Paperwork and red tape part 1

If the existence of the JW202 (and the JW201 for shorter-term enrolments) was the most important lesson we received from this process, then the most important lesson we re-learned was to give ourselves enough time to be wrong and incomplete. Oh, and also try to get things submitted as early as possible in case your timeline is quite suddenly shortened. 

On September 5, Myles received a pre-admission notice from Shiyou. For international students in their home countries, this would be useful for applying for scholarships. It was not, however, an actual admissions notice. That was still at this point pending government review. Until his admission was final, we were still a little bit on edge.

It didn't help our anxieties when one of our colleagues called the school to see if they needed Myles to supply anything else to help with the final decision. The admissions director replied that they did not, and all they were waiting on was the government review. Normally, only students from "problem countries" required more scrutiny, though, he added, the relationship at that time between the US and China might be a cause for concern. A few days later, though, Myles did get his actual admissions letter. 

Before Myles applied to Shiyou, we were told that classes would begin September 27. This seemed a little late in the fall semester, but the application process was re-opened in late August. After he was accepted, though, the start date hadn't yet been set as it was pending all the students completing their registration. Implied was that he needed to hurry with his registration so he was not the one holding up the works. Still, we were operating under the assumption that the 27th was the start date.

Myles immediately completed the registration online. The next day he was informed that since he was already in Changping and was going to register as an in-person student, what he really needed to do was to come onto campus and register in-person. Basically everything he had already submitted online he needed to provide as hard copies in the International Students' Office. BUT, before he could do that, he needed to get his face and "Health Kit" loaded into the school's security face recognition system. A few weeks before this, a negative COVID-19 test would have also been required, but at the middle of September, Beijing was in a lull between outbreak concerns. 

There were a few email exchanges between Myles and the student affairs office as the portal for uploading his Health Kit was not accepting his files. Finally on the 15th, Myles and the school worked out his problem and he was ready to walk onto to campus the next day to complete his registration. Or so he thought.

His first attempt to get through the facial recognition was unsuccessful, so he had to get one of the staff to meet him at the gate and tell the guards that he was a student there. In the office for international students, he met with some of the other staff who took his paperwork and gave him a list of what he needed that was not requested by the online registration, the documents the school needed to provide to the Education Bureau for his visa. He asked about the start of classes and the schedule, and again, they told him once everyone registered they would be able to begin. By the time he left the office, with his list of things to bring back the next day, he was assured that he would definitely be able to enter through the student gates.

He went back the next day, fully recognized by the gate cameras this time. With my bank card and the last documentation he needed, he was then fully registered. There was one more student who was also finishing his registration, so it looked like they would begin that following Monday, September 20th. 

That was interesting. That Monday, September 20 was not only a week sooner than we had earlier been told, but it was also Mid-Autumn Festival, a national holiday. Would the classroom buildings even be open, we wondered. 

It turned out that didn't matter. Once we got his schedule. we learned that his classes would be online for a few weeks, at least (spoiler--he is still online). He would have 18 hours of coursework a week, five sessions of Chinese Grammar, and three sessions each of Chinese Listening and Chinese Reading. Each of these classes would also include a lot of character writing.

The final step in this whole process would be the actual X-visa, the student visa. When our HR department and I met with the Visa-granting authorities at Yonghegong Entry-Exit Bureau in early September, they advised us to apply for a 30-day extension to cover Myles beyond his 18th birthday, and then file for the X-visa on his own, as an adult. This seemed to us to be the easiest path. But then, again, when have we ever traveled the easiest path?