Yenching Academy Scholarship: A Fully Funded Master’s at Peking University
Peking University runs a fellowship that pays for everything and takes about 120 people a year, roughly 75% of them international. It is called the Yenching Academy, and applications close on 30 November 2026.
Note the time before anything else. The deadline falls at 9:00 a.m. Beijing time, not at midnight. Beijing sits three hours ahead of Pakistan, so your real cut-off is 6:00 a.m. on 30 November, Pakistan time. People lose this scholarship by hours every year because they assume a midnight deadline in their own time zone.
What it covers
Tuition. Accommodation. A monthly stipend. One round-trip travel fare. The cost of field study.
Your family pays nothing towards the degree itself.
What you study, and the structure that surprises people
You take an interdisciplinary master’s degree in China Studies, over two years.
Here is the part that distinguishes Yenching from almost every other programme. International scholars must live in Beijing only for the first year. The second year can happen elsewhere, and scholars may apply for early graduation, receiving the degree at the end of the third semester. Mainland Chinese, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan scholars stay in residence for the full two years.
That flexibility matters if you have work, family, or a plan that does not allow two uninterrupted years abroad.
Degrees are conferred in January and July.
The rule that nobody warns you about
You choose one of six research areas, and you write a thesis in it under a faculty advisor:
- Economics and Management
- History and Archaeology
- Philosophy and Religion
- Politics and International Relations
- Law and Society
- Literature and Culture
You choose before you enroll, and you cannot switch afterwards.
Read that again. Most master’s programmes let you drift towards a thesis topic during the first semester. This one fixes your area before you arrive in Beijing, permanently. The choice does not restrict which courses you take, but it does decide the thesis you will write and the advisor who supervises it.
So the research area is not a box on a form. It is the whole degree. Choose it against the work you have already done and the question you actually want to answer, rather than against which area sounds most impressive.
Who can apply
A bachelor’s degree in any subject. If you are still studying, you need the diploma in hand by August of your enrolment year.
A non-Chinese passport, for the international track.
A strong academic record and a real interest in the interdisciplinary study of China. That phrase does the work here: they want people who will study China through their own discipline, not China specialists only.
English proficiency, unless an exemption applies. Native speakers qualify, and so do graduates of English-taught undergraduate or higher degrees though that exemption does not extend to Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan applicants.
What you submit
- The online application form
- A personal statement, maximum 750 words
- A statement of research interest, maximum 1,500 words, excluding citations
- Your CV
- Official transcripts
- Your diploma, or a certificate of enrolment
- Two academic recommendation letters
- English test results, where they apply
Two things in that list decide most outcomes.
The 1,500-word statement of research interest is the application. No other fully funded programme at this level gives you that much room, and the length tells you what they want: a real question, the literature around it, why Peking University suits it, and what you would do in two years. Fifteen hundred words of enthusiasm about China will lose to eight hundred words of a specific, answerable question.
Only two letters, and they must come from full or associate professors in your intended field. Not an employer mentor. Not a lecturer from an unrelated subject. If your referees do not match that description, fixing it is the first thing to do this week, because an academic in the right field needs notice.
Yenching or Schwarzman?
Both sit in Beijing, both pay for everything, and students ask us constantly which to choose. They select for opposite things.
Schwarzman runs one year at Tsinghua in global affairs. It selects for leadership and impact. Its whole application is 1,250 words, two pages and a one-minute video. Age cut-off under 29. We cover it in our Schwarzman Scholars guide.
Yenching runs two years at Peking University in China Studies. It selects for research. Its application gives you 1,500 words for a research question alone. The published eligibility names no age limit.
If you have run organizations and want a policy career, Schwarzman. If you have a question you want to answer and might continue to a PhD, Yenching. Applying to both with the same materials wastes both.
And if China generally interests you rather than either of these specifically, the Chinese Government Scholarship through CSC covers far more fields and far more universities see our CSC China guide.
Your next fifty-one days
This week. Decide your research area out of the six, and approach two professors in that field. Give them your CV, your draft statement, and a reminder of the work you did with them. Our reference letter generator shows what a usable letter contains.
By 5 November. Finish the statement of research interest. Write the question first, then the literature, then why Peking University. Our SOP generator will structure the personal statement beside it.
By 20 November. Have the CV and transcripts ready, and read everything once more. The CV reviewer will tell you what to cut.
By 28 November. Submit. Two days early, because the deadline is 6:00 a.m. Pakistan time and nothing good happens at dawn.
Apply: yenchingacademy.pku.edu.cn