Five hundred junior high school students from all over the country took part in the retest at Xi'an Jiaotong University over the weekend to compete for 130 seats to study in the university's juvenile class.

According to Zheng Qinghua, director of the university's admission office, the juvenile class test attracted 2,045 applicants from around the country and the 500 who took part in the retest have passed the first test.

The selection criteria for the juvenile class focuses on the students' physical, psychological and overall qualities besides their learning achievement.

The university set up the juvenile class in 1985 and started to admit junior high school students over the country in 2009. Over the past 28 years, some 810 students graduated from the juvenile class and more than 85 per cent of them got master's and doctor's degrees.