Confucius Institute Scholarship

[Jellyfish]

No, don't worry, your score should be fine - I meant some people got rejected for having too high a HSK Level in the past (see previous posts). Congratulations on your perfect score! I  was struggling to get over 270, seems like you were cruising haha @Opi

[LinZhenPu]

3 hours ago, 方茹婷 said:

This is the Master's or the One-year program?

This is for the new this year 汉语国际教育 category, which I think applies to both the one-year and one-semester programs. It does not apply to the Master's as that is 对外汉语硕士。

 

1 hour ago, Opi said:

You can get rejected for a really high score? I got 300 in HSK3. Is this likely to be another obstacle for me?

Wow, a perfect score! No, we're pretty sure that won't be an obstacle, in fact you will be in a better position. Perhaps you could have taken the HSK4 (unless your study has focused solely on HSK3 vocabulary) and ranked even more highly - but of course the application guide does not tell you that. It's all a bit ambiguous, deliberately so.

 

14 hours ago, LinZhenPu said:

 

14 hours ago, 艾墨本 said:

It first goes to the recommending institute.

Right. Well, one of the teachers at my recommending institute said that their institute does not have a scholarship application system account password. I think she is mistaken and that it is simply her and a colleague or two who don't have access to it, but I will follow this up with them and see what they say in the morning.

 

Thought about this a bit more and I remembered something one of the other teachers said in an email: 这说明我们今后还需要更多推进工作内容的宣传. If I'm reading this correctly, they are admitting that they themselves have not completely got the hang of this application process. I suppose this works in my favour because they have been so willing to put forth their recommendation for me.

[方茹婷]

5 hours ago, LinZhenPu said:

This is for the new this year 汉语国际教育 category, which I think applies to both the one-year and one-semester programs.

Ah okay, thank you for making it clear. But do you know what does this category teach? I mean we will learn the language for one-year, and also it's like a "prep program" for the MTCSOL? At least, that's what I thought, because the application process wasn't clear on this new category.

[LinZhenPu]

If you ask me, it's simply designed to exclude less-qualified individuals from accessing the Confucius Institute scholarship in certain more desirable areas. As I said in one of my last posts, my Harbin Engineering University contact advised me that all universities in Harbin have been switched to this category. Which means if you don't fulfill any of the specific conditions listed, you can't study in Harbin on the scholarship. And Harbin has a reputation for being a city with very standard Mandarin Chinese. Some reading between the lines is needed to guess at what they are doing in Hanban.

[igacave]

@LinZhenPuI agree. And I think it makes sense form their perspective. Harbin is very good choice to learn Mandarin, so a lot of people choose this city. The same goes for some Beijing Unis, they sometimes require hsk6 for master degree.

 

@方茹婷 It may be a  prep program. It is a new category, and actually there is a lot of ambiguity there. We will know more about this program after this year. And I think every Uni will have its own idea what to do during classes etc.  I think they want to encourage people to undertake MTCSOL in future.

[方茹婷]

Honestly, I have 290 points on the HSK 3, I now first applied for the one-year to reach at least HSK 5...and then I'll apply for the MTCSOL. 
I guess I'll wait and we shall see what exactly this TCSOL program is.
Thanks for the info! 

[igacave]

When we should have some news from Hanban? Is like it used to be, mid June?

[Geo_chan]

@igacaveWell I hope Hanban reply soon, but when I messaged them to chase them up on the my application process (Because I read somewhere that approximately 45 days after you've been pre-admitted, they inform you whether you've received the scholarship), they said they would notify students 2 months prior to the admission date. So probably around july.

[艾墨本]

12 hours ago, igacave said:

 

When we should have some news from Hanban? Is like it used to be, mid June?

 

The official word I got from ECNU is two months before the program's start date. However, once my application got to Hanban, they responded quite quickly (a few days) and responded to my follow-up emails within a few hours.

[hoshinoumi]

Hi guys, quick and short post about the estimated waiting times for the CIS. Let me know what you think!! 

Estimated waiting time for the CIS

[艾墨本]

1 hour ago, hoshinoumi said:

 

Hi guys, quick and short post about the estimated waiting times for the CIS. Let me know what you think!! 

Estimated waiting time for the CIS

 

As I noted above, Beijing Normal informed me that there is an additional stop at the end when the application goes back to Hanban for additional review. This step is new this year. It will be interesting to see how it effects wait times.

[Jellyfish]

@艾墨本 and @hoshinoumi  - the blog post also mentions that as the last step (after your receiving uni accepts you) the application goes back to Hanban and they confirm (or deny) the scholarship, so maybe that was already a feature last year? Apparently the wait for hoshinoumi was two weeks. I'm one week down, hoping I'll have news next week!

@hoshinoumi one thing I was a bit confused about in the blog post, you write: "As a rule of thumb, I wouldn’t recommend you to contact your receiving university unless you are sure that there must have been something wrong." - why is that? Do you mean don't contact your uni after you've submitted your application or overall? I did contact Fudan and had nothing but support and help from them. They accepted my application within one day of it coming in and wrote me a lovely recommendation to Hanban.

[方茹婷]

3 hours ago, Jellyfish said:

They accepted my application within one day of it coming in and wrote me a lovely recommendation to Hanban.

Really?? 
I also thought about writing to my chosen unis because my teacher said "you know, sometimes an email can help a lot". So should I wait until my application is sent to them? I'm still on the second step (CI's approval is awaiting...).

[Jellyfish]

@方茹婷 Ok, I need to explain a bit more perhaps - I've applied for both CSC (embassy) and CIS, with CSC actually being my first choice and CIS more of a back up, however, I missed the CSC deadline due to my health certificate arriving late (classic) and so my CI teacher suggested I apply for CIS, too. So. The reason I contacted Fudan was actually about my late CSC application and then I let them know that I've also applied for CIS now. My application was approved the following day.

Actually, it might be of interest for other applicants that according to my contact at Fudan, CIS is much more competitive than CSC which I didn't know.

One thing I'd say (probably obvious though worth repeating) is that if you do contact your uni, make sure it's in Chinese and maybe ask a Chinese friend to proofread - not only for grammar etc, they won't expect you to be totally fluent, but mainly for politeness, having the right form of address etc. That's what I did and it worked (so far - now let's see what Hanban have to say about my application).

 

Edited to add: What's the hold up with your CIS? Again, my CIS submitted my application the following working day or maybe the day after. My application went from submitted to accepted, recommended and forwarded to Hanban between Tuesdan and Friday. Did I just get incredibly lucky with my CI's and my uni's efficiency?

[igacave]

@Jellyfish my situation was similiar to yours. The same day as I submitted my application, my CI recommended me, I had an interview with my Uni 4 days after, and got preadmitted right away. So 方茹婷 if you can, I would even call your CI, it simply shouldn't take that long.

[Luxin]

Hi guys

 

I wish I had found this forum earlier.

 

I applied for the 1 year scholarship and I apparently I fulfill all the requirements. But its status is still 推荐机构审核  what should I do? It's been like that for 3 weeks and my IC said "just wait" (??)

 

Are the most of you already on the 3rd or 4th step?

 

Thanks in advance. And good luck to everyone!

[hoshinoumi]

@Jellyfish wow gotta say I'm glad your chosen university seems so polite and friendly. Mine didn't answer any emails (basically two politely asking about how much time it takes to know whether or not you've been accepted) until I had to write them freaking out in the middle of July because the papers they sent me were wrong (my name wasn't correctly spelled) and I couldn't apply for the visa with my name written wrongly. This story is much longer and exasperating but that's mainly what happened. They always answered very unprofessionally, which is the main reason why I recommend to wait until you really have to contact them. Some times, the people working behind an e-mail account seem to quickly tend to dislike people so the less they know about you, the faster (hopelly) they'll reply if you have a serious problem.

Also, last year, when I was applying, I was very active on this forum and, good lord, the number of people freaking out 3 days after sending the application...

[Jellyfish]

@Luxin At which stage (CI or university) did you get that update? Maybe there's something wrong with your documents (format or what have you). When in doubt, check @hoshinoumi's blog entry - https://unaestrellademaraventurera.wordpress.com/2017/04/26/cis-application-process/

According to this, " 推荐机构 (tuījiàn jīgòu) Recommending Institution (the Confucius Institute that is recommending us for the scholarship (...))" So is it that your CI is still reviewing your application or your uni wants your recommending CI to review your application? If it's the CI I'd say contact them again and ask for them to hurry up, CIS places at unis are filled pretty quickly and the longer they hold up your application the smaller your chance of getting in.

[Jellyfish]

@hoshinoumi Ah, I see, that makes sense. Maybe it was due to the content of our respective contact with you having a pretty pressing issue which must have been stressful for both sides, me just being like "Hey, just to introduce myself quickly, I'm applying for CSC but submitted my application late, just a heads up!" Also, I directly contacted the head of my prospective department (for CSC), very briefly explaining why I liked the department (comparative literature) and what experience I bring to the table (I've published a small collection of Chinese poetry in translation) and saying that although my application will arrive late I'd appreciate if they can consider accepting me for a place. They were really sympathetic and helpful and agreed to accept my application with some missing documents. Of course, that doesn't mean they'll accept it in the end but at least all contact with them was incredibly pleasant. Just like with you, this is the short version of the pretty long winded story.

 

For anyone who's thinking about contacting their host uni, based on my positive experience: always use Chinese, keep it brief and to the point (you don't want to bore them), be complimentary about the department/uni/China and describe your relevant qualifications, interests, what have you.

[hoshinoumi]

@Luxin as @Jellyfish stated, it seems to me your CI is taking longer than usual and until they don't admit the application, it won't be sent to any university, so I'd try contacting them to see what's happening. No matter the number of students, I'd say 3 weeks is a long time for them to review it.