Top Universities in China

China currently has around 600 colleges and universities which are accredited to admit international students. It is not easy for a foreign applicant to make the right choice of university without any research. Browsing university rankings is one way to learn about universities' reputations. In China, there are a number of rankings edited by different organizations, but Chinese people generally refer to 'Project 211 and 'Project 985' instead of rankings, which were set up by the Chinese Governement. Project 211 and Project 985 universities are widely regarded to be the most prestigious in China.

Project 211 is a project which aims to strengthen approximately 100 key universities and colleges for the 21st century initiated in 1995 by China's Ministry of Education. The figure of 21 and 1 within the name 211 are from the abbreviation of the 21st century and approximately 100 universities respectively. China now has more than 2,000 standard institutions of higher education, and about 6 percent of them are 211 Project institutions.

When you are browsing China's universities on CUCAS, you can find out whether a university belongs to Project 211 by looking at the ‘School Tier’ category on each university’s profile. For instance, as the picture shows below, Beijing Foreign Studies University is a member university of 'Project 211'.

Project 985 is a boosting project to promote the Chinese higher education system as called for by President Jiang Zemin at the 100th anniversary of Peking University on May 4, 1998 . The objective is to develop, in cooperation with local government, several top universities to be world-leading.

Universities List of Project 985

1. Fudan University
2. Harbin Institute of Technology
3. Nanjing University
4. Xi'an Jiao Tong University
5. Beihang University
6. Beijing Institute of Technology
7. Beijing Normal University
8. Central South University
9. Central University for Nationalities (Minzu University of China)
10. Chongqing University
11. Dalian University of Technology
12. East China Normal University
13. Huazhong University of Science and Technology
14. Hunan University
15. Jilin University
16. Ocean University of China
17. Tianjin University
18. Tongji University
19. University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
20. Wuhan University
21. Xiamen University
22. Shandong University
23. Sichuan University
24. South China University of Technology
25. Southeast University
26. Sun Yat-sen University
27. Peking University
28. Shanghai Jiao Tong University
29. Tsinghua University
30. University of Science and Technology of China
    
31. Zhejiang University
32. China Agricultural University
33. Lanzhou University
34. Nankai University
35. National University of Defense Technology
36. Northeastern University
37. Northwest A&F University
38. Northwestern Polytechnical University
    
39. Renmin University of China