China funds international graduate students generously through the Chinese Government Scholarship (CSC) and a layer of provincial and university schemes. The application is not hard to file; getting picked out of the pile is what takes work, and the single document that does it is a supervisor's pre-admission letter.
Programmes are taught in Chinese or English depending on the university and the field. Engineering, energy and materials have large English-taught cohorts; medicine and humanities usually do not.
At a glance
| Language | English-taught master's and PhD widely available in STEM; HSK needed for Chinese-taught programmes |
|---|---|
| Tuition | Self-funded roughly CNY 20,000–40,000 a year; CSC covers tuition, accommodation, stipend and insurance |
| Stipend | CSC pays roughly CNY 3,000 a month for master's and CNY 3,500 for doctoral students |
| Main intake | September; a small March intake at some universities |
| Where you apply | CSC online system plus the university's own portal, both |
| After graduation | Limited, and employer-led |
What they require
- Bachelor's for master's entry, master's for doctoral entry, with transcripts notarised
- Two recommendation letters from associate professors or above
- A study plan or research proposal, typically 800 words or more
- Language certificate: HSK for Chinese-taught, IELTS or TOEFL for English-taught, sometimes a medium-of-instruction letter
- Foreigner Physical Examination Form, completed by a doctor within the validity window
How admission actually works
Two tracks. Type A goes through the Chinese embassy or a designated agency in your country with a national quota. Type B goes directly to a university that holds its own CSC places. You generally pick one; universities rank their own nominees.
Universities rank on supervisor support, subject match and paperwork completeness. A file with a signed acceptance letter from a professor moves up; one without it competes on grades alone.
How much does a supervisor matter?
Decisive in practice, even when listed as optional.
Email professors from October onwards with a short pitch, your CV and a one-page research idea in their area. Ask specifically for the university's own acceptance or pre-admission form, because most universities have one. Follow up once after seven to ten days; Chinese academics respond well to polite persistence and badly to mass emails.
When applications open and close
The pattern below is what these systems normally do. Every programme sets its own dates, so treat this as the planning shape and confirm on the official portal linked at the end.
Funding that genuinely exists here
Tuition, accommodation, monthly stipend and comprehensive insurance. Apply through the embassy (Type A) or a university (Type B), never both.
For Chinese language, teaching Chinese and related fields.
Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang and others run their own schemes with separate deadlines.
Institution-funded awards, often the fallback when the CSC quota is used up.
For research degrees inside the Chinese Academy of Sciences system, with early autumn deadlines.
Documents this country asks for
- Supervisor acceptance or pre-admission letter, on the university's own form where one exists
- Notarised transcripts and degree certificates, translated into Chinese or English
- Study plan or research proposal, 800+ words, written for the supervisor's field
- Two recommendation letters from associate professors or above
- Foreigner Physical Examination Form and blood test results
- Non-criminal record certificate for the visa stage
Visa and permit
After the admission notice and the JW201 or JW202 form arrive, you apply for the X1 visa (for stays over 180 days) and convert it into a residence permit within 30 days of arriving. The physical examination has to be redone or verified in China for most universities.
After you graduate
Limited, and employer-led
There is no general graduate job-search visa. Graduates convert to a work permit with an employer, and some cities run pilot schemes that let master's graduates stay to work. Plan on securing an offer before graduation.
What they favour
- A supervisor who wants you, in writing
- A proposal that matches the group's current funded work
- Complete, notarised paperwork with consistent name spellings
- Applicants who apply in the first batch rather than the second
Where applications fail
- Applying to both Type A and Type B and being disqualified
- Mass-emailing fifty professors with the same letter
- Leaving the medical form and notarisation to the last fortnight
- Missing the university's internal deadline, which is always earlier than the CSC one
Official sources
Rules and dates change, sometimes mid-cycle. These are the pages that carry the authoritative version; if anything here disagrees with them, they are right. Reviewed September 2026.