Taiwan’s government has proposed many educational reform programs in recent years. In addition to the joint high school entrance examination, beginning from 2000, recommendations, applications, registration-and-distribution, and direct promotion also became ways of entering a senior high school. In 2001, the joint high school entrance examination was finally eliminated. However, contrary to what the Taiwan government had anticipated, the multi-phase high school entrance program has been severely criti-cized due to its controversial mode of operation. The results of our in-depth interviews and data analysis (the data were collected by Taiwan’s Education Panel Survey) dem-onstrate that the multi-phase high school entrance program has divided the selection process into several critical parts. Therefore students now have to deal with the admis-sions requirements both on and off campus. Furthermore, the selection and recommen-dation criteria are not the same for different schools, and students with better family backgrounds still have the advantage when it comes to being recommended for admis-sion to public senior high schools. Also, the parents or relatives of students with a higher socioeconomic status can easily influence the selection process and criteria. We therefore argue that Taiwan’s selection and recommendation criteria for new applicants to senior high schools, as well as the timing of assignments, the school classification system, and the reviewing process for the multi-phase high school entrance program, should all be re-considered.