Looking for a company to help with application and booking a dorm

[Mikayla]

I'm looking at going to BLCU in March of 2015. I've already studied there before, I went through CSA, really great program, but their fees are a bit high.

 

I have seen CUCAS but I am wanting to look at all my options before making a choice.

 

I have heard mixed things about CUCAS from people who used them. As I said I studied at BLCU before and I don't need much. I just need someone to help submit the application and to help make sure I have a place to sleep when I get there. The mixed reviews make me nervous but are fairly old. Has anyone here used CUCAS in the last 2 years?

 

Does anyone know of any other companies I should look into?

[Saxondale]

I used CUCAS about 4 years ago and was pretty impressed with them...but a lot could of changed since then.   

[ChTTay]

Could you not just apply directly? Why use a company at all? Somewhere like BLCU surely has a fairly decent system in place with the amount of foreign students going through there. When I was at Tsinghua I was really impressed with their online system. I also applied to BEIJING Normal and it was as if my application dissappeared into a black hole.

[Mikayla]

For a school with so many foreigners it's actually really hard to communicate with them. My chinsese is good but I'm not sure it's that good and usually trying to get them to speak english that you can understand is a LOT harder then getting them to understandyour chinese. Honestly my real worry is the dorm. China is China. LAst time I was there I moved into my dorm and they told me that was the last room left. Yeah, sure it is. Turns out it had a LOT of mold. They tired to tell me all the rooms have it, which actually might be true. CSA has 24 hour support and I ended up having to call them and having their chinese employes yell at the dorm staff until they finally admitted there were other rooms open and let me move into one of those.

 

And that aside, if you call them they pretty much always tell you the dorm is full, even when it isn't. This is known to be a problem and has been for several years based on what I have heard for other students. I would really just rather avoid the hassle and have some backup while checking into the dorms in case I need it.