Nanjing Agricultural University — guide for international students

Nanjing Agricultural University (南京农业大学, NJAU, written NAU on its own English pages) traces its origins to the agriculture and natural history section of Sanjiang Normal School, founded in Nanjing in 1902, and to the agriculture faculty of the private Jinling University, which in 1914 set up what the university describes as the first four-year agricultural department in Chinese higher education. The modern institution was assembled in 1952, when the national reorganisation of faculties merged the agriculture colleges of Jinling University and Nanjing University into Nanjing Agricultural College. It moved to Yangzhou in 1972 and merged with Jiangsu Agricultural College, returned to Nanjing in 1979, and was renamed Nanjing Agricultural University in 1984. It entered Project 211 in December 1998, came under the Ministry of Education in 2000, and is a Double First-Class university today.

NJAU is not a one-site university, and which site you land on matters. The university’s footer lists three campuses: Weigang, at No. 1 Weigang in Xuanwu District in the east of Nanjing; Binjiang, at No. 666 Binjiang Avenue in the Jiangbei New District across the Yangtze; and Pukou, at No. 40 Dianjiangtai Road. The Chinese profile page adds a teaching and research base at Baima and a science and education innovation park in Chuzhou, and puts the combined area at over 9,000 mu. International students are administered from both Weigang and Binjiang — the College of International Education gives its address as Administration Building A304 at Weigang and A340 at Binjiang, and freshman registration is at Room A304 on Weigang and Room A341 on Binjiang. Dormitory rates differ between the two campuses, so ask which campus your program sits on before you budget.

The Chinese profile page, updated October 2024, describes 20 colleges and departments with 74 undergraduate majors, 30 first-level master’s disciplines and 17 first-level doctoral disciplines, more than 18,000 full-time undergraduates and more than 12,000 postgraduates, and over 2,900 staff including four academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. The university’s English General Information page has not been refreshed to match: it still says 18 colleges plus one department, 62 undergraduate specialties, more than 17,000 undergraduates, over 8,500 postgraduates, 2,700 staff and two academicians. Both pages are official and they disagree; the Chinese page is the newer of the two, and neither says which supersedes the other.

International education is run by the College of International Education, an independent unit since June 2015 covering international students, international training and outbound exchange. Its page says more than 9,000 international students have studied at NJAU over the years and that the current degree-seeking cohort is 1,023 — 139 undergraduates, 362 master’s students and 522 doctoral students. That shape is worth reading carefully: NJAU’s international student body is overwhelmingly postgraduate and research-led, and the undergraduate intake is small for a university of this size.

Nanjing Agricultural University admits international students to bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees and to non-degree scholar and exchange study. Everything is submitted through the university’s own system at njau.at0086.cn — the College of International Education takes digital submissions only and does not want hard copies by courier — and the application fee is RMB 500 or USD 80 per application, payable by scholarship applicants too. Two rules shape the process. The first is language: the General Information page states that "HSK Level 5 is mandatory for applicants of Bachelor's programs and Graduate programs in Chinese language", and the FAQ closes the obvious escape route, because "Our university does not have language study, students need to acquire HSK 5 or equivalent level to apply for undergraduate study" — NJAU runs neither a Chinese language program nor a foundation year. English-taught study needs IELTS 6.0 or TOEFL 80, or proof that you come from an English-speaking country or have spent at least a year in one. The second is age: bachelor’s applicants must be under 25, master’s applicants under 35 and doctoral applicants under 40, with 45 and 50 the caps on the general and senior scholar routes. Undergraduate applicants also need a China Scholastic Competency Assessment (CSCA) certificate; the college publishes the CSCA subjects for each NJAU major as a PDF and issued CSCA instructions for the 2026 intake on 3 December 2025. Graduate applicants need an acceptance letter from an NJAU supervisor before a file clears the first review, though the FAQ warns that the letter is "a basic requirement for application" and does not secure a place, because "the university will carry out several rounds of review". The self-funded deadline is "End of June to Middle July"; scholarship deadlines are set by each scholarship notice and run much earlier. Everything below comes from the pages NJAU published for the 2026 intake.

Degree programs

Select a degree level to see tuition, duration and entry requirements.

Non-degree programs

Documents to prepare

Application timeline

These are the dates Nanjing Agricultural University published for the 2026 intake. That cycle has closed. Use them as a guide to when each step falls in the year, and check the official pages for the 2027 dates before you plan around them.

NJAU takes part in several Chinese Government Scholarship channels, hosts the Nanjing municipal scholarship and runs partial awards of its own — but be prepared for how little detail is on the open web. The college lists each year’s notices on its Scholarships page and then publishes the terms through a WeChat notice or a downloadable archive, so the amounts for the municipal and university schemes are not stated on the site. Two things the pages are clear about. First, there is no full university scholarship for undergraduates: they go through the Chinese Government Scholarship Type A route via a Chinese embassy or consulate, because "Currently type B is only for graduate level students". Second, CSC applicants still pay the application fee and still submit in the NJAU system as well as the CSC system — the file’s status shows there, and no hard copies are needed.

Research at NJAU is organised around food: how crops are bred, how soil and nutrients are managed, how animals are fed and kept healthy, how meat and food products are made safe, and how information technology is applied to farming. The Chinese profile page counts 125 national, ministerial and provincial research platforms, among them the national key laboratories for crop genetics and germplasm innovation and for meat quality control and new resource creation. The research office’s English pages list the State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics & Germplasm Enhancement alongside national centres for meat quality and safety control, soybean improvement and international research on animal gut nutrition, a national engineering and technology centre for information agriculture, a national technique innovation centre for regional wheat production, ministry-level key laboratories in meat processing, integrated pest management, horticultural crops and crop physiology, and a tier of Jiangsu provincial laboratories and engineering centres. For a doctoral applicant, that list is the practical map of where supervisors and funded projects sit.

NJAU’s international work runs on three tracks: research and teaching partnerships abroad, a joint institute with a foreign partner on its own campus, and development and training work in Africa and Asia. The Chinese profile page puts the network at more than 180 institutions in over 50 countries and regions; the older English overview still says over 150 institutions in more than 30 countries, so treat the Chinese figure as current. The college names the University of California, Davis, Chiba University and Seoul National University among long-standing partners and describes closer work with Belt and Road countries including Kenya, Cambodia, Indonesia, Singapore, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. For an applicant, the concrete consequences are the exchange routes in the admission section and the college’s outbound programs for enrolled students.

Be realistic about what NJAU publishes here. The university does not put employment rates, salary data or a careers service for international students on its English pages, and the College of International Education’s site has no careers section — its post-graduation material is an alumni platform rather than a careers office, with an online alumni service platform, alumni ambassadors and profiles of eight international graduates it presents as distinguished alumni. The strongest career signal at NJAU is structural rather than advertised: with 522 of its 1,023 degree-seeking international students in doctoral programs, and the research platforms listed above, the international pipeline runs towards academic and research careers in agriculture, food science and veterinary medicine, often back in the graduate’s home country. If employment support matters to your decision, ask the college what exists at university level before you apply.

Where you live at NJAU follows the campus your program sits on, and the two campuses that house international students are on opposite sides of the Yangtze: Weigang in Xuanwu District and Binjiang in the Jiangbei New District. Both dormitories are quoted as two-person rooms with a separate bathroom and a water heater, priced per person by the day or by the month. Rooms are not allocated automatically — the freshman registration guide says housing applications are taken by email to isao@njau.edu.cn and processed in the order they arrive, so send yours as soon as your admission notice comes. Registration is at Room A304 on Weigang or Room A341 on Binjiang, and you need the signed original admission notice, passport and JW visa form, notarised degree and transcript copies, original language certificates and four 48 mm × 33 mm white-background photographs. Bring cash for the first weeks: the college warns that the living allowance for full scholarship students is paid every two months.

Accommodation

Dining

The university does not publish canteen locations, opening hours or meal prices for international students on its English pages, so budget for food separately from the fees above and ask the residence office (isao@njau.edu.cn) what is open on the campus you are assigned to. The only consumable the college does price is textbooks, charged at the actual price of the books rather than a flat rate.

Facilities

Reach the College of International Education / Office of International Cooperation and Exchange, Nanjing Agricultural University — Admission and Recruitment desk, Room D410-1, North Administration Building for questions about applications, documents, scholarships and arrival. Type university programs and offices are based on campus in Nanjing.