Abstract The lowest scores (LS) of student admission for all college departments in the yearly Joint College Entrance Examination (JCEE) had been published until the year 1996. Since1996, only the lowest weighted scores (LWS) have been published. JCEE data of 1996 allow us to employ LWS to estimate LS, and to select a model which has sufficient R2 as well as the lowest difference between estimated LS and true LS. This model is then used to estimate the unpublished LS for each of the years between 1997 and 2001. The estimated LS is ranked each year to calculate each department’s ranking. Finally, we examine whether magnitude of weighting affects departments’ rankings. It is found that for the top 100 departments in 1996, magnitude of weighting has no impact on their rankings between 1997 and 2001. For the remaining departments, however, magnitude of weighting deteriorates their rankings between 1997 and 2001.