Junior High School Entrance Exams (Japan)中学受験

Overview

Chugaku juken (中学受験) is the general name for the entrance exams that Japan's private and national junior high schools set for themselves. It is not one national test: every school, or group of schools under the same foundation, writes and marks its own exam, on its own day, with its own pass line. A student who clears one of these exams is admitted to that school instead of the local public junior high school they would otherwise be assigned to by catchment area. Japan's ordinary 9-year compulsory track, covered in this site's separate programme on Japan's national curriculum, has no entrance gate between elementary and junior high; chugaku juken exists alongside that track as the route families choose when they want a particular private or national school instead.

Who can apply

Chugaku juken is taken by elementary school students, almost always in their final year (grade 6, typically age 11 to 12), who are applying to a private or national junior high school rather than accepting the public junior high school place they would otherwise receive by local catchment area. Families usually decide to pursue this route years in advance, since preparation commonly starts well before grade 6. Nippon.com reports that around 52,300 sixth graders in the greater Tokyo area sat junior high entrance exams in 2025, about 18.1% of that year's elementary school graduates in the area — a share that had been climbing for roughly a decade before leveling off. Nippon.com also notes that the exam is no longer confined to the traditional hotspots of Tokyo and Osaka; competition for places has been building in other regions of Japan as well.

Exam pattern

Because each school sets its own test, there is no single fixed subject list, but most exams are built from the same four school subjects, used in different combinations:

Nippon.com describes the two most common shapes as a 2-subject exam (Japanese and mathematics only) and a 4-subject exam (adding science and social studies), with a school's own weighting deciding how much each subject counts. The same reporting notes that a growing number of schools are experimenting beyond this: some have added English-language or presentation-based components, some have introduced a mathematics-only option, and others have moved toward inquiry-based or aptitude-style testing instead of the traditional four subjects. The exact format, subject combination, and weighting are set independently by each school and published in that school's own admissions guide for the year.

Marking and results

Each school marks its own exam against its own pass line, and there is no shared national scale or grading body behind chugaku juken — a score that passes at one school carries no fixed meaning at another. Many schools that run more than one test date in the same admissions season (for example a first-round and second-round exam) set a separate pass line for each date, and competition for the same number of seats commonly varies round to round. Families normally learn whether a candidate passed from the school directly, through the method and timing that school's own admissions guide sets out.

Important dates

Chugaku juken runs on a yearly cycle tied to the school year beginning in April, with the exam season itself concentrated in January and February. In the Tokyo and Kanagawa area, most private and national junior high schools open their main round of testing on February 1 each year, often running further rounds on later dates in the same week. Saitama and Chiba conventionally start their own exam season roughly three weeks earlier, from around early-to-mid January. Outside the Tokyo (Kanto) area, individual regions and schools set their own January–February exam calendars rather than following one shared one. Because every school sets its own exact dates, fees, and deadlines for its own admissions year, a given school's current-year schedule should be confirmed on that school's own published admissions guide.

How to apply

There is no central application body for chugaku juken: a family applies directly to each school the student is sitting for, following that school's own admissions guide. This typically means submitting an application form (and, for some schools, supporting documents such as a report from the student's elementary school) by that school's own deadline, paying that school's own exam fee, and then sitting the exam on the date and at the venue that school sets. Because exam dates cluster tightly in January and February, many families apply to and sit for several schools in the same season, often ranked by preference, rather than one.

After the exam

A student who passes is admitted to that private or national junior high school instead of the public junior high school they would otherwise have been assigned. Many of the schools that run chugaku juken are chuko ikkanko (中高一貫校) — schools that combine junior high and senior high into one continuous six-year programme. The TJF Mini Encyclopedia notes that this structure, long common among private schools, lets a student move from junior high into the same school's senior high without separately sitting koukou nyushi (Japan's public-track high school entrance exam), and gives the school more freedom to pace its own six-year curriculum rather than teaching toward an external exam partway through. A student who does not pass any school they applied to, or who did not sit chugaku juken at all, simply enters their local public junior high school by catchment area, as every other student does.

Preparation tips

• Treat chugaku juken as a multi-year commitment rather than a final-year sprint: Tokyo Weekender reports that families pursuing it often start preparing from early in elementary school, with children attending specialized cram school (juku) four or five days a week by the upper grades, and spending weekends on further study.

• Confirm each target school's own subject list and weighting early, since schools differ between 2-subject and 4-subject formats, and some now test English, a single subject, or aptitude-style tasks instead of the traditional four subjects.

• Plan an application and exam-day schedule across every school on the list, since most schools in the same region hold their exams within the same one- to two-week window in January or February.

• Keep koukou nyushi and university entrance examinations in mind as separate, later checkpoints: a six-year integrated (chuko ikkanko) school generally removes the need to sit koukou nyushi, but a student who later needs or wants to change schools, or whose school is not a six-year integrated one, still faces that exam on its own terms.