Chinese Gaokao offers opportunities for global recruitment

Chinese Gaokao, its National Higher Entrance Examination, offers colleges and universities new chance for international recruitment as it is being accepted for admitting students by global universities.

According to white paper a from Sunrise International Education, accepting China’s National Higher Entrance Examination offers new opportunities for students who couldn’t secure first choice university requirement domestically. This puts universities with test optional systems at an advantage when recruiting undergraduates from China.

Sunrise’s paper highlights the number of US colleges embracing SAT/ACT test-optional admissions policies is increasing, at the same time as more HEIs consider Chinese Gaokao scores in the admissions process.

The University of New Hampshire and the University of North Texas are the first state universities to accept the Gaokao, and many privately funded universities across the US also do.

In Canada, 30 universities accept Chinese Gaokao in admission decisions, as do seven of the Group of Eight universities in Australia.

In 2018, the UK’s University of Birmingham announced it would start accepting Gaokao scores.

In February the Gaokao Admission Consortium was established to focus on the use of Gaokao scores for admission to US HEIs.

GKAC recruits in China as a consortium, and will admit its first cohort in autumn 2019.

The organisation, working with the WholeRen agency, currently has five core partner institutions: California State University-Fresno, Western New England (WNE) University, Santiago Canyon College, the University of Hawaii-Kapiolani Community College, and the University of North Texas (UNT).

Students who achieve scores in the top 25% for their province qualify for admission and scholarship opportunities – UNT will be offering up to $16,000 scholarships, while WNE will offer between $8000-$21,000 per year.

Andrew Chen, chief learning officer at WholeRen Group said that GKAC provides new opportunities for both students and US colleges.

The Sunrise paper also suggested agents and consultants in the China are experiencing increased competition from boutique consultants, tighter government regulations on training classes and higher taxes.

The country’s national Double First Class Initiative, with aims to boost 42 Chinese universities into top world rankings by 2050, is focusing on improvements for HEIs in-country, rather than international cooperation.

Sunrise also highlighted the increasing sophistication of international schools in China’s second and third-tier cities, but a slow down in the pace of economic growth poses challenges for foreign boarding schools.

Posted: March 23, 2019, | Category: International News
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