TRIP PLANNING

Student Visa

You can get a student visa (X class visa) at a local Chinese Embassy or Consulate General with necessary documents. Please go to the web site of a Chinese Embassy or Consulate to book an appointment. While booking for the appointment, you will be informed which kind of documents you need to bring with you. Please inform us which kind of documents you need from the school, so that we will mail the documents to you before you go for the appointment. It takes 2 to 3 weeks for the international mail to arrive at your address.

Legal Guardian

If the student is under 18 years old at the time of study, you need a legal guardian in Beijing if parents are not coming with you.

Finding a legal guardian is necessary for overseas studies, no matter which country to go to. In this case, each international student younger than 18 studying at Beijing International Art School has a guardian. Usually, it is a person from the same home country who is working or studying in Beijing, or a relative living in Beijing.

You can try to find a guardian by yourself, with the helps from the embassy of your country or such kind of government services.

The School can also look for a legal guardian suitable for you. The guardian will provide helps when you have needs, and will commonly require some financial reimbursement, usually $80 - $150 per month, depending on the individual. After the prospective guardian talk with your parents, the two sides could go ahead with a personal mutual agreement on the amount. It is also possible that the guardian do not require the reimbursement for helping somebody from his/her own country.

Here two samples:

1. Parents' Letter of Entrustment to the Guardian

2. Guardian's Letter of Guarantee

Birth Certificate of the the student younger than 18 is also a required document.

Travelling

Airline ticket

If you have the access to a Chinatown, there are travel agencies specializing in airline tickets to Beijing, the prices of which are usually cheaper compared with general agencies. You can also grab a local Chinese newspaper which advertises those Chinese travel agencies.

Otherwise, some online travel agencies, such as expedia.com, provide affordable airfare.

First Day

If your cellphone does not have a roaming plan, please go to the China Mobile booth at the airport and buy a cellphone card after arriving at the Beijing Capital Airport. If it does not work, then buy a cellphone at the booth. It is very important to get the channel of communication open. With a cellphone handy, you can call the school office, notifying the school of your schedule and plan.

Before coming, please book a hotel for the first few days in Beijing. You can stay at hotels that are close to the subway transfer stations. To find out hotels in these areas, you can do a google search on Dongzhimen hotels, Chongwenmen hotels or Songjiazhuang hotels.

After you settle down at a hotel, please make a phone call or send an email to the school to report your arrival in Beijing.

Second Day

All students are required to take a medical exam. Please go to the medical center at No.10 De zheng street, Hai Dian District, Beijing. While doing the exam, please schedule a time to pick up the exam result from the test center. Usually it takes 2 to 3 business days to get the result. Then you can hand in the exam result in person at school. By picking up the exam result and handing in to the school yourself, it will actually save you time rather than letting the medical center mail it to the school.
Download Information Here.

Google map of the medical center:

Next Few days

While waiting for the medical exam result, please go to a bank in Beijing, and withdraw Chinese Yuan enough to pay for tuition and living expenses.
If you choose to have the medical center mail the test result, please contact the school by phone or text message from time to time to find out whether the exam result is received by the school. Once it is received please make an appointment with school officials for registration. The staff in charge sometimes are not in office. Making an appointment saves your time.
You can go to a local bank in Beijing to open a bank account. On the day of registration at school, you will be expected to pay tuition fees, accommodation fees and deposits by RMB through bank remittance or Union Pay card issued by your Chinese bank. If bank remittance is the means of your payment, please write on the remittance paperwork the same name as shown on the student's passport. Accommodation supplies shall be paid in RMB cash.
You are required to bring 8 copies of a "2 inch" recent passport photo. The dimensions are:

You can take the photo before your trip, but please note that the size of the photo required by the Chinese government might be very different from that is done in your country. The Chinese inch is different from the imperial inch. Actually, you could have the photo taken in Beijing easily, and it costs less here.
Because each of those tasks needs time, it is important to have things done in the right order one after another. No one wants to stay at a hotel for too long because that is costly. With the medical exam results and Chinese yuan currency, you can leave the hotel behind and set out to register at the school. Please click here for the school address and directions.

Enrollment

You are required by the school to live in the school dormitory.
Please visit the International Student Office, Pei Jie Si (International Student Advisor)
You will meet the department chairman and teachers, have the study plan settled, and enroll courses.
The School will let other students or staff members help you with settling down, such as bank accounts, long distance phone services, Internet communications, a quick tour of Beijing, and etc.
OK, you come to study. Let the fun begin.