Brother, my interview was not conducted for the cultural exchange scholarship 2017. It was conducted for internal USA University PhD Scholarship and I got a strong recommendation today Jan. 19, 2017. In addition, I have got a recommendation for a reputable Chinese University PhD program today. I am waiting for cultural exchange scholarship 2017 result and my score is 69. Please pray for my success. May Almighty Allah help us in our pursuit of higher education abroad. Ameen.

I pray Allah will help all of us.

AoA, I would like any experienced person to tell me if CGPA matters in getting a letter of final selection from China? I scored well in NTS (77) but my bachelor's gpa was only 2.84. Apart from that i graduated from NUST in computer engineering, I have a research publication to my name (even though it is as a 3rd author and not the primary one) and also have a very relevant work experience that gave me a chance to work in emerging technologies. So how much does the gpa matter in this program?

Thank you.

I must say that your credentials are good. GPA does matter in top notch Chinese universities like Peking, Fudan, Tsinghua and Zhejiang. But, I am not fully sure if it matters in this program or not. One third author publication can't take you anywhere so I would suggest you to improve on that. Adding some first author research publications is the right thing to do and that should not be a huge problem if you have fresh thoughts about emerging technologies that you just mentioned. Best of luck for your future endeavors.

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AHSAN LOVE ALMIGHTY ALLAH

Thank you brother for your help. I am aware that GPA is of prime concern in good universities everywhere including China. I just wanted to know where GPA stands in this particular program by IPC. I read somewhere that not to give top universities as our priorities once IPC notifies us of our selection but if selection will be ultimately based on our previous profiles then what is the point of NTS in the first place :/ They could simply ask everyone to apply on their own and try their luck. What sort of priority does getting nominated by IPC exactly do we receive.

Regards.

Any ways that is a concern for some later time I guess. Currently let us just hope they do announce the result at least :P

When the IPC announces the merit list

GPA does not matter at all. Your NTS score matters instead.

good sharing.

You have to call IPC foriegn scholarship section to inquire your merit position.

GPA matters? yes and no. Initially no becuase merit is based on NTS score.
The scholarship awarding process is like this:
1- country selects candidates(NTS merit in IPC case) and forwards applications to host country(China)
2- Applications are reviewed by China Scholarship Council(CSC) for eligibilty criteria and forwarded to the universities written by applicants in their preference list
3- These universities review applications and select most relevant students.
4- Universities send selected students information to regional Public Security Bearue(PSB) for issuance of visa invitation documents.
5- Once the invitation documents are complete, university sends all documents to CSC, which forwards to Chinese embassies in countries, which in turn to the selection agency for handing over to selected candidates.


Now the question why shouldn't an applicant just apply directly instead?
There are mutiple scholarship programs which are run under CSC like Chinese University Program(CUP), MOFCOM, Bilateral Program. Each program has fixed number of seats and these cannot be filled by applicants from other programs. The process you guys are going through is called Bilateral Program. Under this Bilateral program CSC accomodates applicants from countries with which China has mutual educational agreements. Each country have fixed seats. The selection process in BP in general is lineant and accomodating because of not enough applications to fill these seats. Many selection steps like application fee submission and interviews are skipped for BP which makes it easier to get admitted. But in famous universities like @Ahsan mentioned the competition is very tough because evryone wants to go in these universities. There your profile plays significant role. Competition is least in BP compared to other programs. For example the competion in CUP can be 1:500 but in BP it can be 1:50