Application to Universities through Third Party Sites

[lakesandrivers]

I searched and there are some negative energy around the brand CUCAS. Shockingly, CUCAS is still listed on official UK and Australian government websites that touch on the matter of "Studying in China". What gives? So I checked out other brand names and have contacted SICAS, China-Admissions and CUECC. For each of these I googled "XXX scam" and looked at the first few pages of results. Seems clean?

 

Before you say "contact the university directly", I have a shortlist of universities and their websites leave a lot to be desired, sadly so. On Zhejiang University's link that is supposed to talk about Admissions, the link actually says "No news". Case in kind is http://www.cmm.zju.edu.cn/index.php?a=flist&catid=320&web=english

 

I am willing to pay to have the local experts make phone calls to the myriad of departments on my shortlist, while I am still undecided on where to go - or even if I can go anywhere. But who can I trust? Any ideas? 

[edelweis]

41 minutes ago, lawrencecheong@gmail.com said:

there are some negative energy around the brand CUCAS

It is rumored that CUCAS was the target of a smear campaign at some point.

Some forum members were happy with CUCAS ( @prateeksha) , others were not so happy with the service they got,

but there was no indication that the company was a scam.

 

Regarding SICAS, at least one person was deeply disappointed by them. But then another person seemed happy with them:

https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/48819-did-anyone-use-sicascn-to-study-in-china/

[roddy]

13 minutes ago, edelweis said:

It is rumored that CUCAS was the target of a smear campaign at some point.

Rumoured my arse, it happened. 

[lakesandrivers]

@edelweis @roddy Thank you, long-time forumers.

 

This is my first time applying as an international student. My latest degree from an Australian university was not technically obtained as an international student - at that time I was already a permanent resident. But now ...

 

Will common sense save my hard-earned money across 13 years full-time in the workforce? If I get asked to transfer some insane amount such as US$5,000 then red flags must be raised. I would come on this website, expose the bastards and pursue them to the legal ends of the cyberworld. Otherwise, if it was a few hundred bucks for them to do/explain the legwork that I cannot do/understand (no phone number or I do not know who to call exactly, Mandarin not good enough for medical terms, Chinese government-specific legal papers, etc), I say pay for services well-rendered, no?

 

I will carefully engage with CUCAS then. Just one more brand name to deal with. Until money changes hands, I will watch carefully if the person on the other end of the line knows his or her stuff. Just this morning I had to explain to one of the brand names the difference between high school entry into medicine and graduate entry (nicknamed US-style 4-year MD). If the latter existed in China, then she would have known. But if she did not know the difference then she might (inadvertently) sell me a different product altogether. Why would I travel 108,000 li to study radiology?

[roddy]

I might suggest a new topic, giving a bit of your background, what you're hoping to achieve, and how far you've got figuring it out yourself, then asking for advice on how to proceed.

 

Also, did you mean to make your email your username? I can change that if you let me know what you want it changed to.