午夜剧场

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

In the 2021 entrance examinations (General Entrance Examination), 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 applicant numbers were posted on bulletin boards, creating scenes where examinees and their families experienced mixed emotions of joy and sorrow. Successful applicants, beaming with smiles, would walk up the stairs of the former South Building, cross the courtyard, and head to the enrollment procedure office in the First Building to receive their enrollment documents along with a congratulatory "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. At the same time as the announcement of results, the list of numbers was sent to all examinees via electronic mail, allowing them to check their results on the same day, with the notification of acceptance 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 was an immeasurable reform, especially for those living in regional areas.

Subsequently, with the end of the 20th century, the large postings of successful applicant numbers were reduced to small A2-sized sheets. 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," and examinees now download the PDF of the application guidelines and enter their application information into an online form. While the mailing of transcripts remains, a completely new form of examination began where even the examination ticket is printed by the examinees themselves.

This online application system was designed with the intention of completing the process from application to enrollment in a consistent flow, and also for introduction to special selections such as recommendation-based admissions. The announcement of results joined this system the following year in 2018, and the process changed so that successful applicants download enrollment guidelines and various documents and enter necessary information into a form. The scope of use also expanded to recommendation-based admissions and procedures for those progressing within 午夜剧场. Then in 2021, the third year of the Reiwa era, the only remaining item—the bank transfer slip—also became something to be printed by the applicants themselves. Mailing at the time of acceptance was abolished, and the in-person document issuance and procedures at the counter, which had remained for some waitlisted applicants as a remnant of the Showa era, all transitioned to procedures via the internet.

The 30-year period during which the flow from application to result announcement and enrollment procedures changed 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)