The sociological study of inequalities has long been concerned with questions concerning the role of education in creating a fairer society and whether it just serves as a means for the advantaged to consolidate pre-existing privileges. This thesis adds to the existing literature by addressing the questions of how family background, types of high school, college entrance scores, and participation in the alternative admissions scheme – Independent Freshman’s Admission (IFA) – help structure access to tertiary education in Beijing, China. I examine tertiary education in terms of both university prestige and choice of university major.

Using a mixed-methods study, I draw on qualitative data from my fieldwork in Beijing where I interviewed 60 first-year students and 2 admissions tutors, drawn from across seven universities of different levels of prestige, with both STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) and non-STEM subject majors. I also analyse quantitative data from the 2009 Beijing College Student Panel Study (BCSPS) consisting of 4771 students from 15 universities (3 elite, 6 selective and 6 less-selective universities). First, my qualitative analysis reveals the important role of residential background and hukou status, as well as key- point school attendance in university admission of students both through Gaokao route and IFA participation. I also explored some of the reasons behind female students’ uptake of a STEM degree. Second, using multinomial logit models for analysing BCSPS data, I confirmed the importance of family background, residence of origin and school attendance for access to universities of different levels of prestige. Further, using logistic regression, I showed gender differences in personal attributes relevant to the pursuit of STEM fields, but no associations between different beliefs about marriage and family and educational choices. Taken, together, these findings uncover the ongoing importance of institutional barriers in accessing elite and selective tertiary education in China and illustrate how the meritocratic policy objectives of IFA were undermined in practice. In moving forwards, now that IFA has been scrapped, my study suggests that, without a marked change of direction, the conflict will continue between meritocratic principles and elitist goals, and the quest to improve equality in region, class and gender will remain elusive.