CSC Scholarship - 2010

[Jonnynue]

@ricardo your awesome! Thanks for all the info. I am eagerly awaiting the info. I hope the other students i talked to that said Masters/PhD student have their own room is right, because that would be a deal breaker for me. I hate to poo poo what the CSC is offering but if they can't give the complete package then for some of us it might not be worth it.

They are asking me to give up 3-4 year of my life for a degree that will be of limited use compared to a PhD or Masters in the States. If i have to pay for rooming then in 3-4 years I will have $20,000 of debt on my head and that tips the scale as not just is not worth it. Considering if I stay state side I had the ability to end up with a US PhD and have less debt because of my wife being able to work and scholarship/grant funding here. However if I can tell my work associates and others that I didn't have a pay a dime out of my pocket it give me "face" as the Chinese say and makes it well worth it.

I think of this way, your friend takes you to lunch and even if it was that great you say, he it was free lunch. It's different if they ask you pitch in or even pay the tip, at that point it's not a free lunch and well it might not be worth even the tip.

P.S. Just to clarify, I am talking strictly about any course that is not china specific, if you are studying language, china history, or things specific to china, then it's well worth it. But if you are say studying engineering/computers/management then people back in the States(USA) are going to think your stupid or a looser for (having to) coming to china to study. In my case I am not sure of the exact course, so if they give me a course in some are they are weak in, then it would be career suicide for me to take it.

[sleepy eyes]

Just heard from the embassy, I really did get selected!

Congrats everyone, hope you have the best of times!

[Patpat]

@xauner Oh cool, does that mean you got your packet? That is quick!

[eliotecb]

me too, Im god dammn happy!!!!!

another thing sleepeyes, since the email was with another names, can u tell me your e-mail, just to talk abaout the scholarship here in brazil?

[sleepy eyes]

I just sent you my e-mail through pm. Congrats, my friend!

[Patpat]

Another tactic for those who, like me, are far too anxious to wait for a package from China to be forwarded by the embassy... email school's international offices directly! I emailed someone at PKU who was very nice and looked at the admissions lists herself. Unfortunately she didn't have the news I wanted！ So now I think I'm just going to wait. :-/

[Patpat]

So apparently the embassy also contacted my home uni's point person, who informs me that I've been accepted at BNU to do "Chinese literature" as a "senior visiting scholar!" Yay! Now, I don't know the first thing about Chinese literature, but there are people in my field (linguistics) in the school of Chinese there, so I hope that's what that signifies....

Still waiting for the admissions packet. Every step makes me more anxious!

Pat

[ricardo]

@Jonnynue: No worries! Glad to share what little knowledge I have Speak to the uni though before you think about giving the scholarship away... you might be lucky and they'll give you a free double room for yourself and wife. Fingers crossed for you!

I totally agree with what you said about courses... if you're doing a professional degree you've just gotta go to the best school you can get into and finance, wherever that may be in the world. Point in case - where I work at the moment (at a national nuclear science research facility), nearly all the staff have their PhDs from top universities... and those who don't have post-doctoral experience from top labs. Likewise a friend who works for a major international accounting firm told me they only hire graduates from very specific universities here in Sydney.

That's not to say that many schools in China don't belong in that top tier of global institutes - they do - but just have to go to the best place you can ;)

[eliotecb]

does anyone knows anythig about CUPL China University of Political Science and Law?

[ricardo]

There's another thread discussing universities on this board - might want to give that one a try.

;)

[m000gle]

@Jonnynue

ricardo is right. Speak with the university before declining your scholarship since upgrading rooms is often pretty trivial assuming they still have spaces left at this point, and even if they don't you can always upgrade after a semester. I was able to swap my free double room at Beijing Normal University, for a single, with one email asking to make the change and just pay the difference in cost. Doing this will cost a bit, but its considerably less than the monthly stipend we receive from the CSC (I'm a language student, so you likely get more money as a Ph.D anyway) so its shouldn't be prohibitively expensive.

[tcvu]

Hello! Received my email on July 16th! I'm going to copy and paste the email here:

Dear Candidate,

Congratulations! You have got the Chinese Government Scholarship. Please email me back to confirm your MAILING ADDRESS asap. The acceptance package(including your acceptance notice and visa form) will be sent out in ordinary mail next week after I get your feedback.

If I don't get your feedback, I will mail it to your permanent address on the application form.

Best,

Xiao

Still haven't received my admissions packet, but hopefully it'll come either by Saturday! I don't know if I could handle another weekend without notification. The suspense is killing me.

[Jonnynue]

Thanks for the recommendation, if I can ask, what is the cost difference. Right now I am on the tipping point with the whole thing. If I got a bigger room for say 500 yuan more a month and my wife could live with me then that would be fine. Other than that I would rather work 6 more months save the money and live off campus and go to whatever school I want to. I understand for someone with no other options this would be a awesome deal or if your single. But I already have a career and this was going to be an excuse sabbatical and explore new potential. I don't know about the rest of ones here, but when you are an professional and decide to take time off, what you do will dictate how future clients view you. I can only justify this to my clients if I said, hey they paid me to go and it was one of the top schools, how could I turn it down?

I would liken it to an actor who already has a career if they play in a B rate movie for the wrong reason, it could destroy their career. Right now it is for the cultural exchange , learn the language and not have to tap into my 401k or savings to do it (other than doing extra stuff).

[Xauner]

@Patpat

I recieved my admission notice and visa form like most of the others here I think, I wonder if I'll get any more information from PKU before leaving or if the admission note is all I'll have...

[BeijingStyle]

I guess there was just too much competition

Good luck to everyone else. I didn't get in

I will gather myself and try again at a later year.

[ruich]

FINALLY.. received the letter with the final decision for the scholarship. And I'm going to BJUT for 1 year B)

Congrats to everyone else who got the scholarship.

[eliotecb]

I got the admission packet right now, but why they sent me just now, when the admission notice was made 1.5 month ago, it makes a huge diference to prepare myself, now i got 20 days to do all and travel there.

Wow, this is making more nervous.

[Sarpedon]

I still haven't gotten my acceptance package. :-/ Hopefully it will come next week.

[Pascal Ma]

I was worried that they wouln't send back the original medical test results, but it was with my admission package.

:-)

[Peiruo]

Yay！ So excited. I received an email on Friday afternoon: Notice of award of scholarship. No idea which university yet, now need to wait for admission package.

But thank you everyone and congratulations all round. Could not have got through the last few months without the camaraderie of this group.