Chinese students planning to study in the United States are having difficulty obtaining visa appointments at US embassies in the country, prompting some to travel to third countries to obtain services.
“There are quite, few places available in the US Beijing Embassy for Chinese students to make appointments,” Ben Chen, executive vice president of Global Education Alliance, explained, adding that booking an appointment has become a matter of constantly refreshing the website in the hope that something becomes available.
With hundreds of thousands of Chinese students studying in the United States each year, the scarcity of available spaces has many worried that they will be forced to spend another year studying online at unsociable hours via Zoom. According to The PIE, there is currently a long wait time for visa appointments at many US embassies worldwide.
As per Huini Gu, the founder of ZoomIN, a Shanghai-based college admissions counselling agency, you are even making an appointment does not guarantee that you will attend it.
“[There is] uncertainty as a result of constant cancellation,” she explained.
“They were able to book it. The problem is that [the appointments] were almost all cancelled.
“At the moment, it appears that getting an appointment for a US visa in Beijing will be in June at the earliest.”
While some agents advise students to wait in the hopes that the application process will open up in the coming months, others are now advising students to apply for visas in third countries – a route that data from Shorelight suggests has been chosen by thousands of Chinese students this year.
“Through Shorelight’s proprietary data analytics platform, we know that thousands of Chinese students qualified for a visa through third-country options this year, including Singapore,” a spokesperson told The PIE.
According to BOSSA spokesperson Jon Santangelo, “Chinese students also go to Thailand’s US visa office [but] the majority of these kinds of indirect US-bound Chinese students go through Singapore’s US visa office.”
Since November of last year, with boundaries open to mainland Chinese citizens, the benefit of visiting Singapore stems from the relative ease of obtaining a one-month visa, allowing ample time to complete the process.
Students also said it was preferable to other neighbouring countries because of its perception as a safe, developed destination.
As such, companies have now begun offering all-inclusive packages for students to go to Singapore.
Since November of last year, with boundaries open to mainland Chinese citizens, the benefit of visiting Singapore stems from the relative ease of obtaining a one-month visa, allowing ample time to complete the process.
Students also said it was preferable to other neighbouring countries because of its perception as a safe, developed destination.
“I heard about the possibility of this route during the summer holidays,” he said, as he described the process of preparing visas, flights, quarantine, and documentation, adding that when he arrived in the US, he was the only Chinese student taking in-person classes among the international cohort.
However, the route is not recommended by all agents. One said it was “not worth [the trouble] and a bit risky,” while another said their students were choosing not to take the risk if their visas were denied and would continue as remote students.
Even so, there is optimism that the situation will improve in the coming months.
“US universities are experiencing some of the highest demand in recent history, with international applications up by double digits,” said Imran Oomer, Shorelight’s head of global recruitment.
“Due to ongoing concerns about the pandemic, US embassies and consulates in many countries are operating at reduced capacity, posing a significant challenge for international students, particularly Chinese students.”
While this is not the first instance of delays at US embassies in China, some China-based agents believe the delays are also the result of political issues between the US and China.
“We are working closely with our university partners and the American Council on Education to advocate for the US Departments of State and Homeland Security to reopen embassies and consulates, relax travel restrictions, and increase capacity and flexibility,” Oomer added.
“We are optimistic that these issues will be resolved shortly.”
“We know that visa delays to the US are causing real concern for our students, parents, agents, and partner universities,” said Clare Rawlins, vice president, international recruitment, enrolment, and marketing at Kaplan International Pathways.
“Kaplan has increased our on-the-ground recruitment and support activities to assist students in determining the best path for them as the visa situation evolves — online study, deferral, or travel.”
The State Department was contacted for comment.
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