<p>Hi I will be a college counselor in Beijing or possibly Shanghai starting in the summer. My package is $50k USD per year including housing, one roundtrip airfare per year, and full international insurance coverage. Some of my friends tell me this is a good starting salary, and I think it’s partly because I’m graduating from HYPS and have worked in the admissions office where I got to evaluate applications. However, some of my other friends are telling me I deserve more due to my direct work in admissions and the fact that the higher ed market right now in China is growing exponentially with a lot of wealthy clients willing to pay top $$$ for somebody with admissions experience in HYPS. I do have some experience providing feedback on essays, helping students develop college search strategies, etc. In undergrad, I’ve taken courses on the internationalization of higher ed, counseling, and other relevant stuff. </p>
<p>I’m not sure if I should negotiate my salary. I’m pretty happy with my package and I don’t want to sound demanding to my employers, but at the same time, I don’t want to get taken advantage of either if I truly do deserve a better package. Thoughts?</p>
<p>Also, what do you think about Beijing vs. Shanghai?</p>
<p>Are you able to find a job in the US that pays as well, considering cost of living in China may be cheaper and your whole salary is exempt from US federal income taxes if you are physically out of the country for 330 days?</p>
<p>The cost of living in China is about half of the cost of living in the US. Your 50K there is along the lines of what would be 100K in an “average” place in the US. However luxury goods there are more expensive (I hear) so maybe it’s not quite equivalent to 100K. Further, I don’t know about the cost of living exactly in those cities but I’ve met a lot of people from Shanghai and they’ve all said things are generally cheaper in Shanghai than in Ann Arbor.</p>
<p>You need to get further clarification about the package. </p>
<ul>
<li>Is the USD50k net or gross of Chinese income tax? Many expat packages “gross-up” the compensation.</li>
<li>Do you know how much the housing allowance is? Expatriate housing in Beijing is not cheap. </li>
<li>What about an allowance for utilities?</li>
<li>Can you have cash in lieu of the airfare (while u are in China, why not see the rest of Asia?). Is the air ticket economy or business class</li>
<li>What does the int’l health insurance actually cover? How does it work?</li>
<li>Are you going to file your own income tax return in China & U.S.? Or will your employer provide you w tax preparation assistance?</li>
</ul>
<p>50k USD may be a large income in China for a Chinese standard of living. But if you anticipate maintaining a Western standard of living, it may not go as far as you think.</p>
<p>Remember, if you have skills & connections that a local Chinese college counsellor does not have. Don’t under-value yourself…</p>
<p>I think GMT has given you some good advice, especially on finding out who pays the Chinese taxes. Your employer should also pay any visa related costs.</p>
<p>There’s a wide range of housing available so you need to learn exactly what it is they’re offering. Make sure that public transportation is available.</p>
<p>The health insurance policy should cover you outside of China and must include medical evacuation coverage.</p>
<p>I think this really boils down to what your other alternatives are. It would be nice if HYPS grads got salary boosts simply because they are HYPS grads, but they don’t. And generally speaking, companies that hire new grads don’t negotiate salary much, though you could certainly try. If they want you, they’ve likely offered you a pretty reasonable package. I doubt you’re being taken advantage of.</p>
<p>It may well be that when you get to China you find that there is a very lucrative market for college counseling locally that would make you lots more money. You’ll figure that out once you get there. If you see something that looks better, then quit. Just remember that if you take a local job all those international perks (health insurance, housing, airfare) go away.</p>
<p>It sounds like you don’t know much about China. Beijing and Shanghai are both major metropolitan areas with lots of fun stuff going on and large expat communities. Neither is particularly good for air quality, congestion or urban sprawl. If you are going to be dealing with the progeny of wealthy locals, Beijing will get you more party bureaucrats and Shanghai more entrepreneurs. Your choice.</p>
<p>– “Beijing and Shanghai are both major metropolitan areas with lots of fun stuff going on and large expat communities. Neither is particularly good for air quality, congestion or urban sprawl.”</p>
<p>Air quality: though neither is good by US standard, Beijing’s air is much worse on most days of the year.</p>
<p>Both are great cities to visit. But the vast majority of expats I know (mostly Chinese Americans) much prefer living in Shanghai, which is a more compact and more commercial city vs a more spread out Beijing. Taxi is cheap, but the public transportation is great in both cities. In Shanghai, the subway takes you everywhere, no worry for traffic jams (which is everywhere). Generally speaking, food is better in Shanghai based on my personal comparisons of random restaurants on the street.</p>
<p>Good to hear that about Shanghai. That’s what I’ve been hearing. </p>
<p>Salary is pre-tax. Chinese income tax is gradated…I think I fall in the 20%something range. </p>
<p>Nope, no full-time experience in admissions. I will be graduating this year.</p>
<p>If I understand correctly, I’m not allowed to do business on the side without declaring it right? Like in the US, you can offer your services as a tutor on the side, but in China you can’t?</p>
<p>If I am allowed to do this, I’ve been surveying the market just in case. It looks like since I have direct experience with HYPS admissions (which is rare even in Shanghai and Beijing apparently), I can work with students one-on-one throughout the entire admissions cycle providing college app strategies, feedback on essays, etc and clients are willing to pay $20,000+. There are some really wealthy out there who would even pay double that! And that’s just for one person…it’s incredible how lucrative this industry is right now.</p>
<p>I’m thinking of launching a startup eventually once I’m established.</p>
<p>Btw, I’m a very frugal person by nature. My only expenses really besides toiletries are food, which I heard is cheap there. I’m thinking of saving half of my salary each year. Is it true that the cost of living is half that of the US? That’s incredible.</p>
<p>I also understand that if I live overseas for 9 months (?) out of the year, I don’t pay US taxes?</p>
<p>Keep in mind that if you charge that much, the parents will expect only positive results. I think working for a company offers protections that working for your self doesn’t.</p>
<p>Corruption is pretty widespread in China and that has (allegedly anyway) including cheating on standardized tests. You need to be careful to protect your own reputation as you go down this path.</p>
I don’t know what the Chinese laws say, but I actually know one US college (HYP) graduate working in Shanghai who helped Chinese kids applying for US colleges on the side. (I don’t know how much she got paid.) </p>
<p>
With that kind of money, much more than just feedback is expected. :)</p>
<p>
It all depends on how you spend your money. Brand name items, like clothing, are more expensive in China. But then there are stores where you can get very nicely custom-tailored suits very inexpensively. Depending the area you live, rent for an apartment can easily go for 12-15k USD/year in some most desirable areas, and in other areas it can cost less than half of that. So you may want to pay attention where you’ll be living when negotiating your living allowances. </p>
<p>Milk, cheese, and fruit juices are more expensive than in the US. Fruits and vegetables are very inexpensive. Most restaurants (I am talking about the kind that are clean and well decorated, like nice Chinese restaurants here in the US) are quite inexpensive: a normal meal (lunch/dinner) goes between 30-40 RMB, which is about 5-6 USD (no tip). There are also many small neighborhood specialized food vendors, and food stands in local produce markets, which sell only a few kind of food items, those are my personal favorites: e.g. pork bums and vegetable bums can be had for about 1-1.5 RMB each. A nice meal can cost less than 10 RMB. </p>
<p>Then KFCs, McDonalds and Starbucks are everywhere in Beijing and Shanghai, they cost about the same as in the U.S.</p>
<p>In general, 20k USD/year for food and entertainment will be very comfortably manageable, including some domestic travel in China. You’ll surely run into some college friends; there are many HYPS grads in Shanghai/Beijing either on fellowships or working there.</p>
<p>Do spend some time reading about the tax situation for you once you are working outside the US. It is not true that your income will be entirely exempt from tax simply because you are out of the country. There is a sizable foreign income exclusion, but if I recall correctly, you will have to include a figure for your housing allowance as additional income. Those flights home might need to be included as well. Start reading here: [IRS</a> Offers Tax Tips for Taxpayers with Foreign Income](<a href=“http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=255736,00.html]IRS”>http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=255736,00.html)</p>
<p>Great, I’ll be happy to pay whatever taxes are expected of me. I will definitely research this further but in the meantime, my employer has told me that I will be taxed by the US only if I make $80k or more.</p>
<p>Thanks for the heads up on the college prep scene in China. I don’t think I will be bold enough as to make any guarantees because the reality is that the process is so unpredictable, so I don’t think I will charge those premium prices. If I am actually allowed to do such business on the side, I’m thinking of helping one person pro-bono and charging another person a market-appropriate appropriate rate. </p>
<p>
I think Harvard could be different in China. It’s seen in a completely different, much superior light (just because of the name obsession over there which I don’t necessarily condone) and Harvard grads might have more bargaining power throughout their careers as a result.</p>
<p>Does any of this education ever address the elephant in the room - that, despite what the Chinese think, admission to HYPS is not indicative that someone will lead a charmed life, and that there is little appreciable difference in the ultimate jobs and life satisfaction of HYPS grads versus those who attend other top universities?</p>
<p>Or is it just reinforcing what people mistakenly want to believe - my kid gets into HYPS, life will be fabulous, and if he doesn’t, he’s a loser who won’t ever do anything beyond ask “do you want fries with that”?</p>
<p>Because ethically, I would hope that you would have a problem with continuing to pitch HYPS as the be-all-and-end-all of life in the US, and that you would use your position for good and not for evil. Not saying that aiming for HYPS admissions is evil – but that reinforcing a system that believes that there are only a handful of worthwhile colleges in the US, and that there are huge differences in life outcomes if you don’t make one of those, is certainly the wrong thing to do.</p>
<p>One of my goals is actually expanding my client’s minds about what constitutes a good education in the US. I’ve heard that often, it’s actually more the parents than the students who are HYPS-obsessed. At the same time, I do somewhat understand parents’ concerns to maximize success for their only child, and by their standards, this means HYPS (let’s be honest, HYPS get the creme of the crop and are able to cherry-pick their students according to their own standards). For a lot of poorer students, it’s only the top colleges that actually provide FA to internationals though obviously this group is broader than HYPS (includes Grinnell for example). Also, as it stands, I do believe Harvard grads get more perks in China just for being Harvard grads. I would like this to change, but this is how it is in China right now.</p>
<p>The interesting thing about China is that as it grows to appreciate the value of a liberal arts education and holistic evaluation of students, all the greater the drive has become to get into these schools with unpredictable admissions processes. One would think they would expand their notion of success because there are no clear-cut “winners” (because the process is so arbitrary) as one would find in a test system, but this is not the case. They still like their winners, except the winners this time are just much harder to predict. As a result, the college admissions frenzy just gets more and more intense as the competition stiffens. </p>
<p>The desire to get into a top US college does have the effect of making the Chinese value personal qualities and creativity more. The Chinese government is also realizing they need to foster creativity in their people in order to be competitive in a global marketplace that will be ever-increasingly ruled by ideas. NYU, for example, recently managed to establish a partnership with a Chinese university where Chinese students will be admitted through holistic process.</p>
<p>That may be true in reality, but that’s not the perception among a critical mass of Chinese parents who are likely to be paying full-tuition plus extra expenses for their kids to attend US colleges or more importantly, most of the employers providing desirable highly paid and/or prestige careers/jobs after graduation. </p>
<p>If a parent is going to be shelling out that amount of money…they want to be sure that the degree their kid gets from a US college will be reputable in the eyes of potential employers to be worth the high expenses incurred. </p>
<p>This is especially considering the fact that even now…most Chinese-based employers only know of a few highly reputed famous US universities/LACs and/or have the perception that the rest of the US colleges/universities aren’t good enough to warrant the trip and high expenses…especially if their kid could gain admission to a topflight Chinese university…which makes even tippy-top elite US undergrad admissions look like a walk in the park. </p>
<p>This isn’t helped by reinforcement of such perceptions in Chinese mass media…including a line from one film in which a cop father who saved up a lot of money to send his son to the US asked a US-based friend to “help him research “good schools” as he’s heard there’s many lousy universities/colleges in the USA.”</p>
<p>Are you interested in ever working (full-time, regular, paid staff) in admissions at a highly selective college or university in the United States in the future?</p>
<p>If so I would run, not walk, away from this job.</p>
<p>You’ll find that those who go into private college counseling/consulting typically do it in one direction – from the admissions world.</p>
<p>I have yet to meet, among the hundreds of admissions staff I have met or know from this country’s colleges and universities, anyone who went from private college counseling into an admissions position or even returned to college admissions after a stint in private college consulting.</p>
<p>(To be clear, I do know folks who went from HS college counseling - including private schools - into admissions and who bounced between admissions and HS college counseling, but never from private college consulting into the profession. Among those I know, with the exception of folks working for non-profit access-type organizations such as Questbridge or Posse or Prep for Prep, private college consulting can be interpreted as an unfortunate sign on a resume - rather slimy undertones to be honest.</p>
<p>As one admissions dean once told me, “If she’s willing to try to ‘sell you’ the way into XYZ, what’s to say she’s not willing to do the same thing to an applicant?”</p>