It is one of the most searched gaokao questions in any language: what score do you need for Peking University, Tsinghua or Fudan? The honest answer is that there is no single figure, and any website quoting one national number is misleading you.
First, scores are set province by province. Each university publishes an enrolment plan (招生计划) allocating a number of places to every province, and candidates compete only with others in the same province. The same university can require very different raw scores in different provinces in the same year.
Second, in most reformed provinces candidates are split into a physics group and a history group, each with its own places and cutoffs. Third, cutoffs differ by major within a university: a popular programme can require a markedly higher rank than the university's overall minimum.
Fourth, papers and difficulty change from year to year, so the same raw score can mean very different things in two consecutive years. That is why families convert scores into provincial rank (位次) using the score-rank table published after results, and compare that rank with the lowest rank each university and major admitted in previous years.
The labels you will see used for 'top' universities are worth decoding. Project 985 covered 39 universities and Project 211 over a hundred; both were government investment programmes and are no longer formally used for new funding, but they remain everyday shorthand. They were succeeded by the Double First-Class initiative (双一流), launched in 2017. The C9 League is an informal grouping of nine leading research universities. For the very top names, admission generally requires a rank among a small number of the best candidates in the province.
There are also routes that do not rest on the score alone: the Strong Foundation Plan (强基计划), comprehensive-evaluation admissions in some provinces that weigh university tests and interviews alongside the gaokao, and special programmes for students from rural and less developed areas. Each has its own eligibility rules.
The reliable sources are the universities' own admissions websites and the provincial examination authority. Use their published historical data, not single numbers circulated online, and always compare like with like: same province, same subject group, same major.