If you’ve got a high schooler at home, one of the topics that’s constantly on your mind is college. Recently, we came across a website that may spark some interest if your child is planning on continuing their education in China. Campus China is a platform dedicated to promoting scholarships and educational opportunities for international students in China.

Campus China is a government website that serves as a consolidated resource for international students interested in studying in China. The website provides information about scholarships at universities all around the country, as well as information on their academic programs.

For students who have already adapted to life in Beijing, staying in China for university can be a seamless transition. They’ll be able to build on their existing knowledge of the language and culture while gaining a globally recognized degree. It’s important to note that the eligibility and requirements for each scholarship vary. Some may be only available to foreign students who are not currently residing in China, while others, like Renmin University of China’s “Belt and Road” scholarship, is only eligible for students from Belt and Road Initiative countries.

If your child is planning on continuing their education in China after high school, use Campus China as a starting point to research scholarships, universities, and programs that align with your child’s aspirations. It’s a decision that could shape their future in ways you’ve only begun to imagine.

Images: Campus China, Pexels

Scholarships, offered at several Beijing international schools, are one way to ease the pain of school fees. However, for the students lucky enough to win them, they can also provide motivation to keep learning and improving.

The most valuable is a full scholarship usually awarded by the school’s admissions team. We spoke to two students who were successful in applying for full scholarships: Year 10 student Vladimir Dementyev and Year 9 student Francesco Babs, both studying at Yew Chung International School of Beijing (YCIS Beijing).

Vladimir Dementyev was born and grew up in Beijing, and joined YCIS Beijing two years ago on a full scholarship. Introducing himself as someone very into mathematics, Dementyev later surprised us with his skill at dancing. He has taken part in many competitions in and out of China, and has won over 50 awards.

Dementyev told us why he and his parents agreed on YCIS Beijing in the first place.

“When I visited YCIS at one of their open house days, I felt very at home here—welcoming environment and friendly staff. And what I really like about YCIS is the diversified courses I can choose from.”

Having been informed about the scholarship program, Dementyev’s mom emailed the school admission office for more details. The school replied with the application form, which, Dementyev told us, is nine pages long.

“I was travelling in Yunnan with my friends, and the schedule was tight: one week. So I set that as my priority and imposed myself to finish the application during the night when everyone else was hanging out. And I was away from my parents, so there was not really any extra help at hand.”

“The questions are not about general knowledge, but about your life; for example, ‘Who is the person that has had the most influence on your life?’ I find questions like this quite difficult to deal with. The very first thing to pop up in my mind was my grandfather, and I probably could have written an essay of over 10,000 words, but the application form only allows space for around 200 words. Stuff like this posts unique challenges to me. Fortunately, I succeeded getting into the second round interview.”

“The interview was online since I was out of Beijing, and was with department heads and a group of teachers. It went pretty smoothly. They asked me questions like why I chose YCIS, and my hobbies, stuff like that.”

“I had a final face-to-face interview with the principal, which took about 40 minutes, and also I was asked to take an English test.”

Dementyev was offered a full scholarship, but that’s not the end of the story. The scholarship lasts for one year, after which the school admission team reviews the recipient’s achievements and performance at the beginning of the new school year, to decide whether to renew it or not. This acts as a stimulus to Dementyev to keep improving.

Asked to give suggestions for potential YCIS Beijing scholarship applicants, Dementyev says: “The school not only considers marks, but more your personal efforts for improvement. My English level was quite laid back which has me worried. But my teachers really helped with that. Also, show the school the advantages you have compared to other candidates. If you have a special talent, let them know, because that definitely acts as the icing on the cake.”

Francesco Babs is from a third culture family—his mom is Italian and dad Nigerian. He moved to Beijing with his family ten years ago and joined YCIS Beijing last year, also on a full scholarship.

When talking about his experience, Babs is frank about the advantage that his third-culture family background gave him.

“I decided to give it a shot when I learned about YCIS’s scholarship offering, but I wasn’t very optimistic about it to be honest, because I was worried that my academic record wouldn’t stand out.”

“Yet to my surprise, the application weighs quite a lot on more personal stuff like my background growing up, my hobbies, and so on. This was good because it made me realize how much positive influence I’ve received from my parents. The way my parents exerted themselves to get where they are today, and their support and encouragement to me to freely develop my personal interests like soccer and chess, are what affects me most.”

The application form is only the first step on the long road to the scholarship. The subsequent interviews with the principals and administrators were more challenging to Babs.

“All the interview questions were very open and required real thought. I paused several times trying to figure out how to adequately express myself. I think the interview really helped me in some ways, to be prepared for other interviews in the future.”

Babs sees being on a full scholarship as a double-edged sword. From his personal perspective, YCIS Beijing has a quite different system from his former school. “It encourages us to build critical thinking and self-regulation, and they appreciate a global perspective.”

“The scholarship is certainly encouraging, yet adds extra pressure at the same time. It reminds you all the time that you need to work harder than your counterparts to feel deserving of it, and to guarantee yourself having it the following school year. It’s a lot of pressure, but affected my learning in a very positive way. I think this is probably also one of the main reasons why our school provides scholarships—to encourage students to keep motivated and improving.”

As for advice to applicants, Babs says the main thing is to be yourself.

“Be confident, don’t be too modest, don’t be shy and say all the things that you do. Also, be honest. Because they’re going to check and ask you in the next round. The most important part they care about is our growth, what the teacher thinks you’re going to do in the future. ”

Schools That Offer Scholarships

Beijing City International School (BCIS)
• For Grades 9-12: Academic scholarships, and merit scholarships.

Contact winnie.lai@bcis.cn or mark.sullivan@bcis.cn or 8771 7171 for more information.

Beijing World Youth Academy (BWYA)
• Academic scholarships, merit scholarships, and financial aid for qualified enrolled students

Contact info@ibwya.net for inquiries.

Canadian International School of Beijing (CISB)
• Grades 6-12: For those students who stand out for all-around abilities on top of academic performance; proposed by the head teacher.
• Grades 9-12: merit-based scholarships in order to reward and motivate students performing well at school.

Open to all students from Grades 9-12. Visit www.cisbeijing.com for more details.

Daystar Academy
Daystar provides scholarships for new students from bilingual family backgrounds (with English as one of their mother tongues). Successful applicants will get a 20 to 100 percent discount on tuition fees. Family income certificate, application form, and other materials needed.

Contact Daystar on admissions-ds@daystarchina.cn (Beigao Campus) and admissions-dt@daystarchina.cn (Sanlitun Campus) for more information and application forms.

Harrow Beijing
• Joseph Banks Scholarship
The scholarship is open to external candidates and will be awarded on merit following a scholarship test and interview.

Contact the admissions team at admissions@harrowbeijing.cn for more information or to apply.

Yew Chung International School of Beijing (YCIS Beijing)
• Overall Achievement Scholarships; Music Scholarships; Merit Scholarships

Contact YCIS Beijing at enquiry@bj.ycef.com to request scholarship application forms, or call 8585 1836 for more information.

This article appeared in the beijingkids 2019-2020 School Choice Guide.
Download your e-copy here.

In addition to K-5 students winning scholarships with their artwork at 2017 Beijing International School Expo (BISE), students grades 6-12 entering or transferring to a new school had the potential to win money for school with the written word.

Students randomly selected an essay question and then poured their thoughts out on paper. Fifth, fourth, and third place winners took home RMB 1,000 to put towards school tuition. The second place winner received RMB 3,000 while the first prize winner received RMB 5,000.

In fifth place, Michael Yang, 9 years old, Year 4 at Wangfu International School (王府国际学校), wrote about a very different school. We appreciated his creativity.

In my dream school there will be a cloud creating so even if it’s a sunny day there won’t be Phys ED. Also, there will be driving lessons in it. Starting from 3 year old students can have driving lessons. The students can choose their car like SUVS and trucks and stuff. They also can choose if they want a brake on their cars. If they don’t want a brake they’ll have to drive straight and drive back.
There also will be shooting lessons. The students can pick their guns like a match lock pistol or a M1 Gar and. Then they could go into the shooting range. They can choose to shoot targets or cardboard people.
There will also be a special class: dancing in the toxins. The students can wear a gas mask and a hazmat suit. Then they go into a room. 10 seconds later the room will be filled with gases but the students won’t get hurt.
For lunch they will have an all you can eat buffet for FREE. The students can eat anything they want until they’re ready to burst. This is the type of school I want to go to.

In fourth place, Tian Ningyuan, 11 years old, Year 7 at Beijing Capital Normal University affiliated school (北京首都师范大学附属育新学校), envisioned a school where the teachers and administrators would have the time to delve deeply into each subject.

School is very important for kids, and there is many kind of school. In my head there is a wonderful kind of school, and that is what I’m going to describe. If you say about school the no.1 thing is classes there are many subject I know, PE, English, science …. But I think they are as same as important. One school day will have 1.5 hours for sports. And 1.5 hours for English study, and the same for art, science, computer study… For a day, apart from learning time there will be every 1/6 hour for each ¾ hour. In the school, there will need a garden, a gym, a swimming pool, 2 main building, a club house, a football field, a basketball field. For every class, there will need a main teacher for keeping order at eating time, and the time the teacher was not in the class. The kids will not work well in a school if the teacher well help them. So in this school, the was a room for helping center, if you need some help, there is the right place. If there were a school like that, then it will be the best school in all. That school, will be wonderful.

In third place, Li Jingxuan, 11 years old, Year 6 at BFSU Extension School (北外附校), dreamed of a school with a lot of clean air and very little homework.

My dream school is a beautiful school. It do not need any air purifier, because it has many trees can make clean air. And all the teacher are kind and nice. And all the class mates are friendly and helpful. In my dream school there a lot of PE class, cause I am a active person. And the teacher will give less and less homework, and let us do some sports. I wish there’s a swimming pool in the school, because most of the people like to swim right? And they’re many delicious food such as some pizza drinks… And I want my dream school have iPad and computer because I like programming. That’s my dream school what is your dream school like?

In second place, Muhammad Rao,11 years old, Year 7 at Pakistan Embassy College Beijing, made a great point about schools that are not based on real life skills.

Well I have studied in a lot of schools and none of them is my ideal. It’s not that I hate to study, in fact my hobby is going on the internet and learn new things and verify them. The problem is that we learn a bunch of things in school and we should scram it for the exam and after that, forget what you’ve learnt. In my dream school I want each individual to learn what they want. I want them to practice what they are learning. I also want debates, speech competitions, spelling bee, Quiz competition ect.  I also think that each student should choose a sport and practice it as will because co-curricular activities are very important skills in life. Basically I want the schools to teach us skills needed in life not the skill of scramming and I think students should also graded by their performance in extra/co-curricular activities.

And our grand prize winner, Sean, 11 years old, Years 6 at Shijia Primary School (史家小学), was straight to the point and allowed a ton of flexibility at his school.

In my imagination, my dream school is a “combination” of my old schools. First, I would imagine it as a half-day school, where you go to school at 7 o’clock every morning, and come home at 2 in the afternoon. Secondly, I hope that there won’t be too much homework, so that we gave some free time to enjoy ourselves and do things we like at the end of the day. Thirdly I would like to learn as much as possible with the available time, so that we won’t be wasting our precious time at school. Lastly I need the school to be a fun school, you can learn in fun and learn to think creative, think “out-of-the-box” and at last, have enthusiasm about learning!

More stories by this author here.
Email: vanessajencks@truerun.com
Twitter: @vanessa_jencks
WeChat: vanessajencks

At the 2017 Beijing International School Expo (BISE), we gave students K-5 that were either entering or transferring to a new school the chance to win individual scholarships with their artistic skills. Scholarships are to be used toward school tuition.

We asked students to draw pictures based on randomly selected questions. We were looking not just for color and appeal, but also the ingenuity of the sketched answer.

In fifth place was six-year old Han Zimo in Year 1 at 青苗幼儿园. His dream library is meticulous and has many coloring books. We totally agree: the more diverse the pool of books the better. His work earned him RMB 1,000.

In fourth place, winning another RMB 1,000, was six-year old Yu Qinyi who is in Year 1 at Beanstalk. Yu drew a beautiful dream classroom. There are plenty of places to learn in this classroom. We liked that no students were sitting behind desks in this drawing.

In third place was four and a half year old Tiffany Zhao from EtonKids. Zhao drew a dream classroom full of woodland creatures and a rainbow bursting with vibrant colors. She won RMB 1,000.

In second place was nine-year old Cheng Jingyi who is in Grade 4 at 中关村一小. We were impressed by Cheng’s straight and neat lines in her version of a gym full of children playing sports. She was the winner of the RMB 3,000 prize.

And the first place winner of the RMB 5,000 scholarship went to seven-year old Geng Ruijia in Grade 1. Editors loved this drawing because it’s essentially a pirate school, and who wouldn’t want to attend pirate school?

More stories by this author here.
Email: vanessajencks@truerun.com
Twitter: @vanessa_jencks
WeChat: vanessajencks

Finding the right school is often the top priority for families living in or relocating to Beijing. But education in the capital comes at a cost.

Many larger companies offer full school funding for employees’ children as part of their relocation packages, meaning that money is no barrier to the top international schools. But not all are so fortunate. Some may choose to simply pay the fees out-of-pocket, while others look to local schools, homeschooling, and different sources of financial assistance to mitigate the cost of education. We spoke with four families about their solutions to the school funding conundrum.

Scholarship: The Lay-Him Family

Yearly Spend (in RMB)

• Tuition
• Bus
• Uniform

Total: RMB 101,800

US-born Christopher Lay has lived in Beijing for five years, where he works as a photographer, writer, and beijingkids columnist. He lives in Wangjing with his wife Savvy Him (a full-time working mom), their 6-year-old daughter Reina, and toddler twins Bryson and Ryder (age 1). Reina started attending Daystar Academy after receiving a scholarship.

What is the nature of the scholarship?
Reina was awarded a scholarship to attend Daystar Academy by the board of directors. It was based on how well Reina [and our]family were a good fit for the school and our need [for]financial support. The scholarship covered the entrance and lunch fees and reduced the tuition to a level that we could manage. There are only a limited number of scholarships awarded each year and we felt very fortunate to receive one.

How was the scholarship assessed and awarded?
Upon enrolling at Daystar, all applicants receive an assessment from an English and Chinese teacher. The school also reviewed Reina’s records from kindergarten. In addition, the board also needed our financial records. I believe that, because Reina was already fluent in both languages (she previously attended a local kindergarten) and understands both Western and Chinese cultural differences, she was an ideal candidate for the school.

How much help has it been financially for you?
The scholarship made all the difference on our school choice for Reina. She really wanted a bilingual educational experience, but without the assistance from the board, Reina would be attending a local school here in Wangjing.

Did you look at scholarships from other schools?
We did not apply to other schools since most are much more expensive than Daystar and few have a similar bilingual approach. [The school] always felt like the best fit for our family. Our backup was the Wangjing Experimental School as it is close to home, but honestly, we were all in on Daystar.

You have 1-year-old twins. What are your plans for financing their education?
Sell one to pay for the other’s education? That is an excellent question that remains to be answered. We considered homeschooling Reina in the past, but it never felt like a good fit for her. With twin boys, homeschooling might be a viable option. Unless our finances change dramatically, there is no way we can afford international school prices for three children in Beijing. Beyond kindergarten, Beijing may not be viable unless we homeschool or the boys go to a local school.

Find the downloadable 2014-2015 School Choice Guide here.

Photo by Ken