Cheap school to get a X1/2 visa - internship

[laoban33]

Hey all, 

 

 

I'am planning to do two internships in China next year. So from what I saw I'll need a student visa (X1 or X2). As both internships will last for 3 and 6 months respectively, I'll either need two X2 visas (valid less than 6 months) or one X1 visa (valid for +6months). I think the easiest would be to get two X2 visas as I'm planing to go back to my home country in between the two internships for at least 2 weeks.  But I'm not 100% sure if it's the easiest/most doable thing to do. Do you have any advice? 

 

Also, in order to get either the X1 or X2 visa, I need to register to a language school so they can give me the necessary documents (JW202/101 and letter of acceptance). So what I'm looking for is a cheap school that provides these documents in order to be able to get the visa. I'm looking for a very cheap school as I'm not planning to attend the language course. In other words, I just want to pay the school to give me the documents in order to get my visa. Do you have any school recommendations in Shanghai? Also, have any of you ever done that? just registering to a school and not even attending in order to only get the visa? 

 

I'm quite familiar with the X visa process as I studied in China last year. 

 

Let me know, 

Cheers 

[DavyJonesLocker]

just be warned, at least in beijing anyway the government are on to this and it's hard to find a school that is willing accommodate you not ever turning up as when they get caught they lose their education licence. A great deal of them have been shut down in the recent number of years. My wechat group have all tried this and not one person has ever managed to do it successfully in Beijing, shanghai, suzhou despite the rumours suggesting its an easy thing to do. That's only a small sample of people though

 

Can't say for sure but i think its harder than people make out.

 

Can you not get a work visa?

[laoban33]

I see, but I mean I don't mind attending the classes as long as it doesn't overlap with my work schedule... So maybe you guys know a cheap school that offers like one lecture a week and that's it... 

 

The work visa is such a struggle to get, knowing that I'll move to two different companies 

[roddy]

Years back you could have got away with this. Now... maybe, if you're lucky, but I wouldn't recommend it. Are these genuinely valuable internships?

 

There are schools out there that seem to look like they might be hinting in that direction. Let us know how you get on. 

[laoban33]

Thank you! I'll check it out! 

Yeah these are really good internships that I can't afford not to do.... I might be able to do one of them in Hong Kong but I love shanghai so much and wanna practice my Mandarin.. 

 

 

And would you guys recommend getting two X2 visas (as i'm going back home for a couple of weeks in between the internships) or one X1 visa? I feel like getting a X1 is such a struggle (maybe i'm wrong). Both internships would be in shanghai so it might be worth it having the X1 i guess. 

[DavyJonesLocker]

37 minutes ago, laoban33 said:

 

And would you guys recommend getting two X2 visas (as i'm going back home for a couple of weeks in between the internships) or one X1 visa? I feel like getting a X1 is such a struggle (maybe i'm wrong). Both internships would be in shanghai so it might be worth it having the X1 i guess. 

 

X2 is certainly a lot easier and less checks but X1 includes university's so probably  cheaper.

As for the duration, X2 is maximum 6 months so all you need to do is go to HK for a night or so. It can correspond with Christmas, seeing your family etc. Most  people leave every six months for one reason or other. They reason why I didn't opted for X2 is that I needed a residence permit which allowed for unlimited exit entry. In my first year in China I left about 5 times. However if you think you will stay well X2 gives you more choice of schools.

 

[downinthesewer]

Hi, bit late here so you may well have figured out your situation by now. Wanted to chime in case anyone else is interested in as I was in a similar-ish situation recently in terms of wanting a student visa to be in China for other reasons so here's what I've found.

 

Basically there's no chance of an X1 visa for a part-time study program as you describe, and this hasn't really been possible to get away with for quite a while now. For an X2 visa, as recently as last November I was able to get a 180 day X2 visa through a school in Shanghai for a course that consisted of twice-weekly 2 hour evening lessons. This course cost around 10000RMB. At the time there were a number of schools offering similar programs.

 

However, I wanted to do the same thing again when the course finished but this time around the school informed me that due to stricter government regulations, they had had to cancel this course and now only offer visa sponsorship for intensive language courses. This particular course was 15 hours per week with lessons every day and is not really suitable for someone with a full-time work schedule, and is quite expensive (around 1500RMB per week), so not really worth it if you just want the visa. Furthermore, looking around at other schools, all seem to have a similar policy now so it seems that getting X2 visa sponsorship through a part-time evening class program in Shanghai – a possibility until around 6 months ago – is now not possible. Any program that offers visa sponsorship that I have seen recently is at least 15 hours classes per week and costs 1500RMB+ per week, but it's either that or finding some other way.

 

If you do manage to go down the student visa route, you have to attend the classes. It was possible in the past to get away with just never attending but not any more. As others have mentioned, not attending will get you in trouble. Really it's a bit of a waste if you don't go anyway seeing as you've already paid for it.

 

Fwiw it's deliberately difficult to get a visa if you want to intern in China as you're only supposed to be able to do internships in China if you're a student at a university there and get approval from the university etc. Not sure if most people realise, but pretty much any other way of doing an internship is not legal.

 

However, it looks like you are French so there may be another way. I don't know much about this program, or whether it even exists any more but it may be worth looking into. It's only available for French people so people tend not to know about it. https://cn.ambafrance.org/Decouvrez-le-programme-1-000-stagiaires