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The story
Hokkaido University has released a breakdown by hometown of its 2,547 incoming students for the 2026 academic year (excluding international students and students returning from overseas). Local Hokkaido natives topped the list with 780 students — about 30% of the total — followed by Tokyo with 336, Kanagawa with 145, and Aichi with 114, all major metropolitan areas. Meanwhile, the six Tohoku prefectures combined accounted for only about 4% of the total. On 5ch’s News Flash+ board, the thread drew reactions from all angles: surprise that the share of Hokkaido natives was lower than expected, discussion of why students travel from Honshu specifically for the veterinary program, and debate over how the school stacks up as a former Imperial University.
In its 2027 edition university guide, Hokkaido University published a prefecture-by-prefecture breakdown of the 2,547 students admitted for the 2026 academic year, excluding international students and those returning from study abroad. Hokkaido itself (780 students) accounted for 30% of the total, topping the list by an overwhelming margin.
Second place and below went to Tokyo (336), Kanagawa (145), Aichi (114), Hyogo (107), and Osaka (104), in that order. Metropolitan prefectures with large populations, abundant prep-school resources, and convenient transportation dominated the upper ranks.
From 8th-place Chiba (80) down to 31st-place Nagasaki (10), admission numbers stayed in the double digits, sending a relatively steady stream of students. This group included major regional prefectures such as 11th-place Ishikawa (52), 13th-place Hiroshima (46), and 14th-place Nagano (37).
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Not like it's any different from Kyushu University though.
Because it's way easier to call yourself a grad of a 'former Imperial University' than it is with Kyushu University.
I'm from the generation that grew up on 'A Vet's Life' (a famous manga set at Hokkaido University's vet school).
I'm from some '-kan' school in Fukuoka, but I've got a few friends who went to Hokkaido University.
They all went chasing that northern romance.
Though they all ended up getting jobs somewhere without snow lol
How was Hokkaido?
Always been that way.
Hokkaido natives ('dosanko') mostly flow into Otaru University of Commerce instead.
Otaru University of Commerce is 97% dosanko.
This year's Tokyo University admits (first-round admission) — Hokkaido had 51 versus 54 for all six Tohoku prefectures combined.
Might just be a handful of schools pulling hard, but the academic level doesn't look low.
Aichi residents dropped instead.
True. They're the ones who taught everyone about the 'ketta machine' (Nagoya-dialect slang for a bicycle).
Same academic level, plus you've got to pay for lodging on top of it.
Depends on the department.
For medicine, Chiba University is way harder.
but isn't Hokkaido University's bar exam pass rate way too low?
That's rough for a former Imperial University.
Probably because there are a lot of people like you there?
Otaru University of Commerce runs Hokkaido's economy, so what can you do about it (this impression is like 30 years old though).
It's the location.
Tons of snow and it's up on a hill lol
Yokohama National was one of the old 'second-tier' schools, so it keeps a fairly large quota for second-round admissions to catch Tokyo University rejects.
That makes the first-round quota smaller, and the people taking Yokohama National's first-round exam are mostly folks who gave up on Hitotsubashi or Tokyo Tech — so the actual level is surprisingly high.
Hokkaido University's integrated science track admits over 1,000 students, so the bar to just get in is low.
The catch is that your first-year grades decide which department you can move into in year two, so even getting into Hokkaido University carries the risk of not landing in the department you actually wanted.
Kyushu: Kagoshima, Miyazaki
Chugoku/Shikoku: Tottori, Yamaguchi, Okayama University of Science
Kansai: Osaka Metropolitan
Chubu: Gifu
Kanto: Tokyo University, Tokyo Univ. of Agriculture & Technology, Nihon University, Nippon Veterinary and Life Science University, Azabu
Tohoku: Iwate, Kitasato
Hokkaido: Hokkaido University, Obihiro
Private vet schools are expensive.
Tokyo Univ. of Agriculture & Technology and Hokkaido University are pretty evenly matched.
2nd — Okada Ryohei — Shizuoka — Tokyo University
3rd — Kikuchi Dairoku — Okayama — Tokyo University
4th — Kuhara Mitsuru — Okayama — Tokyo University
Araki Torasaburo — Gunma — Tokyo University
5th — Sawayanagi Masataro — Nagano — Tokyo University
6th — Yamakawa Kenjiro — Fukushima — Tokyo University
7th — Araki Torasaburo — Gunma — Tokyo University
8th — Shinjo Shinzo — Fukushima — Tokyo University
9th — Konishi Shigenao — Yamagata — Tokyo University
10th — Matsui Mototoki — Fukuoka — Tokyo University
The hometowns and alma maters of Kyoto University's presidents from its founding era
Zero people from Osaka or Kyoto, lol
Locals don't care about the school's name — they just want to get out to the big city.
Even with 30% locals — if you can't commute from home even within Hokkaido, there's not much benefit to specifically choosing Hokkaido University.
No matter how much the Japanese public fears, worships, prostrates itself before, and sucks up to the elite national universities,
Tokyo University is never going to rank above Harvard or Cambridge — let alone universities in China or Singapore.
And yet all the 'credential benefits,' funded by the public's own sweat, get hauled off wholesale by them anyway.
Truly pathetic.
The real problem is that literally everyone and their cat is aiming for university these days.
Realistically, maybe 10% of the population actually needs a university-level education.
In a credential-obsessed society, it's not about what you study in college — it's about what route you took to get in.
Taken to the extreme, you could say job-hunting should start the moment you get your university acceptance letter.
Background and key points of this discussion
The reason Hokkaido natives make up only about 30% comes partly from the fact that even within Hokkaido, few prospective students live close enough to commute from home, so the local university isn’t necessarily the top choice. The regional skew in veterinary programs that came up in the thread is also a real structural issue — even counting private universities, western Japan has very few veterinary programs, so students end up concentrated toward Kanto and Hokkaido. There was also plenty of discussion comparing the school to Kyoto University and debating the pecking order among the former Imperial Universities, but the back half of the thread veered into regional rivalry over people’s hometowns, including some posts containing discriminatory language — those portions have been left out of this article.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Flash+) thread ‘Hokkaido University admissions by hometown ranking: Hokkaido tops at 30%, followed by Tokyo and Kanagawa; all six Tohoku prefectures combined make up about 4%.’
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