<p>Has anyone been accepted/rejected from this program yet? I heard from Harvard last week but am still waiting to hear back from Princeton…</p>
<p>Does anybody know how the time line works here?</p>
<p>accepted to PIB 3/1
accepted to HIB 2/20
accepted to IUP 3/2
accepted to CIB 3/3</p>
<p>I know you didn`t ask, but I have extra time and will rank the programs as well
Princeton is #1 by far
Harvard is #2 (copied Princeton…although Harvard does give you your own room)
IUP is #3 (maybe #1 in advanced Chinese studies)
Columbia is a distant #4 (language pledge is a joke. emphasis is on having fun more than learning Chinese)
You will come back from any of the above programs with vastly improved Chinese, but you will be able to say pretty much anything you want if you go to Harvard or Princeton. Even so, if you attend Princeton, your Chinese will be sick.
Also, it might be worth noting that Harvard is losing Feng Laoshi, who is pretty much the reason why Harvard`s program is so good. Feng Laoshi is irreplaceable, so it will be interesting to see how the program develops after 2011.</p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>I was rejected from PIB but got into HIB and IUP in mid February. I didn<code>t apply to any of the other programs. I wish they had more information online. Obviously, Princeton is the best program, but it</code>s impossible to get into. The other programs are probably all pretty similar. As far as a timeline goes…I think the programs accept students on a rolling basis. If you haven<code>t heard back by now, though, you probably weren</code>t accepted. You should call Princeton and make sure they have your application.</p>
<p>Thank you for responding! It would have been nice to have this thread back when I started the application process. It would have saved me a lot of Google searches…</p>
<p>Anyway, Congratulations Adonis! It must be nice to be able to choose which program you want to attend. I didn`t get into PIB, and I only applied to two programs.</p>
<p>Congratulations to you as well, jiggernaut! I will probably see you in Beijing. I am going to be in HIB too.</p>
<p>I<code>m actually going to IUP. But maybe we</code>ll bump into each other. I sent you a PM.</p>
<p>@Adonis</p>
<p>Being a bit harsh with the rankings, aren<code>t you? As a former student of both the CIB and HIB programs, I</code>m not sure that I would put so much distance between them. Both programs have pretty solid intermediate classes, and they both get weaker the more advanced you go.
I was in CIB in 2009. The language pledge was a joke to the students who came to party, but most of the students spoke Chinese. The fact that English isn<code>t forbidden in my opinion is actually a strength for Columbia</code>s prog. Sometimes only speaking Chinese is actually detrimental. If I don<code>t understand the explanation of a grammar, htf am I supposed to know how to use it?
I was in HIB in 2010. The language pledge was strictly enforced to the point that it was kind of a pain sometimes. The nice parts were that we had our own room and we were in wudaokou. The negative parts were mostly structural. The way the classes were laid out all week was not effective at all, particularly the afternoon conversations and the one-on-one</code>s. I would have rather we spend more time internalizing a smaller number of grammar and vocabulary as opposed to learning so many everyday and then forgetting them so that we could learn the next days vocabs and grammar. It was a waste of time and not worth the money. By the end of HIB, I wished I would have come to China and paid a college student to teach me all day every day. One of my instructors told me that HIB paid her something like $1500 for the entire summer, so it would be waaaay cheaper to just hire one.
So…here are my rankings
- PIB
- Hire a tutor yourself
- CIB for level 2, Hib for level 3, and IUP for 4+
- HIB for level 2, CIB for level 3
- IUP for levels below 4
- HIB level 4+
- CIB level 4+
- CIEE in beijing
- CET in beijing
- Enroll in a Chinese University
- Just go to China and try to talk to people</p>
<p>Anyone have tips for the visa? Any advice for the program? Where should I go?</p>
<p>FYI</p>
<p>It<code>s 2am and I stumbled onto this page while obsessively googling my own program. I don</code>t really have anything better to do, so I<code>ll write something here. My school just published its study abroad scholarship information this past week, and required those of us who received scholarships to come to a meeting.
The two Princeton (PIB) students were both accepted at the end of February. They already have their books and visa information. Five students are going to Columbia (CIB), and they were accepted at the beginning of March. They have not received any books, but they also have received their JW202s. Two of us are going to IUP, and I was accepted in mid-February, but the other student was accepted in mid-March.
For the visa, you have to go to a Chinese embassy and apply for a visa. You need the JW202 and a letter from the school (the partner school in China). As far as advice goes, everyone keeps telling me that the most common mistake made by students is that they pack way too much stuff. You can buy pretty much anything in China. Beijing even has a Walmart. And as for places to go, since you</code>re going to Beijing, you should try going to a different park every weekend. I went to Beijing once when I was like six years old, and I remember the parks were really cool.</p>
<p>Thanks Jiggernaut.</p>
<p>Hey, have any of you ever heard of someone not getting a visa? I am thinking of applying for a six-month, multi-entry visa, but the program is only for three months. </p>
<p>Will the embassy deny my application if I apply for anything other than a three month one?</p>
<p>They might. you should call your program and find out. You really should just try to get the visa that your program recommends. In your case, I think that`s a three-month single entry.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone who posted here!</p>
<p>For future applicants:</p>
<p>Here is a time line of the application process to most of the major China-Abroad programs.</p>
<p>PIB</p>
<p>Acceptances go out late February and early March. You should have heard from PIB by the 1st of March if you were accepted.</p>
<p>Rejections/Waitlists also go out in late February. Waitlisted applicants may have to wait around a month before finding out, ultimately, whether or not they were accepted.</p>
<p>HIB</p>
<p>Acceptances go out in mid-February. I received mine on February 20th via email (I think all the programs communicate via email).</p>
<p>Rejections/Waitlists go out around the same time. Waitlisted applicants will have trouble communicating with the main office during this time. Responses to emails take weeks, if not longer.</p>
<p>CIB</p>
<p>Acceptances go out in the first few days of March.</p>
<p>Rejections/Waitlists…I don`t really have any information on this…Has anyone ever been rejected/waitlisted at this program?
IUP
Accepts students on a rolling basis until the program is full.
Once again...I don`t have any info about rejections and waitlists for this program.</p>
<p>Visa Information:</p>
<p>I went to get my visa on a Tuesday. The line was really long, and I ended up waiting three hours before finally reaching the window. Bring copies of everything! I didn<code>t have a copy of my passport, so the lady behind the window directed me upstairs to their copier. Since the copier required change, which I didn</code>t have, I had to go across the street to get some. When I returned, the Embassy had closed for the afternoon, and I had to wait in another long line to re-enter the embassy when it re-opened after an extended lunch break.</p>
<p>The embassy is not doing same-day express processing right now, either. So, the fastest you can get your visa is in two days. The line to pick up the visa (after two days have passed) was not quite as bad as the application line. I waited 1.5 hours to pick up a number and another 45 minutes to actually pick up the visa.</p>
<p>You can also get an extended stay or multiple entry visa with your JW202, but you need to contact your adviser/program assistant before you do so. I didn`t go this route, but one of the guys in line with me did. He said it was pretty painless.</p>
<p>I just wanted to add a bit to this as I have been in Beijing/Taipei/Shanghai for about 15 months studying Chinese now. I’ve personally attended IUP and based on the students and teachers I have talked to, reputations for Chinese programs are as follows:</p>
<ol>
<li>IUP at Qinghua
ICLP in Taipei</li>
<li>Hopkins Nanjing
ACC at Renmin University</li>
<li>PiB</li>
<li>HiB</li>
</ol>
<p>The reason PIB is lower here than other rankings is that as a summer only program, there is a heavy emphasis on beginning students, and the teachers are only using the PIB curriculum for two months out of the year. In terms of results, the students coming out of IUP, ICLP, ACC and Hopkins usually have a much higher Chinese proficiency than those coming out of PIB. I’ve never met anybody that goes to CIB nor have I heard anybody talking about it, so I can’t speak about their quality. </p>
<p>To be clear, these are all good programs, and the quality (and price) is much higher than the programs offered by Chinese run programs such as Qinghua, Beida, or BCLU and private outfits such as TLI.</p>