Art colleges struggle for talent

Tai says the overall quality of the art students in his school is likely to decline as they are admitted because of their results in the art exams. These can be achieved after intensive training, but students who lack natural talent face much more difficulty when attempting to further their artistic skills in college or develop a paying career as an artist.

"Artistic creativity can never be trained," Tai believes.

Wei Anjing, 20, a folk dance major at the Art Academy under Liaoning University in Northeast China's Liaoning province, admits she finds it difficult to practice basic dance exercises such as performing the splits as she only started to learn dance two years ago in order to apply for the academy.

Instead of becoming a dancer, Wei's ideal career is to work in a government department as a civil servant, which is considered a stable job.

"About one-third of my classmates tend to choose dancing as their future career. Others, like me, feel rather confused and embarrassed," Wei says.

Receiving crash training courses to succeed in art exams and become an art major does not make you a real artist, warns Liu Xiaoying, a professor at Beijing's Communication University of China.

Art majors also have to face limited job openings, according to Liu.

Survey results released on Thursday on college graduates' salaries in 2012 showed that those completing fine arts and music courses ranked among the 10 most poorly paid majors after graduation.

With such warnings ringing in the air, there are signs that prospective students are taking note. In Hubei province, 24,841 candidates sat this year's art college entrance exams, 11.3 percent fewer than last year. And there have been reports of similar declines in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.