Reiwa era, even the last remaining item—the bank transfer slip—became something to be printed by the applicants themselves. Physical mailings upon acceptance were abolished, and the in-person document issuance and procedures for some waitlisted applicants—a remnant of the Showa era—were all transitioned to internet-based procedures.

The 30-year period during which the flow from application to result announcement and enrollment procedures shifted from in-person to mail and then to online has ended, and the landscape of entrance examinations is entering a new stage.

(Office of Communications and Public Relations)