Out with the Old, In with the New

Abstract Research on meritocracy often assumes equal weighting of different types of merit, overlooking how people assign relative power to them in justifying social superiority. This study, based on sixty-two interviews, examines how educators and students navigate Taiwan's dual-merit admissions system, where traditional test scores intersect with a new holistic screening model. The author finds that students continue to treat test scores as primary markers of success, while professors and teachers increasingly prioritize nontest merit as signals of social distinction. This divergence highlights varying rates of adaptation to Taiwan's dual-merit system, exposing tensions between old and new standards. These findings shed light on how merit is perceived and operationalized amid institutional transformation, and they contribute to broader debates on fairness and legitimacy in East Asian educational systems.