About Tourist Visa to Study Visa

[kiryu]

Hi everyone,
I really need your help.
I plan to visit my friends and relatives in China In this month, before the start of University.
But the university will send me a courier, a letter of acceptance and jw202 in early August.I feel too late.
So can I apply for tourist visa L or Q1 this month and next month and then when I arrived in China and received an offer letter and jw202 convert the visa L or Q1 to X1?
I need to know if I can apply for X1 visa in China.Because I also received mail from the university：

Attention: Only student visa is accepted to study here, if you are taking any other kind of visa now, please go back to your country to change to student visa with JW202 before the regiatration time.

Thank you!

[Shelley]

Caveat - I know nothing about visas.

 

Surely the answer is in the wording in your Attention sentence- ONLY student visa is accepted...... Please go back to YOUR COUNTRY to change to JW202  BEFORE registration time.

[pan.kasper]

I thought that you can, but I'm not sure. I think someone told me that their university ask them to come to China on a tourist visa and only then to change it to a temporary residence permit. I'm not fully sure how it works. There is a separate thread on this forum regarding changing tourist visa to student visa in China. However, if your university tells you that you should do it in your country, then maybe that's what you should do. 

[kiryu]

@pan.kasper Aha!I will try to email the university to ask this question in detail, I hope I can get their reply tomorrow.Thank you!