Northwestern Polytechnical University — guide for international students

Northwestern Polytechnical University (西北工业大学) traces its history to 1938, when the State Northwest Institute of Engineering was formed in Hanzhong from four engineering institutions; it became the Northwest Institute of Engineering in 1950. In October 1957 it moved to Xi’an, merged with an aeronautics institute and took its present name, and in 1970 a department of the Harbin engineering institute joined it. NPU’s own pages describe the 1957 partner differently — the History page names the Xi’an Institute of Aeronautics (1952), the English About page “Xi’an Astronautic College founded in 1956” — so 1938 is the date to rely on.

NPU was named a national key university in 1960, joined Project 211 in 1995 and Project 985 in 2001, and entered the Double First-Class Initiative (Category A) in 2017. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and its schools include aeronautics, astronautics and marine science and technology alongside science, engineering, management and the humanities. It has two campuses in Xi’an — Youyi (127 West Youyi Road, Beilin District), home of the International College, and Chang’an (1 Dongxiang Road, Chang’an District) — and a branch in Almaty, Kazakhstan, run with Al-Farabi Kazakh National University.

Official figures depend on the page. The English Facts and Figures page (data dated 26 January 2026) gives 40,000+ students, 4,000+ faculty, 28 schools or colleges and 13 ESI top-1% disciplines; the International College’s older About NPU page gives 34,000+ students, 4,300+ faculty, 27 schools and 33 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences or Engineering. International-student counts differ too: 1,300+ on the English International Overview, about 1,400 from 107 nationalities on the “Why NPU” page (written for 2023), and 2,486 on QS’s profile. This guide uses NPU’s own 1,300+.

NPU admits international students to bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees through its International College; every application, degree or not, goes through admission.nwpu.edu.cn, and degree programs have a September intake only. Two things stand out. The age limits are tight — under 23 for undergraduates, under 30 for master’s and under 35 for doctoral applicants, counted on 1 September 2026. And undergraduates must supply China Scholastic Competency Assessment (CSCA) results, or a commitment letter naming their test month, by 20 May 2026, although SAT, A-Level or IB are also accepted. Applications are reviewed in four batches: the schools review files after each deadline, shortlisted applicants are interviewed (postgraduates 7–10 working days after the deadline), and results are e-mailed about a week after the interview. Admitted students pay a registration deposit before receiving the digital admission notice and JW202 form. Former Chinese citizens face extra nationality conditions that differ by level. All figures below are from the International College’s 2026 guides, published in October 2025.

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 Northwestern Polytechnical 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.

NPU offers new international students three families of scholarship: the Chinese Government Scholarship (CSC), the NPU President Scholarship and the Xi’an City “Belt and Road” International Students Scholarship. The NPU and Xi’an awards are applied for in the same online application and batches as the degree, and the postgraduate guides allow only one scholarship funded by the Chinese government or NPU. Every award is reviewed each year and can be adjusted for academic performance. CSC applicants face higher bars: an 80% average for postgraduates, and HSK 3 before an undergraduate pre-admission letter. Enrolled students can also compete for the Government Outstanding International Student, NPU President, Shaanxi Government and Wu Yajun Alumna scholarships. The CSC pages are already being updated for the next intake, so check them for new dates.

NPU’s research centres on aircraft, spacecraft, underwater systems and materials. The English Research page lists seven state key laboratories — solidification processing; UAV special technology; space flight dynamics; aerodynamic design and research; underwater information and control; combustion, thermal structure and inner flow field; and thermostructural composite materials — while the International College’s About NPU page counts eight. Three national engineering research centres cover forging, unmanned aerial systems and ceramic-matrix composites. Postgraduate applicants can match these labs against the 2026 supervisor lists each recruiting school publishes.

NPU works with about 300 overseas universities, companies and institutes, 80 of them universities in the world top 200 (Facts and Figures, January 2026). Its flagship joint venture is the Queen Mary University of London Engineering School, described as north-west China’s first joint education institution. NPU also leads three multilateral networks with 139 members in 31 countries (April 2021), and its Students Exchange page says more than 2,300 NPU students go abroad each year through 36 double-degree programs in 10 countries and 30+ credit-exchange programs in 13 countries. Several figures date from 2021.

NPU does not publish employment or salary figures for international graduates, so treat any such number elsewhere as unsourced. The International College’s Campus Life → Recruitment page is a noticeboard rather than a careers service: it has carried a winter-vacation enterprise internship scheme from the China International Youth Exchange Center (2021), open to international students on bachelor’s programs or above in China with company-paid subsidies, and a 2024 recruitment notice from Shandong Zhongyang Industrial Group. In 2021 the College wrote to former international students about building an NPU International Alumni Association, collecting alumni details via iso@nwpu.edu.cn.

International students live on both Xi’an campuses. NPU’s dormitory introduction names three buildings: Haitian on the Chang’an campus, and T27 and T3 on the Youyi campus, where the International College is based. The 2026 guides price rooms by the year — RMB 5,400 (triple), 7,200 or 9,000 (double) and 10,800 (single). Three of those are twelve months of the dormitory page’s monthly rates (RMB 450, 600 and 900); the RMB 9,000 double has no monthly match, and the guides do not say which building it applies to. Annual events include the “Cultural Bridge” New Year’s Gala with international student awards (16th edition, December 2025), the International Culture Festival (10th, May 2026) and the NPUMUN Model UN conference.

Accommodation

Dining

NPU’s English pages do not describe its canteens or publish meal prices for international students, so budget for food separately. The International College’s “About Xi’an” page is instead a guide to local food: roujiamo (“the Chinese burger”), liangpi cold noodles, yangrou paomo lamb soup with bread, biangbiang noodles, rouwan hulatang for breakfast, and xiangsu niuroubing beef patties.

Facilities

Reach the International College (国际教育学院), Northwestern Polytechnical University — Admissions Office for questions about applications, documents, scholarships and arrival. Type university programs and offices are based on campus in Xi'an.