Table 1.

Profiles of participants

	Medicine	Dentistry	Pharmacy	Nursing	Other health professions*	Non-health faculties†
No of participants	1991	224	419	326	144	207
Age (mean)	24.1	22.8	21.7	22.8	21.5	22.5
Women (%)	45	60.4	77.3	96.9	70.8	55.6
Public university (%)	55.7	65	19.3	66.9	54.2	97.1
Family residency (%)
Hokkaido/Tohoku (10.9% of total population)	6.8	4.4	3.3	14.7	33.3	13.5
Kanto/Tokyo (34.6)	31.5	28.9	56.3	20.9	45.1	25.6
Chubu (18.2)	18.5	19.6	23.1	14.4	3.5	36.2
Kansai/Osaka (16.3)	21.2	11.6	3.3	16.3	0.7	10.6
Chugoku/Shikoku (8.7)	10.2	12	5.3	11	6.3	11.1
Kyushu/Okinawa (11.3)	11.6	22.2	8.4	22.7	11.1	2
Family residency >1 million population (%)	27	20	32.2	12.3	20.8	12.1
Annual family income
>18 million yen‡ (%)	25.6	32.5	8.7	4.1	1.4	1.3
>10 million yen	56.5	68.8	37.2	23.9	12.5	24.8
<3.5 million yen	6.4	1.9	6.5	15.8	11.8	15.7
First-in-family students (%)	5.9	4.6	10	17.1	9.7	21.7
Physician parent (%)	33.2	13.8	8.8	4.3	4.2	2.4
Dentist parent (%)	2.7	39.7	1.7	0.9	0.7	1
Private upper secondary (high) school (%)	55.1	60.1	52.2	24.9	27.8	17.8
6-year integrated secondary (high) school (%)	52	56.5	39.8	19.3	16	9.3
Private elementary school (%)	14.3	15.3	8.6	1	3.5	2.6
Aspiration to the present profession during elementary school (%)	16.8	5.8	7.6	5.8	0.7	0.5
Tutoring school >3 days/week during elementary school (%)	48.2	48.1	37.7	20.3	14.6	15.5
Failure of university admission test (%)§	56.1	46.5	20	11.1	6.9	15.5
Private tutoring programme for medical school admission (%)¶	50.5	46.2	21.1	15.6	10	3.4

*School of occupational/physical therapy and others.

†Schools for education, liberal arts, sciences and technologies.

‡ca. US$140 000.

§On graduation of secondary school.

¶For those who failed admission examination on graduation of secondary school, including dental and pharmacy school admission.