It is reported that on Beijing time 12:00, January 9th, 2010, China's University and College Admission System (CHIWEST) was conducted a comprehensive upgrade, and formally renamed as CUCAS, while enabled new domain name - http://www.cucas.edu.cn/

CUCAS (www.cucas.edu.cn) New Homepage

Besides the renaming, the system upgrade included technical promotion of Course Search and Yellow Pages of China's Institutions - China schools.

The promotion in Course Search function enables international students to find courses more simple and effective. CUCAS cooperats with over 100 China's universities and colleges, builds up a database of 14671 courses admitting foreign students, and provides specialty search using the specialty classification by Chinese Ministry of Education, subject to search. Meanwhile, CUCAS offers different searching interfaces: Search for degree courses and Search for non-degree courses.

Search for degree courses	Search for non-degree courses

The feature of Yellow Pages of China's Institutions - China schools allows international students to have a more clear understanding of the geographical location of China's universities and local situation in cities. University and College Map uses Google Map API interface.

Beijing Language and Culture University is shown on University and College Map

CUCAS (www.cucas.edu.cn) plans to promote online application feature for international students in March 2010, to offer applicants more convient and secure service.

Until 2009, China universities admitting international students authorized by Ministry of Education of China, including Beijing Language and Culture University, Beihang University, Tongji University, etc., signed Technical Service Purchase Agreements with CUCAS, to use technical service and admission system, and process applications of international students with high efficiency.

According to official figures, students from 208 countries directly submitted their applications for China's unversity through CUCAS in 2009. Main applicants source countries are United States, followed by Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Nigeria, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Russia, etc. Mr. Harry HU - CEO of CUCAS said, the distribution of CUCAS applicants' sourse countries did not quite agree with sourse of forign students studying in China. The main reason for this situation lies in:

1. Language difficulties. Most of intormation on CUCAS is in English. But lots of applicants may not be good at reading English, who are from the largest sources of overseas students such as Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.

2. Level of Internet application, and popularity of e-commerce. Applicants from Thailand, Vietnam, India, and Pakistan seem to prefer local education agents with higher commision, to online application with safety, convenience and efficiency.