As a new first-tier city in China, Hangzhou has gradually geared to international standards in education resources and backup talents. Recently, a survey has been made among students of Cambridge A-level Center of Hangzhou Foreign Language School to find what kind of universities preferred by students of international class in a senior high school and their career prospect after graduation.

The survey showed that students had a variety of choices. Most of them applied for universities in the USA and UK and had alternative choices. Interesting enough, some chose China-based Sino-foreign cooperative universities, such as Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, even after they got offers from top 30 or top 50 universities in the USA.

Most overseas Chinese students chose to return and work in China. In 2021, 480,900 out of a total of 608,400 overseas Chinese students returned to China. More and more applicants for state-owned enterprises in China have overseas education background. However, returned students now are less valued and are not so popular as before. The company is said to prefer graduates from China’s 985 universities or those from the world’s top 200 universities, mostly Ivy League schools. However, the personal competence also counts in order to be employed by state-owned enterprises in China.

As far as students of art major are concerned, domestic enterprises prefer students graduated from domestic academies of art rather than those graduated from prestigious foreign art colleges. So, maybe studying abroad is not the best choice for self-improvement of students now.