Studying in China--The Path for Taiwanese

If you're a Taiwanese who grew up on the mainland or who just wants to study there, the easiest way to enter a mainland university is also the only way. You have to apply under the status of "overseas Chinese and compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan."

While many are accepted into Huaqiao University and Jinan University, both of which take direct applications, most ethnic Chinese from abroad as well as those from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan are all in one pool, struggling for one of around 2,000 places at just under 200 schools. Hubei Province's Wuhan University, Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangdong, and Beijing's Renmin University of China are the ones that have admitted the most such students in recent years. Last year, Wuhan University admitted 185, of whom 114 were from Hong Kong, 54 from Macao, 16 from Taiwan, and one from overseas. Popular majors include business management, economics, journalism and communications, and law.

On average, around 4,000 students a year apply to Chinese universities under this category created for "Chinese" from outside the mainland. The majority are Taiwanese, making up 65% of that figure, or around 2,600 students. The average acceptance rate is far higher than that of mainland students, which is 23%.

In order to attract such students, a few years ago the Chinese National Education Examinations Authority began reviewing teaching materials from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao in order to devise a standardized testing system. This system consists of two separate examinations, one for humanities and one for sciences, each testing five subjects. The maximum score is 750 per examination, and the exams are available in simplified and traditional Chinese characters.

Since mainland universities admitted their first Taiwanese students in 1987, the number of Taiwanese enrolling has continued to climb. Li Da Guang, director of the PRC Ministry of Education's Office for Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan Affairs, says that as of September 2008 there were 7,035 Taiwanese students studying in the mainland, and more than 20,000 have already obtained degrees at the bachelor level or higher. Of those, 50% studied Chinese medicine in Guangdong, Shanghai, Wuhan, or Chengdu.

As the academic credit system in the mainland is very different from the one in Taiwan, there are a few points that should be noted.

Peking University was China's first modern college, established in 1898, and has been the birthplace of contemporary political and literary movements, including the New Culture Movement of the early 20th century. It is also one of the most desirable colleges among Taiwanese students in China. This photograph shows the school's renowned Weiming Lake, named by famous scholar Qian Mu and boasting beautiful blue-green waters and an almost poetic look.

Examination "immigration"

At first, the Chinese government didn't include overseas Chinese in the special track for students from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. Overseas Chinese wishing to study in the mainland had to return to their ancestral homes and take entrance exams along with the locals. After representatives of overseas Chinese expressed concern that students from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan had an unfair advantage, the special track was opened to them. Before 2002, only around 100 "overseas Chinese" went to the mainland to study every year. In 2005, the Ministry of Education found that that number had jumped to 5,200. Fujian Province alone had more than 1,000 registered overseas Chinese students from the Philippines. After an investigation, it was found that many of them were local students who'd never even left China-they'd spent hundreds of thousands of Renminbi, HK$5 million, or 1.5 million Macanese pataca to obtain "investment immigrant" status from Southeast Asian countries or from Hong Kong or Macao. They then turned around and applied to universities as overseas Chinese. Only 81 students met the actual criteria for overseas Chinese student status.

To combat the "fake overseas Chinese" problem, new regulations were issued in 2007. Those with residency status abroad would have to show that they'd spent two of the last four years outside China and that nine months of each year were spent living in their place of residency to be eligible for overseas Chinese student status.

There was also a problem of "fake foreigners." There are separate entrance exams of decreasing difficulty for Chinese, overseas Chinese, and foreigners. Some universities go so far as to only require that foreign applicants be able to pass the standardized Chinese language assessment exam to be admitted. In Shanghai some years ago, some Chinese students were caught and expelled for having used forged Vietnamese and Bolivian passports they'd purchased from underground dealers. Since that incident, the authorities have been more strict about checking students' backgrounds and making it harder to cheat.

Institutional tiers

There are 1,908 institutions of higher learning in the mainland, which break down into the following categories: national public universities, which are the majority; provincial public universities; local affiliated schools; and private schools, 90% of which only issue certificates and not academic degrees. The latter are similar to extended education programs in Taiwan.

An average of 10 million Chinese high-school students take university entrance exams each year. Before 2002, the acceptance rate was only 13%. For 2007-2008, the rate has climbed to 23%. Yet only 2.3 million can win a spot, so competition is fierce.

It would be logistically difficult to announce all the exam results at the same time due to the huge number of candidates, so the announcements are staggered by university ranking. The first wave are for the free public teachers' and military schools. These are the ones with the most applicants. Next come "first-tier" undergraduate institutions, which include famous schools like Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Shanghai's Fudan University. Ten days later, results for institutions in the "second tier" are released. Those are followed by third and fourth tiers. The entire process of grading exams and announcing the results takes more than a month.

Overseas Chinese and those from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan follow this schedule as well, but it is much simpler for them as only the 105 schools in the first tier and the 73 in the second tier are open to them. That's a total of 178 institutions.

Exceptions to the rules

The regulations permit Taiwanese students to choose two institutions from each of the two available tiers, for a total of four choices. Though high-scoring students might be similarly qualified, proud top-tier universities will lean toward students who put them as their first choice. They might also be easier on borderline students for whom they were first choice. This sometimes means that another student with the same score will end up at a second-tier school. In order to avoid this fate, students have to calculate carefully.

But there are also cases of "exceptional admission." For example, the second-tier East China University of Political Science and Law normally admits 120 Taiwanese students per year, but last year the Chinese government requested that some schools of political science and law admit more local students. On top of that, the school did not announce its quota for the year ahead of time. This led to 40-odd Taiwanese who'd scored higher than 300 on the exams being denied admission. These students protested, and after negotiations, spots were found for them at other second-tier institutions.

Due to this, Shanghai's universities have said that in the future they will first announce admissions quotas. It is not sure, however, if universities in other localities will follow suit. Peking University, for example, is a favorite of Taiwanese students that does not announce its quotas ahead of time and it has a very low admission rate. Last year only three Taiwanese were admitted, and in the two years before that none were admitted. It's estimated that there are currently less than ten Taiwanese studying at Peking University.

Quotas and portfolios

In past years, some schools have found that Taiwanese students who were admitted were not up to their standards. Professors' complaints led to adjustments in later quotas.

Also, art schools like the China Conservatory, the Central Conservatory of Music, the Beijing Film Academy, and the China Central Academy of Fine Arts admit students on the basis of an audition or portfolio, and applicants apply directly to each individual institution. There are more and more interested overseas Chinese and students from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan every year, but they get no special treatment and have to compete with local Chinese.

Tuition rates

Before 2005, tuition for overseas Chinese students and those from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan was around RMB12,500 a semester. That's two to three times the tuition for Chinese students. Then, former Vice President Lien Chan made his trip to China and won concessions for those students. Now they pay the same as students from the mainland, around RMB5-6,000 a semester.

(sources: Li Da Guang, director of the PRC Ministry of Education's Office of Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan Affairs; Gu Wenhui, researcher at the Shanghai Municipal Educational Examinations Authority; Peking University's Office for Overseas Chinese, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan Students; and the News Portal for Students from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan at www.gatzs.com.cn)