My CUCAS Experience

[Saxondale]

Who are they & what do they do?

CUCAS - China’s University & College Admission System - is the official online portal for international students applying to China's universities. CUCAS was set up with support from China’s Ministry of Education to act as an online liaison between international students and China’s universities.

• Run an online application system for international students to directly apply for China’s universities.
  
• Publish information on studying abroad in China.
  
• Provide advice and support to international students.
  

http://www.cucas.edu.cn/

For me, the great thing about CUCAS is that you don't need to leave your bed to apply to a huge selection of universities and all levels of studies (non-degree, degree, masters etc). I know many universities require you to send paper work and sometimes money via post to apply, but CUCAS allows you to fill out an application form and pay all online. The payment process is made even easier by them allowing you to pay via PayPal.

They do charge extra for this, but for me, it's worth the convenience. The website is actually made with web design knowledge! It's very easy to navigate and is constantly updated with news relating to new courses and just general information about applications.

The website is designed for you to easily find a course that matches you. It allows you to filter your searches by type of course, starting date, city, duration and tuition fee. This really allows you to find a course that matches you. Each university is given it's own dedicated page full of useful information about it:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/35/f20ad.png/

When you register, you're given your own page to keep track of your applications:

This allows you to see if you've been accepted, rejected or if the university requires more information from you.

When the university has responded to your application, CUCAS will email you about the progress of your application:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/98/d9ede.png/

Your CUCAS page also shows this:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/7/157e5.png/

It also allows you to track your admission documents:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/35/8b9e7.png/

By default, it takes between 3-4 weeks to receive your admission package or you can pay an extra $50 for faster processing/shipping. I really don't know who charges that $50 but that's a ridiculous extra charge for faster shipping.

Now, I'm currently in the final process (awaiting my admission package), so i can't comment on this part just yet but i'll obviously update this. During the process, i've sent a few emails regarding the process and my application but i haven't always received a clear response to my questions. Sometimes it seems like they've used Google translate:

...Ocean University of China also in the city of Qingdao, every students go to this university to study feel it very good...

Saying this, they do reply to my emails quickly and i do eventually get an answer to my questions.

I know many people learn a lot from applying directly to a university, but if you want to make the process stupidly simple and easy, i highly recommend CUCAS. They do charge extra for the service but what do you expect! If you have any particular questions, feel free to ask.

[Brian US]

Thanks for the write up! Do you have any experience with their scholarship programs?

[Saxondale]

Nope but i know the voting system was under investigation and that they're planning on doing it differently next year.

[kdavid]

I'm glad someone had a good experience with them. Perhaps they've made improvements since my friend and I last used them.

In my friend's case, she paid all of her registration fees twice. Once through CUCAS, then again when she arrived at the university. The university had no record of her having paid through CUCAS. She also had to do all of the paperwork again.

In my case, I was seeking information about various programs. In each case, they failed to have sufficient knowledge of what I was looking for. Each time I asked a question they couldn't answer (which were most questions) they said they'd get back to me, which they never did. It was only through hounding them weekly that they caved and admitted they neither had the information I wanted, nor had resources for attaining that information.

To their credit, the appearance is very well designed, especially to have been created by Chinese (if it indeed was, which I doubt). However, at it's core, again, at least in my experience, it's still very Chinese, with poor systems, poor information, poor transparency, and poor problem-solving techniques.

Based on the OP's write-up, it appears some necessary changes have been made fundamentally, and that's encouraging to hear. This website will do very well if it is operated as well as it is designed.

[Brian US]

How much do they charge in fees or is it a lump payment? I looked up the tuition for my university of Renmin University here:

http://iso.ruc.edu.cn/jianzhang/english.htm The master's degree program is 28,200 RMB

http://school.cucas.edu.cn/HomePage/34/2009-08-03/page_1868.shtml CUCAS has a master's degrees going as high as 60,000 RMB and 74,000 for a MBA.

Do they break down these fees?

[prateeksha]

CUCAS allows you to fill out an application form and pay all online. The payment process is made even easier by them allowing you to pay via PayPal.

That is the best part, thrice12. The convenience.

Now, I'm currently in the final process (awaiting my admission package), so i can't comment on this part just yet but i'll obviously update this.

I did not get the courier thing. It reached me by post on the 15th day by free normal airmail. My friend ordered his admission package by courier and he received it on the 3rd day. May be because we live in India, neighboring to China so "quicker".

Saying this, they do reply to my emails quickly and i do eventually get an answer to my questions.

Even I have received some uhhh-ohhh answers, and you might need to phrase the same query a couple of times before they get an answer for you.

Brian US, the contest got shut down for a couple of days in between. The voting system, as we once discussed, was full of loopholes. And some people started abusing it to their benefit by using computer programs for ceaseless voting. Would you believe me one girl increased her votes by 3000 withing a day? Somebody mailed to CUCAS, they "investigated" the thing for one day and then restarted the voting after removing the "bogus" votes.

Now you need to enter a captcha before you can cast vote.

This is their explanation: http://www.cucas.edu...page_1065.shtml

[Saxondale]

@Brian US

They charge a flat $30 application fee, plus the actual cost the university charges. That's the only thing you pay; the actual tuition cost is still through your university.

To apply to a Chinese university through CUCAS, a processing fee of US$30 is charged by CUCAS. This fee allows you to apply to up to six courses. Each individual university you apply to will charge their own application fee which CUCAS is authorized to collect on their behalf.

http://www.cucas.edu.cn/HomePage/content/content_228.shtml

They don't really break down the tuition cost, they do tell you the cost of materials and of course the course fee but that's all. As i mentioned above, all the costs still go through the university, so you'll be paying whatever it says on the universities website.

I've been having consistent email communication recently regarding my application and visa, so i still don't have many negative things to say about this part of CUCAS.

[Keown]

cucas is good... but don't apply for scholarships, that's really sucks. and yes, if everything is hunky-dory they answer you. if you have a small or big problem, the chances are high that you gonna be ignored (or after some nagging they answer something that does not make any sense).

as for the scholarships, first they said they gonna select the top 30 applicants. finally, they selected 35. Now 2 people most likely withdrawn from the competition and there are 33 competitors only. the ones who cheated by creating scripts getting 1-2000 votes per day are still among the top 4 who gonna get 2000 USD. They are not excluded, because according the cucas, they might not know about the cheating - yeah, sure they don't...

Apart from this, probably I will use cucas again: but only if the direct method of application to the university is problematic (instead of wire-transfer money the paypal thing is more convenient). It is also an excellent source for researching universities instead of dealing with the crappy websites of universities. At least cucas website is most likely designed by a foreigner as somebody noted.

[Saxondale]

Update

So i gave in and paid extra for the quicker delivery; I got my documents in 4 days (Beijing > London) and also a useful little book CUCAS provided, which has phrases, notes, calendars etc. Now i won't have to stress out and rush to get my visa and other things booked! So not worth the $50 though.

[gd87]

Hi guys!

I am actually a member of the CUCAS team, I am happy that most of you have positive feed back with respect to the services CUCAS supplies. We really do provide the best and cheapest platform for online application to Chinese universities.

We strive to do our best to provide you with the most efficient service we can, and are always willing to hear suggestions from our users.

Kdavid, to address the issues you and your friend encountered in the past I am going to quote my previous colleague who was more familiar with both of your situations:

1. The information we have about universities and their programs all come from the universities themselves. When we get an enquiry from a student about a program, we ask the university. Unfortunately, universities don’t always get back to us, despite repeated attempts. You are of course free to ask universities yourselves, and you may wonder why CUCAS is necessary if we can’t get all the answers. Well, if you don’t speak good Chinese, CUCAS is much more likely to get a response than questions asked in English. CUCAS is also the university’s business partner. It’s in their interest to maintain a good relationship with us.

2. Your friend who applied for a program through CUCAS ended up registering for a different program to the one she originally applied for. In accordance with Chinese university bureaucracy, this is 不行。It sucks that the university made her pay the registration fee again. Just to be clear to everyone else, CUCAS did not ask her to pay the CUCAS fee again.

To summarize, for somebody who doesn't speak perfect Chinese, and even for many that do, the Chinese University system is very chaotic and bureaucratic. For this reason, CUCAS exists; however, we personally don't know the ins and outs of every school. As far as inquiries are concerned, we are still at the whim of the universities.

Often, specific questions such as titles of text books are not known either by the person receiving our emails or a decision has not been particularly established. During winter and summer holiday it is especially difficult to get answers for anything, including applications themselves. This is how the universities themselves operates, not how we operate.

To Keown, and everyone else dissatisfied with the scholarship voting process/system: We fully understand your dissatisfaction and assure you that this type of scholarship process will not be repeated.

I just wanted to personally clear up these points.

I also wanted to mention, our website design team are all Chinese! I know most Chinese websites literally make your eyes water, are unorganized and covered with text, and hard to navigate, but we have a very talented web design team and we do our up-most to make a user friendly webpage.

Ohh, and the DHL Express Delivery Fee, I know 50 USD isn't a small fee, again, this fee is not our decision, it goes directly to the courier company. With oil prices these days and whatever else, getting a package from Beijing to London in 4 days is no small feat. I am a cheap person myself, no way am I going to pay that fee, but I remember when I was applying for university, I was also very unorganized. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and pay the fee to get your materials expedited whether you want to or not.

Right now we are receiving a lot of Late Fall Intake students, unfortunately they often must use Express Delivery or it will be hard for them to apply for their visa, book an appropriate plane ticket, and enter their university or academic program on-time.

I hope this makes clear any misunderstands and concerns. There is a wonderful team working here at CUCAS aiming to make your application process as convenient as possible.

[Saxondale]

I'm assuming that this is Peter? Thanks for contributing to the thread; I'm sure this has cleared up a few questions that some people may of had.

There's not much for me to add at the moment, but I'll let you know how the registration goes in September.

[gd87]

Nope, not Peter, just another friendly CUCAS representative. ;)

[Brian US]

They charge a flat $30 application fee, plus the actual cost the university charges. That's the only thing you pay; the actual tuition cost is still through your university.

So could someone clarify if the tuition is given to the school directly during registration or does it go through CUCAS?

1. The information we have about universities and their programs all come from the universities themselves.

Assuming this also includes tuition information, will applicants ever be charged a higher tuition over a school's stated cost? Taking Renmin University for example, it's possible their website isn't up to date, but 30,000+ RMB difference in tuition for certain programs seems rather large.

[Saxondale]

Thanks for joining gd87!

From my understanding, CUCAS is only there for the initial stages, the application, visas etc. After that, everything goes through the university.

Depending on how they do the scholarship next year, i might attempt it.

[gd87]

Thanks for the welcome Thrice12!

Brian US, to answer your questions:

They charge a flat $30 application fee, plus the actual cost the university charges. That's the only thing you pay; the actual tuition cost is still through your university.

So could someone clarify if the tuition is given to the school directly during registration or does it go through CUCAS?

You pay the tuition the same day you register at the school. We do not collect the tuition on the schools behalf, ever. The only payment we are authorized to receive on behalf of the school is the application fee which we simply pass along to them.

The application fee and tuition are both set by the individual university, we simply add their information to our database.

We will never post a higher tuition than the school has reported to us. One thing you have to remember is that there is no flat rate tuition for a given school. I am not going to doubt the Renmin University webpage was very outdated, especially if it was the English version; however, the tuition rates from one program to another can vary widely.

OK... I just took a look at the link you had posted for tuition rates at Renmin University I wish I could get a date on that; however, lets give them the benefit of the doubt and say it IS up to date. If you take a look at this page, which I guess is the Chinese and English version (convenient with tear inducing format), you will see the exact same programs that are listed on our website and the exact same tuition rates. Actually if you take a look at the Master's in Finance, on their website 100,000 RMB a year, on ours 60,000 RMB a year.

Why so much more expensive? Probably because these programs are taught in English.

I hope that helps clear things up!

Also, do not quote me on this, but I am pretty sure at Renmin Univ. international students, other then Chinese language programs, can currently only apply for English taught programs.

Thrice12,

So far no concrete plans for the 2012 scholarships, but it will go much better than it did this year so be sure to stay tuned!

[buddyguy5902]

My experience with CUCAS was bad. I would not recommend using their service. Although I had completed the application to a University in March, CUCAS didn't send me my acceptance letter until mid-July of this year (2011). Maybe this is ok for people that don't have jobs, apartments, furniture, etc, but for me to make a plan to move to China in one and a half months was a stretch to attend in September. But, I went about the task at hand, quit my job, sold my stuff, leased my apartment, did everything to make it happen. Then I sent a simple confirmation email regarding housing. Come to find out although I told CUCAS I needed housing and even went so far as to confirm the dorm room, CUCAS didn't do anything about it. And the response I received about helping me with it was completely lame and insulting. CUCAS basically told me it was my fault because I didn't register on time. (huh? - I got the acceptance letter in July).

Well anyways to those out there considering using CUCAS, I would recommend using the site to identify potential schools, but do not apply through the CUCAS website. The schools may be be challenging to deal with directly, but at least you know are dealing with the institution you plan on attending, and you need to do this anyway. It was easy to apply through CUCAS, but in the end it was not worth it.

[gd87]

Although I had completed the application to a University in March, CUCAS didn't send me my acceptance letter until mid-July of this year (2011).

I would like to stress again that this is not a flaw within the operation of CUCAS, this is how universities nation wide in China operate. You can't get your application fully processed earlier because they dont begin processing the applications until that time. It is bureaucratic bullshit, I know, but please do not blame CUCAS.

Then I sent a simple confirmation email regarding housing. Come to find out although I told CUCAS I needed housing and even went so far as to confirm the dorm room, CUCAS didn't do anything about it. And the response I received about helping me with it was completely lame and insulting. CUCAS basically told me it was my fault because I didn't register on time. (huh? - I got the acceptance letter in July).

I apologize if you were insulted by the letter, I am currently the only native English speaker at the company, I assure you the tone within the letter was never meant to be insulting and is probably just issues with language.

As for booking dorms... again I apologize if your request with fumbled or lost. But to shed some light about the housing situations of Chinese universities...

There is a national policy in affect: International students can not be housed with Chinese students. Perhaps they do not want us to influence the Chinese students negatively. Disrupt their studying, whatever.

In any case international students are separated from Chinese students. What this means is there are completely different buildings for international students. On a smaller-scale school maybe there are 10 dorm buildings, 9 of them are for Chinese students and 1 is for international. The international dorms fill up very quick.

I am not making excuses for your negative experience. Your request for housing should have been managed better, so, again, I apologize. Our service team should be expanded to meet our current requirements; however, it is possible that the international dorms simply filled up very fast.

I wish you the best of luck while studying in China!

[Lora Yorgova]

Hey everyone

I have a question,i applied for the Chinese language intensive program in SISU at the beginning of January and i was told that i would receive an answer between two-four weeks.However they told me that the application admission starts at March in the university.

So when should i be expecting an answer whether i got in or not?