Choosing universities like consumers: Exploring the factors and processes of Chinese students' university and major...

University and major selection in the Gaokao system is a high-stakes decision, yet prior studies have largely examined discrete influencing factors rather than the decision-making process itself. This study aims to explore how Chinese high school graduates construct their university and major application decisions within the Gaokao system. Guided by grounded theory, this study analyzed semi-structured interviews with 25 students from eight provinces through open, axial, and selective coding. A five-category framework was developed, comprising Decision Stimuli, Contextual Forces, Cognitive Focusing Mechanism, Decision Consequences, and Post-Decision Adaptation. The findings depict a dynamic decision process in which students first encounter multiple Decision Stimuli and Contextual Forces, and then filter and integrate these influences through a Cognitive Focusing Mechanism involving information perception and processing, motivational orientation, personal dispositions, and cognitive conflict and regulation, before arriving at concrete application choices and subsequent adjustment. Several distinctive patterns emerged: severe time pressure sharply compresses information processing; opinion leaders and social media operate as a de facto substitute for formal school-based guidance; and post-decision feedback is structurally limited under the one-shot Gaokao admission system. Together, these features characterize Gaokao application as a compressed, media-mediated, and non-recursive decision process. The proposed Convex-Lens Model captures how dispersed influences are focused into concrete choices through internal cognitive negotiation. By simultaneously examining influencing factors and decision-making processes within the distinctive institutional context of the Gaokao system, and by extending the Howard-Sheth consumer behavior model to educational choice, this study offers a distinctive process-oriented lens for understanding adaptive decision-making in a complex, high-stakes educational environment and provides actionable implications for high school guidance and Gaokao policy design.