For the victims of score rigging against women at a growing number of Japanese medical universities, this week's latest bombshell marks a new low.

Key points: Japan's Education Minister has said the scandal is "very unfortunate"

Japan's Education Minister has said the scandal is "very unfortunate" The Education Ministry is conducting a report on universities manipulating results

The Education Ministry is conducting a report on universities manipulating results More universities are believed to have rigged results against women

Juntendo University made its face-to-face interviews harder for women to pass because the school claimed females were more mature and had a natural advantage.

University president Hajime Arai said he believed young male applicants needed to be "rescued".

"The idea was to rescue those boys and based on this idea, we compensated," he said.

That "compensation" actually meant making the pass mark for women 0.5 points higher than men.

Juntendo University, pictured, wrongly turned down 165 applicants in the last two years alone. ( Juntendo University )

"Women mentally mature faster than men and at the time they take the university examination, women tend to have a higher communication ability," said Hiroyuki Daida, Dean of Juntendo's Faculty of Medicine.

"We were thinking of compensating the gap between male and female to secure fairness in the judgement."

The school is the latest to admit to score rigging, wrongly turning down 165 applicants — 121 of which were women and 44 others who had failed the entrance examination in the past — in the last two years alone.

"I was just appalled," said Masae Ido, who represents the growing number of victims of this scandal.

"It was [meant to be] an apology … but it was full of excuses from the beginning to end.

"The former applicants who took the examinations are extremely angry and saying, 'Don't make a fool of us'."

Juntendo to offer places, refunds

University officials admitted they did not realise this was a problem until an independent panel investigating the discrimination presented a report to them.

The discriminatory policies go back at least as far as 2008.

At Juntendo University, entrance examinations were split into two parts.

The first phase was an initial multiple choice/written answer section and the second part was the interview and essay.

During 2017 and 2018, 600 applicants were judged to have passed the first section.

Tokyo Medical University systematically and deliberately marked down female applicants. ( ABC News: Yumi Asada )

But women outside of the top 200 and repeat test-takers automatically had points taken off them, wrongly preventing many from reaching the second round.

Juntendo said it would offer places to the 47 women who should have passed the interview stage, and refund fees for 117 who were successful in the first phase but were not allowed to move on to the second phase.

On the same day as Juntendo revealed its discrimination, Kitasato University also admitted it rigged this year's exam, giving preference to men and recent high school graduates for any positions left vacant after first round offers.

And on the weekend, another three universities all apologised for discriminating against students — though these were not gender based.

"If we let this issue go, it means we approve it. As a woman living in this society, I want to confront this problem," Ms Ido said.

"Japanese people are made to be used to these things from a young age — so education [about discrimination] is important.

"I would like the Education Ministry to be aware that it needs to fix this properly and that it also must take responsibility."

Education Minister says it's 'unfortunate'

The scandal began earlier this year at Tokyo Medical University (TMU), when it was revealed the school had systematically and deliberately marked down all female applicants to limit the number of women studying at the institution.

It is understood senior TMU officials wanted to keep the ratio of women to men at 30 per cent because they believed women would take long periods of leave after childbirth and marriage, leaving the country with a shortage of doctors.

A victim of the TMU discrimination, Hiroko (not her real name) told the ABC earlier this year she was left devastated after discovering she had failed to get into the school.

"I thought I might not make it again this year, my future is completely dark and I couldn't see ahead," she said.

But once she found out she might have failed the entrance process just because she was a woman, her disappointment turned into white-hot anger.

Tokyo Medical University invited 101 students who had been unfairly rejected from the last two years to reapply.

Yet it again rejected five women — that it had asked to reapply — because it reached a cap.

Since the TMU scandal broke, Japan's Education Ministry has investigated 81 other medical schools in Tokyo.

The findings revealed more universities were likely to have manipulated results against women, boosted scores of children of former alumni, selected applicants from a waiting list outside of the order of results and deducted points from applicants who had failed in the past.

Sorry, this video has expired Managing director of Tokyo Medical University Tetsuo Yukioka (L) apologised for causing people pain with the scandal. (Photo: Reuters/ Toru Hanai)

Japan's Education Minister Masahiko Shibayama said it was "very unfortunate this has happened".

"Entrance examinations are supposed to be carried out fairly and properly," he said.

"We will urge each university to take immediate measures and consider things from the students' point of view."

The ministry will spend the rest of the year investigating the remaining 51 schools before releasing its final report.

Victims met Education Ministry officials on Tuesday, demanding they release the names of the schools as soon as possible so the full scale of the scandal can be realised.

"We will request the ministry to take proper measures against universities that rigged examinations, such as cutting back subsidies and enforcing penalties," Ms Ido said.