观察笔记：在两个中国大学录取之间怎么选

Check the campus before the ranking

The most common advice from students who have been through it is to establish which physical campus your programme is taught on before you compare anything else. Zhejiang University, Jilin University, Sichuan University, Sun Yat-sen and Harbin Institute of Technology all teach programmes across multiple cities, and a programme branded with a famous university name may be delivered two hours away in a smaller town.

Ask the department directly, in writing: which campus, which building, which faculty.

Weight the funding carefully

A full CSC or provincial award in a lower-cost city is frequently a better financial position than a partial award in Beijing or Shanghai. The arithmetic that matters is: total funding minus tuition, accommodation and living costs, in that specific city. A CNY 3,000 monthly stipend stretches very differently in Changchun and in Shanghai.

Also check which costs the scholarship excludes — some cover tuition and accommodation but not insurance, and some pay the accommodation as a subsidy rather than providing a room.

Talk to two current students

This is the highest-value thing you can do and the least commonly done. Ask the international office for contact details of two students in your intended programme, and ask them three questions: what is the actual language of teaching and examination, what do graduates do afterwards, and what surprised you most.

The answers are frequently different from the marketing material, in both directions.