The University of Sydney has announced on its website that it will directly consider the admission of students who have taken China’s college entrance examination, known as the Gaokao.

A faster track to higher education – Chinese applicants to the University of Sydney used to need 8 to 12 months of Foundation Studies or at least a year of freshman coursework scores from China’s top 211 universities. But now, students who have sat Gaokao and have a minimum 6.5 IELTS score can go straight into academic programs.

Tyrone Carlin, acting dean of Business School, University of Sydney, said, “The reason we have done this is that we looked very hard on the evidence of the learning quality. The students who have completed this qualification of Gaokao are very very high quality students. They’ve got great potential. For us, our admission policy are all about finding the highest quality students world wide.”

Admission standards depend on the part of China the applicant is from. The highest is 583 in Hunan province, and the lowest, 430, in Qinghai province.

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Professor Carlin explains how the standard is set.

Tyrone Carlin, acting dean of Business School, University of Sydney, said, “We are guided by the Ministry of Education. However, the authorities from China said the cut-offs for Tier One, We got it by that. The Australian Government also conducted research on Gaokao admission qualification and about the likeliness of success if they come to Australian universities. That’s giving us great confidence on that we can proceed admitting students on this basis.’’

Carlin says students can choose from all majors at the university and can change their major after a year study. All of this is very attractive to Chinese students. But the annual tuition fee of about 25,000 Australian dollars may be a big challenge.

Tyrone Carlin, acting dean of Business School, University of Sydney, said, “The university specifically has an undergraduate scholarship for international achievers. That is a scheme operated by the university and it’s for anyone admitted to the university.”

The University of Sydney has a higher international ranking than Tsinghua and Peking University, but has lower Gaokao admission scores. But with expensive tuition fees and the cost of living abroad, whether or not there will be a visible rise in the enrollment of Chinese students in 2012 is still unknown.

vivi笔记：

college entrance examination：高考
Foundation Studies：基础课程
IELTS score：雅思成绩
academic programs：学术课程
Business School：工商管理学院
Ministry of Education：教育部
cut-offs：分数线
Tier One：一本大学
admission qualification：入学资格

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