University rejects student for abusing cats despite top score in entrance exam

An academically gifted man has been rejected by a prestigious mainland university because of his history of extreme cruelty to cats.

The man, surnamed Xu, earned the highest score in the entrance exam to become a nuclear physics major at the School of Physics at Nanjing University in Jiangsu province.

Test results released by the school at the end of March revealed he had not passed the second test, according to a report in the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald.

The school did not explain why Xu failed, but an official said they had received many complaints about him abusing cats. Under the university’s admissions guidelines, applicants’ “moral and political qualifications” are taken into consideration. It may deny entry to those who fail to meet that criteria.

“The school paid high attention to the cat abusing incidents. His behaviour might have affected the admission result,” the official said.

At the beginning of March, Xu, a fourth-grade student at Southeast University in Nanjing, uploaded to social media a series of videos of him abusing and killing felines in his dormitory. In one clip, he was seen putting a cat into a bucket and repeatedly trampling on its head. After his cruelty went viral online, Nanjing police investigated. The officers spoke to Xu and his parents, without punishing him.

“Xu said he acknowledged his mistake. He wrote a letter of apology, promising he would not do it again,” a police statement said.

After being rejected by Nanjing University, Xu applied to another top school, Lanzhou University in northwestern China, and was offered a face-to-face interview.

He refused an interview request from the mainland news outlet Red Star News.

“If I talk a lot with you, it will possibly cause another wave of uproar on the internet. It’s not appropriate for me to respond to those things right now,” Xu said.

“I don’t understand public opinion and I am not sure the outcome of my response to the media will be good or bad for me.”

Xu’s story has sparked a wave of condemnation on mainland social media.

“Every life is equal. If a person abusing cats can be forgiven, a person killing people could also be forgiven,” one online observer said on baidu.com.

“He must pay a heavy price for his actions. He is a dangerous person,” said another.

But one person held a different view: “It’s not easy to cultivate a science researcher. A cat is not as important as talent.”