A total of 480 students aged under 15 are competing for the 130 seats in Xi'an Jiaotong University's 2014 juvenile class.

The university is one of two in the country that offers a juvenile class. Starting in 1985, it aims to train a select group of innovative youth, said Cheng Guangxu, vice-chancellor of the university. The other class is offered by the China University of Science and Technology in Hefei, Anhui province.

Students sat for their second round of exams on Sunday, after passing the program's first exams in January offered in Dalian, Qingdao, Suzhou, Wuhan and Xi'an.

The exams covered Chinese, mathematics, English and science, including physics and chemistry. They also had a physical and psychological test and interview.

Since the program was launched, one-third of the university's juvenile class graduates went on to get doctorate degrees and most of them work in key universities and research institutes both home and abroad, Cheng said.