Universities that don’t require passing an entrance test?

I’ve been trying to look into university courses, but it seems like they mostly require entrance exams.

I haven’t grown up here, and probably wouldn’t be able to pass those, so wondering if anyone knows specific universities that you can apply freely?

In addition, can any of these universities help with a student visa?

It would be nice if the prices weren’t extra high, but I would be fine with either online courses or in-person ones. I also speak japanese on a near native level, so no english is not an issue (but of course welcome too).

14 comments
  1. There are many private universities that don’t require you to pass an entrance exam but all of them don’t have any good reputation.
    If you just want to live in Japan, it’s better to go to a uni in your country and study abroad here.

  2. Pretty sure you don’t need to pass entrance exam to get into Happy Science University

  3. Maybe try for foreign universities in Japan? They’ll still likely require an SAT or ACT score.

  4. In public university (with some coverage/scholarship) you would be paying a tuition of 300k minimum, and also if undergrad you would have to either take EJU or their own nyugaku exams.
    In a private university, the same but with higher tuition 600k up (that considering a pretty “average” institution ), and there is a nyugaku process.
    There is no such things as a institution that has no entrance exams, the least you would have to do is a bunch of interviews + “why do you want to study at x institution?” Essay, this would be an exam itself as you must get an “approval” to qualify. But as you have said you have close to native Japanese, you should be ok, and also there are a bunch of tools for speech to text , nowadays, so if you must write an essay, this should help.

  5. If you’re serious about education, you can try applying to a language school that’s a part of a uni (or just a language school in general) and take that year to study for entrance exams? Depending on your major and school, some might even have the test in English.

    If you’re enrolling school just for the visa, you can find some language or trade schools that offer visas.

  6. As a foreign student the entrance exams will not be the same as the ones Japanese ppl take. Unless you grew up here and went to a Japanese high school but then you’d know how it goes so I’m assuming its not the case.

    Many unis require you to have take an EJU test(conducted twice a year) and have toefl taken within the last 2 years. The lower ranking ones can let you in even on JLPT and an interview but they’re generally not worth it unless you know you’re gonna study higher and get masters in a better ranked school.

    Application timeline and required documents vary by school so you should check the ones that interest you as soon as possible and prepare

    Money-wise they’re much cheaper than studying in the US, the average tuition cost per year would be around 100man but many unis offer tuition reduction schemes for good gpa(generally up to 40%) and there are some scholarships you can apply for as well

  7. If you can speak Japanese at a near native level, then the most important question is whether you have a Japanese passport? If not, I’m sure you can take the EJU (the entrance exam for international students) without much practice and do well.

    If any university exists that doesn’t require an entrance exam, it will almost certainly be: a) expensive (a certification printing factory for the failsons of rich families who can’t get into “real” university), and b) not of good quality. This is a bad investment and potentially a terrible waste of your time. In terms of employability (and with it, your status of residence/ability to live in Japan longterm) you’d almost certainly be better off attending a technical college or trade school rather than one of these places, as reputable businesses aren’t likely to give opportunities to graduates from these universities.

  8. Maybe try looking into Ritsumeikan APU. Half the student body is made up of international students, so I suspect that there must be a variety of acceptable criteria aside from the entrance exam. It’s also not that bad of a university, with about 97% of its 6000 students finding jobs before graduating. The university became better known after Haruaki Deguchi, (a famous businessman and author) became president, because he still publishes in the ShukanBunshun magazine and sometimes appears on TV.

    Courses are taught in both Japanese and English, and you choose whether you wll join the English-based program or the Japanese one when you apply, so that will also determine the language requirements for graduation. Since you speak both languages, you could apply to skip the language courses and spend more time studying other stuff. If you do decide to take language courses, they’re only taught in-person now. I’m not sure about this semester, but last semester the non-language courses (like for your major) were available both online and in-person.

    They accept students in both the Fall and Spring semesters, so it’s not even too late to apply for this year. I’m pretty sure they help with student visas with that many international students. As for tuition, I think it’s about 150man yen per year, and most international students apply for scholarships or tuition reductions.

  9. Universities post their past entrance exams on their websites. Even for the same course it may be possible to enter via different exams, and some of the exams are just interviews (depending on course and university).

  10. > I also speak japanese on a near native level, so no english is not an issue (but of course welcome too).

    Maybe you should try studying for the entrance exams? The point of entrance exams is you just have to do better than other people. You also don’t have to get into Tokyo University, and you can study. Exams are months off right? And lots of people are, in a word, not great at studying either.

    Though like other people said, there might be exams for international students too.

  11. I’m not sure what the case is for undergrad, but for postgrad, some unis waive the exam if you’re entering under an externally funded scholarship (MEXT, JDS Scholarship and the like), especially for English language courses.

    I’m a mext scholar and my ‘entrance exam’ was a 10 minute interview where the Dean and my supervisor had a friendly chat with me about what my research plans are, what I would like to see in a good postgrad program, etc. It was actually quite pleasant haha.

  12. Try the US universities that have campuses here: Temple University and Lakeland University.

  13. I dont see your problem? If you managed to learn Japanese up to native level, I am sure you can pass the entrance exam to a University. I also studied two hours a day for a year to pass the GRE quant test required by US Graduate schools. Just be diligent and you will succeed!

  14. What you are looking for is called “AO入試” in Japanese. Basically you submit some documents and waiting for the screening result. Maybe also a follow-up interview is required. You still need to pay the application fee tho.

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