Competition for school places in China has reached a new level. It has become so fierce, it’s not just prospective students who are tested.

Two private primary schools in Shanghai, Qingpu World Foreign Language School and the nearby Yangpu Primary School, have come under sharp criticism for putting parents to the test. The schools carried out intelligence quizzes on parents’ of potential pupils and conducted background surveys on families.

The local education authority has since issued a public statement on its official Sina Weibo account, denouncing the two schools and ordering them to apologize to the public and cut down on enrollment in the next year.

The past weekend has been nerve-wracking for tens of thousands of families with school-age children in Shanghai, as over 100 private schools held interviews to decide which kids could secure a place.

Most schools focused on the kids’ interview performance, as written examinations are forbidden in a bid to avoid overemphasis on academic performance. But it's apparent the two prestigious private schools in Shanghai had something else in mind, looking beyond the prospective students to test those standing behind them.

Screenshots of the two schools’ tricky logic tests for parents soon went viral online and incurred backlash from Chinese netizens. Many labeled the test as subtle discrimination against students from underprivileged families.

The two schools promptly canceled their parent-targeted questionnaire surveys amid the controversy. Yangpu Primary School later posted up an explanation, claiming the logic quiz was purely for fun and entertainment to help parents kill time while waiting for their kids being interviewed.

Chinese cities are facing a shortage of school places as overwhelmed megacities struggle to provide enough public services to cater to the expanding population amid fast-paced urbanization. 

The few places available at the most sought-after public education institutions have become so coveted that residential apartments surrounding these top schools usually sell at sky-high prices, as recruitment for public schools are based on the distance between students’ residence and schools. Private schools, however, enjoy more freedom when selecting students, with face-to-face interviews as an enrollment criteria.