Overseas study consultancy offers scholarships to top 5 US universities

A Chinese consulting agency on overseas study will provide scholarships and funds to its excellent clients who are admitted to five of the best universities in the United States.

Vision Overseas, an overseas study consultancy under the New Oriental Education & Technology Group, will provide 300,000 yuan ($48,000) to each Chinese student who gains admission to five prestigious universities in the US as undergraduates after going through its consulting services, the consultancy announced on Saturday.

The five universities, which are called the Super Five by the consultancy, refer to five of the most selective universities in the US: Harvard University, Yale University, Stanford University, Princeton University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Zhou Chenggang, president of Vision Overseas, said the scholarship was founded to encourage better performance among Chinese applicants and to support these young Chinese to realize their dreams, no matter whether it's about academic research or social practice.

"With high examination scores and comprehensive personal strengths, these students will have great opportunities to grow up as excellent international citizens, and we want to support them to realize their ideas, even though such a sum is far from adequate in making a dream come true," Zhou said.

He added that they will start granting the scholarship to the Class of 2020 and will not limit the number of students who can receive the scholarship.

But Zhou said they prepared about 10 million yuan in the pool for the first year. "After all, it's not that easy for Chinese high school students to gain admission to these universities," Zhou said. "So we estimate that 30 successful applicants is an approachable goal."

For the Class of 2019, Vision Overseas has helped some Chinese students to gain admission to undergraduate programs of the five universities, including one to Harvard, two to Yale, one to Stanford and one to MIT, according to the consultancy.

"We also hope to inspire more Chinese students who want to study overseas to perform better in their applications and future study," Zhou said.