Shanghai International Studies University — guide for international students

Shanghai International Studies University (上海外国语大学) was founded in December 1949 as the Shanghai Russian School attached to the East China People’s Revolutionary University — the first higher-education foreign-language school established after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. It was renamed Shanghai Foreign Language Institute (上海外国语学院) in 1956, when English, French and German were added, was designated a national key university in 1963, and took its present name in 1994.

SISU entered Project 211 in 1996 and in 2017 was selected for the national Double First-Class initiative, with Foreign Languages and Literatures (外国语言文学) as its Double First-Class discipline. The university says it now teaches 54 languages — 39 modern languages plus 15 rare or classical ones — and offers 56 undergraduate majors, with master’s degrees in 9 first-level disciplines and doctoral degrees in 4.

Teaching is split between two campuses covering 74.7 hectares in total: the historic Hongkou Campus (550 Dalian Road West, central Shanghai), home of the Office of International Student Affairs and the Chinese-language programs, and the larger Songjiang Campus (1550 Wenxiang Road, Songjiang District), where most undergraduate majors are taught. SISU’s statistics page lists 10,448 Chinese students, 2,710 international students and 811 full-time teachers, 85% of whom studied abroad.

SISU admits international students to bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees and to non-degree Chinese language programs, all through one online system (apply.shisu.edu.cn) run by the Office of International Student Affairs (OISA, 外国语留学生部). Degree teaching is overwhelmingly in Chinese: every bachelor’s major is Chinese-taught, while English-taught routes exist only at graduate level. The bachelor’s route depends on the campus. Hongkou offers three majors for students with HSK 4 — Chinese Language (business-oriented or Chinese–English bilingual), International Economics and Trade (taught in Chinese) and Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages — with a 20 July deadline and the option to transfer into a later semester or year if you have already studied in China. Songjiang offers some 30 mainstream majors (languages, translation, law, finance, journalism, business, data science and more) studied alongside Chinese students; it needs HSK 5, closes on 15 April and holds its own entrance examination. Both campuses now ask for China Scholastic Competency Assessment (CSCA) scores in Professional Chinese and Mathematics. Bachelor’s applicants must be 18–35 (under-18s as of 1 September 2026 need a guardian’s guarantee from an adult living in mainland China); master’s and doctoral applicants must be under 55. All figures below are from the 2026 admission pages on oisa.shisu.edu.cn; SISU had not published a 2027 international admission guide when this page was checked.

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 Shanghai International Studies 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.

SISU funds international students mainly through the Shanghai Government Scholarship, which it awards itself, and through several Chinese Government Scholarship (CSC) programs. Scholarship holders must check in at OISA once a month (except January, February, July and August) to receive their stipend, and those studying for more than a year go through an annual review.

SISU’s research is concentrated in languages and linguistics, translation and interpreting, international relations and area studies. It runs more than 100 research institutions and publishes 21 academic journals, including 外国语 (Journal of Foreign Languages), seven CSSCI-indexed journals and seven English-language journals.

International engagement is at the core of SISU’s identity: it cooperates with more than 440 universities, cultural and research institutions and international organisations in 62 countries and regions, and hosts eight Confucius Institutes abroad in Asia, Africa, Europe and South America.

SISU graduates go into diplomacy, international organisations, translation and interpreting, media, education and international business. For international students the Hongkou majors — business Chinese, international trade and Chinese-language teaching — are designed with jobs using Chinese in mind.

Life at SISU depends on your campus. Chinese language students and Hongkou bachelor’s students live and study in Hongkou, in central Shanghai; Songjiang students live on the larger suburban campus in Songjiang District, in the south-west of the city. OISA warns that it may not be able to guarantee on-campus rooms for every self-financed student, and short-term transfer students are not given dormitory rooms at all.

Accommodation

Dining

Both campuses have several canteens with long opening hours (from about 6:30 a.m. to late-evening snacks as late as 10:30 p.m.). Songjiang has a halal canteen (Canteen 1B) and a Western restaurant.

Facilities

Reach the Office of International Student Affairs (OISA, 外国语留学生部), Shanghai International Studies University for questions about applications, documents, scholarships and arrival. Type university programs and offices are based on campus in Shanghai.