Confucius Institute Scholarship

[Angelhwz]

It might be a little out of topic but I am kinda dissapointed with a lot of things, especially xiamen university. At first I apply for mctsol degree at xiada through csc scholarship. I have corresponding with them since february then I get their admission letter at march. So, I thought I have a good chance. Turn out at april they call me several times to suggest me to apply for confucius scholarship too. I reject it. And not long after that, they suddenly told me they dont accept Mctsol student application for csc scholarship. I was suprised and dont want to believe it. I mean I have been corresponding with them months ago, they know what I am applying, and I already got admission letter. And they told me to appy for confucius scholarship. I have no choice but to agree. ( after that it turn out someone on this forum nominated by xiada for csc scholarship in mctsol, what the hell? ). So I apply for confucius institute in my country but It is so frustating that they said I have to choose their sister university as the first choice. then xiada told me to apply for the scholarship using their school as recommending institute and the admission letter as rec letter. But last sunday I noticed 申请进度：“推荐机构择优确认中”- 驳回 (意见：请补充推荐机构推荐信。)of course I asked them for a rec letter but they didnt reply till now. I have wasted so many time and resources and I feel so violated. If they told me earlier that they wont accept my application I wouldnt pay the admission fee and send my document to them since it turn out they dont consider my application at all.

[marrible]

@Quan Hana: I'm really sorry to hear that. I also have HSK 6 and now I'm worried that Hanban won't give me the scholarship because of that. Is there anyone with HSK 6 who got the scholarship?

[Quan Hana]

@marrible nevermind, maybe its just that theres no luck for me. Our local CI suggest me to try for the one year program so that I can improve more before go for my master. I just started learning Chinese again last year after almost 11 years not practicing chinese. i'm not a Chinese n theres no one in the family or the neighborhood speak chinese, i'm the only one. its my luck tat I pass my Hsk 6. So nevermind, I wont give up on my dream... i'll try again next year.. good luck everyone... :-)

[Bjnsharp]

I'm not sure if you have HSK6 this is a negative, because clearly there is a lot to learn after that. But the aim of the 1 year program is that you pass HSK5 if you do the one year and HSK4 if you do 6 months. Now in my group this year there is one girl who literally started learning Chinese when she arrived and was on the 6month scholarship and almost certainly all of the one year students have failed HSK5. (We asked to do 4 but they said its the rules to do 5). China the place where common sense does not exist.

It seems a lot has changed from last year, because I applied without any HSK certificates, only with a letter from my university tutor saying I had completed....hours of chinese class. Last year there was a clause that if you didn't have HSK but had done a certain amount of hours in a confucius class you were also eligible. They also went out of their way to get me on the scholarship, because when I applied the deadline had already passed and the head of the confucius had to ring the university to add me on.

Last year the head of my confucius said that they were always undersubscribed for their university (xian jiaotong). But obviously tsinghua, blcu, and other high profile universities( I think xiamen also comes under this category as a very popular university for confucius applicants) if you applied for these universities I imagine the competition is much stronger.

There is probably a lot more to the application than just having a HSK level. For example I was advised to not mention studying or living in China previously.

[Quan Hana]

If my first uni reject me bcause of my Hsk, is it possible that my second choice of uni will reject me too? will the second uni review my application? I apply xi'an jiaotong as my second preference. :-) I never went to China or study in China. I just had my 6years of chinese primary school in my country...

[Bjnsharp]

I think each uni reviews individually. The universities have criteria to review against. There is probably an ideal candidate then varying degrees of suitability. Xiamen can probably afford to select the ideal or near ideal candidates, but other universities cannot. Whether all universities rank certain criteria with the same weight nobody knows. In my view the fact that I applied for the university that my confucius institute was linked to was the real clincher, although I may still have got it if I hadn't followed that advice.

[TTTHEGREAT]

Guys, I am in trouble now. I was both nominated by HUST(Huazhong University of Science and Technology, CSC Chinese Government Scholarship) and NJU (Nanjing University, Hanban Confucius Institute Scholarship). NJU accepted me on 9th May (they are real fast and earlier to post the nomination news on Hanban website) and HUST unexpectedly (they are really slow enough) accepted me 16th May today, for which I had lost my hope previously. So, can I retain the choice for HUST while I reject first-mover NJU legally?

 

Since for the time being I didn't receive any formal paper-hardcopy Admission Letters from both universities, I am afraid that if I right now cancel either one scholarship, I will suffer the risk of not getting anything at all.

 

What should I do? Should I wait until the hardcopy formal arrivals of both two confirmed Admission Notices from both universities and then decide?

 

Will the CSC and Hanban conflict with each other over this period of time and they end up cancelling my scholarship opportunity?  Do you guys have this kind of experience with both the authorities?  I hope experts here can share useful and reliable opinions.

 

Thanks in advance for any useful feedbacks.

[TTTHEGREAT]

It is just that I really dont know how it functions when the two scholarship departments (CSC and Hanban) clash candidancy (only one fact I know: their bosses is the same bose=Ministry of Education of China (MOEC) , however, I don't have the means to contact those higher-up officers.)......will they even care to ask for my reply (I prefer HUST but HUST is just executing decision of CSC of MOEC) or they just decide/reject it by themselves bureaucratically.........they never mention this kind of situation in any of their Q&A sessions......so I hope someone can clarify what they will do with the overlapped scholarship candidancy.....

[TTTHEGREAT]

hey guys, my problem just now seems to be solved, this morning i still get the status said that 录取, but i very just now get this latest status on Hanban website:

 

申请进度：“奖学金资格评审中”- 不授予奖学金
(意见：该生汉语水平已超过一学年研修生培养目标。奖学金名额有限，不予资助。)
接收院校：南京大学

 

does it mean that I was rejected by NJU because I have done too good in HSK and HSKK perhaps my proposal shakes them??? so now my choice left is with HUST......well, I have made myself a laughing stock.

[marrible]

@TTTHEGREAT: What level of HSK and HSKK did you take?

[TTTHEGREAT]

HSK6 266/300 and HSKK Advanced 76/100

[obscuritea]

that's so silly that they're rejecting people for too high of a Chinese level... have they done this before?? ......I really regret sending my updated HSK scores to the university now! (I had HSK 4, just emailed them scores I got back for 5 the day before I saw this)

 

as for my situation with my status reverting back a step, apparently it was my lack of HSKK score that was the issue. My CI ended up writing a certificate saying I got a good score on a mock HSKK though, and apparently that suffices. My status is now back to “推荐机构择优确认中”- 推荐", but now with the comment of "请重新提交，HSKK模拟测试成绩已发至汉办，他们会将其附在申请中." My CI has said they sent Hanban the mock HSKK certificate and everything was now successfully submitted (and thus no need to resubmit the application), and that when he checks their system it says I'm currently being reviewed by host universities, but still, the fact that my status has said "please resubmit" since my problem was fixed makes me worry.

[Voyager2014]

I am so sorry to hear those things, guys. Apparently, this year it is harder to get the scholarship  for variance reasons. it seems that having following criterion in the application is a reason for them to reject: high HSK and HSKK score, and not Choosing the sister Uni. and having studied in China before. I am really concerned about the last one. I have studied in China before for short-period of time, and I put it down in the application, since we are asked for, I don't know if I have done the right thing or not, but my application has successfully passed the first and the second steps, now the status says, 录取, it may be rejected by the Hanban in the final step. I am really worried now. Is anyone's application rejected by the Hanban before? Do you guys have any idea?

[Quan Hana]

In my cases, they reject me just because of the hsk, although it is ur sister uni and I never study in China. So thats not a confirmation if u choose ur sister uni o u never went to China... Just because of Hsk.... what i know it is really hard to get the scholarship this time... :-) be positive everyone, if u din win for this year, next year still can apply...

[shuoshuo]

A friend of mine just got her result. She didn't get it because she wasn't aware that HSKK is a requirement this year (no exceptions apparently). They seem to be extremely strict with applications this year.

 

TTTHEGREAT - I got both the CSC and CIS last year, my embassy advised me to just not show up to the university that I decide to reject.  I ended up declining the CSC, so I've applied again this year and I've yet to see if my actions last year will affect my chances this year.

 

I think the highest HSK level accepted for CIS is HSK 5. But what's really unfair is that it's not written anywhere on the application requirements.

[TTTHEGREAT]

@shuoshuo

 

thanks for your feedback. I yesterday was nominated by HUST for CSC and yesterday my CIS status told me that I was rejected due to the fact that I am already good enough in chinese proficiency (me HSK6 266/300). So right now I no need to worry about the dire consequences of having double-hedging on scholarship.

[igacave]

I can undestrand why they refuse to accept students with hsk 6 on one year program- maybe they cannot offer language courses on this very high level? (However, this is stupid, even if you have hsk6 you still have to learn).  Has anyone been already accepted by XiaDa? 

[marrible]

And here I was naively thinking that taking the highest possible level of HSK would be an advantage *sigh*. It really is quite disappointing. I still have 推荐 in my online application so there's still some hope, but I've prepared for bad news after reading all these comments. Had I known better, I would've just taken HSK 4 or 5 instead (and actually saved money on the exam). What a bummer...

[obscuritea]

@igacave Xiada is my first preference uni but haven't heard anything yet

[Voyager2014]

I agree with @igacave they reject the application because they could not offer a course at that high level. but it is just the uni's decision so it does not mean that the whole application is rejected. perhaps, for those who have high level HSK and HSKK, the top competitive universities such as 北京大学 could be easier to get into! assuming they prefer the students with high level HSK.