Beijing will recruit 2,400 village officials with higher education. Since the application opened Monday, by 6 pm on Wednesday, 3,354 graduate students had signed up for the election.

Haidian district is the most popular choice, with one-third of the applications.

The number of students signed up for a position in urban areas, including Haidian and Chaoyang districts, is bigger than in rural areas, such as Daxing and Shunyi districts.

Some popular districts and counties have improved the application requirements in terms of educational background.