Tan Nanqi is riding a roller coaster of emotions these days. Although solving a difficult mathematical puzzle may put her on cloud nine one minute, it is not long before the thought of next June brings her crashing down to earth.

The 17-year-old is among roughly 8 million students nationwide who this month embarked on their final grade in high school, a year of often intense pressure that culminates in the dreaded gaokao, or college entrance exams.

“Who isn’t terrified of failing the gaokao?” said Tan, who studies in Nanning, capital of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. “The outcome (of that test) will decide our destinies.”

The three-day exam, which caps every Chinese student’s 12-year education from elementary school to senior high, is vital for youngsters looking to secure a university place amid today’s tough job market.

“Children endure a great deal of pressure during that last year,” said Wang Xuming, a former spokesman with the Ministry of Education and now publisher of Language and Literature Press. “The gaokao is the only way for them to change their destiny, as society only acknowledges college qualifications.”

Not just students feel the heat, though. Parents also suffer anxiety, with some even choosing to quit their jobs to provide 24-hour support to their children, seven days a week.

About 9.46 million students sat the gaokao last June, according to official figures. Although that number is expected to fall for the third consecutive year in summer 2011, competition for China’s highly coveted college places remains fierce.

“The gaokao really counts,” said Hu Chuan, a final-year student in Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi province, whose summer break this year was almost entirely taken up by extra study courses.

“I’m like an alarm clock now. I wake up at 6 am and can’t fall asleep until after midnight,” said the student, who has an average academic rating and admitted he has become virtually obsessed with catching the top performers in his class.

“Every time I take a rest, I think about the best students reading books, so I go back to studying. Every time I want to sleep, I think about them still doing exercises and I carry on studying,” he added.

Unlike Tan and Hu, 17-year-old He Xing at Shanghai No 4 Middle School, insisted she is unfazed by the pressure.

“What doesn’t require effort?” she mused coolly after being asked if she was daunted by preparing for the entrance exam. “I don’t think I’ll be staying up late, though. I’m a quick worker.”

He’s parents and grandparents were not so relaxed, however, and have already taken her on a tour of Peking University, as well as asked friends and relatives for recommendations on potential majors.

Whenever the teenager watches television during a study break, she said she is constantly prodded to return to her desk to study.

“My grandfather is always telling stories of historic scholars every time we dine together,” said He. “Since I told him I wanted to be a doctor, he just repeats stories about Hua Tuo, an esteemed Chinese physician during the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220).”

Fan Linfeng, an experienced 12th grade teacher at the High School attached to Capital Normal University in Beijing, said He’s experiences are not uncommon as the gaokao is still hugely important to families that cannot afford to send their children abroad to study.

“I came to Beijing from Central China’s Henan province through the gaokao, so I know how much it weighs on students and parents,” she added.

Blogs and BBS feeds on the Internet now allow parents to share their concerns and tips on surviving the countdown to the college entrance exam, with one forum in Beijing – Gaosan Jiazhang Bokequn, meaning blogs of parents of 12th-grade students – attracting up to 8,000 hits a day.

The technology, said Fan, helps the vast majority “in their roles as life secretary, teaching aid, time controller, crisis management expert and nutritionist, to name only a few”.

Parents go about these duties with their own unique style – but some can go too far, according to Han Chao, a 23-year-old graduate from Beijing Foreign Studies University. He recalled that one of his 12th grade classmates was “prevented from eating crabs at Chinese New Year because his parents thought it was too time-consuming”.

Zhou Xiaozheng, a professor of sociology at Renmin University of China, attributed the efforts made by most Chinese parents of 12th-grade students to the country’s family planning policy. “When a couple has only one child, they must invest in that child’s education because it not only secures the child’s future but also their own,” he said.

Parents are also motivated by their own experiences, added Hu Xingdou, a professor of economics at the Beijing Institute of Technology. “Those who lack education themselves may have been laid off, so they want their offspring to have good educations and to stand out in the fierce competition,” he said.

Wang Naixin, 23, remembers that her mother was more nervous about the gaokao than her when she was in the 12th grade at Shanghai Weiyu High School.

“She chartered a taxi to take me to school every morning instead of letting me take the bus so I could sleep an extra 15 minutes,” she said. “My father was only allowed to watch television in his bedroom so it didn’t distract me from my studies and all my tutors were invited to the house for extra classes.”

When Wang received a letter offering a place at the nearby East China Normal University, which meant she did not need to take the college entrance exam, she said her mother was overjoyed. Only a small proportion of students win college spots with recommendations every year (this also usually involves sitting an exam), leaving the rest to fight it out in the end-of-year showdown.

“I was still considering taking the gaokao and sticking with my preferred major but my mother said to me, ‘If you accept this offer, we will both be set free from the tension’,” said Wang. “She was so happy when I said yes that she took me on holiday to Singapore and Malaysia.”

Four years ago, Wang Chenshuang (no relation to Wang Naixin) also took the so-called “easy way out” and accepted an offer from a college that was not her first choice.

As one of the elite students of Chongqing Foreign Languages School, she was confident and had her heart set on Xiamen University in Fujian province. Yet, the tension took its toll when her classmates began vanishing from class.

“We were supposed to fight together in the last year but when I saw more and more empty seats of people granted recommendations for various universities, I was overwhelmed by the stifling tension,” said the 22-year-old.

Wang Chenshuang eventually took an offer from the advertising department of Shanghai International Studies University, which at the time was not well known in Chongqing.

“The sense of relief was far greater than the depression I felt walking away from my dream university,” she added.

Compared to those in the cities, parents in rural areas rely even more on the gaokao to give their children a chance to change their destiny, say experts.

Yang Lei, who sat the gaokao in the summer of 2009, grew up in Guangfeng, a poor county in North China’s Shanxi province, and was determined throughout school that he would change his family’s fortunes.

“My home is the poorest in this village,” he said. “Most of our neighbors have homes built with bricks but we still live in a stone house.”

Yet, the youngster’s dream of winning a place at a prestigious university suffered a serious setback when he failed to attain the score he wanted in the college entrance exam.

When this happens, children, particularly those from the countryside, have only a few options, with the main ones being: Get a job or fudu, re-sit the last year of high school.

Large numbers of students nationwide opt to fudu every year for another shot at higher education. According to the Ministry of Education, 26 percent of the 10.2 million who sat the gaokao in 2009 were fudu students.

Yang, 18, prepared to take his second gaokao at a popular school in Linchuan, a city in Jiangxi province, and studied until roughly 2 am every night.

“I always had a book in my pocket,” he said. “Even while I was waiting in line in the canteen I was studying.”

He explained he spent just 160 yuan ($24) a month on food, which is his only expense as tuition and accommodation are free due to his good academic record. “My parents live on scant food at home, so I can’t indulge myself with meat and fish in the school canteen,” he said.

After acing this year’s college entrance exam, Yang finally realized his dream and was accepted into Peking University’s center for health science to study clinical medicine.

“As a doctor I will be able to give my parents a wonderful life,” he added.