University of Science and Technology Beijing — guide for international students

The University of Science and Technology Beijing (北京科技大学, USTB) traces its academic lineage to 1895, when the Beiyang Western Academy established what the university describes as the first mining and metallurgy disciplines in modern Chinese history. USTB itself was founded in 1952, assembled from the mining and metallurgy strengths of six leading Chinese universities as the Beijing Institute of Iron and Steel Technology — China’s first higher-education institution created for the iron and steel industry. It became the Beijing Institute of Iron and Steel in 1960, was designated a national key university the same year, and took its present name in 1988.

USTB is a single-campus university, which settles a question applicants elsewhere have to ask: there is no satellite campus in another district or city. The campus covers more than 804,000 square metres at No. 30 Xueyuan Road in Haidian District, inside the North Fourth Ring Road and within walking distance of the Wudaokou student quarter, with over 996,800 square metres of buildings, more than 103,000 square metres of sports facilities and a library of over 2,624,000 volumes and items.

The university entered the national 211 Project in 1997, became a builder of a 985 Project advantage-discipline platform in 2006, and was selected for the Double First-Class initiative in 2017 and again in 2022, for metallurgical engineering, materials science and engineering, mining engineering and the history of science and technology. As of December 2025 its Chinese overview page reports more than 27,000 full-time students — 14,038 undergraduates and 13,949 graduate students, of whom 9,503 are master’s and 4,446 doctoral candidates — plus 1,011 international students and 3,826 continuing-education students, against 3,762 staff and 2,189 full-time faculty. The English-language "USTB at a Glance" page still gives rounder, older figures of 25,000 students and over 1,800 teaching faculty; the Chinese page carries the December 2025 date, so treat it as current. USTB uses two nicknames on its own English pages, the "Cradle of Iron and Steel Engineers" and the "Cradle of Mayors", and fifty of its alumni have been elected academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences or the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

USTB admits international students to bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, to a preparatory (pre-degree) year and to Chinese language study. Everything runs through one system, http://onlineapply.ustb.edu.cn/, on one calendar: the 2026 cycle opened on 1 November 2025 and closed on 15 June 2026, with the admission list announced by the end of June, electronic admission notices sent in July from admission@ustb.edu.cn, and registration in early September. Two features set USTB apart. First, undergraduate applicants must sit the Chinese Standardized Test for Undergraduate Admission of International Students (CSCA) and submit the score report with their file — USTB requires Chinese plus mathematics plus, for science, engineering and agriculture majors, physics or chemistry. Second, the Chinese-language bar climbs with the degree: HSK 4 for a bachelor’s, HSK 5 for a master’s, HSK 6 for a doctorate. If your Chinese is not there yet, the preparatory year and the 1+3 international economics and trade program are the two routes the university itself offers into Chinese-taught undergraduate study. Age limits are generous — 35 for undergraduates, 40 for master’s and 45 for doctoral applicants, all worded as general rather than absolute — but much tighter on the funded routes, so read the scholarship section before assuming you qualify.

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 University of Science and Technology Beijing 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.

There are four ways to be funded at USTB, and they close on four different dates, none of them the 15 June admission deadline. The Chinese Government Scholarship runs on two tracks — Type A through your own government or the Chinese embassy from November to March, and Type B applied for directly to USTB as either the High-Level Postgraduate Program (closing 15 March 2026) or the Silk Road Program (March–April 2026). The university’s own Chancellor Scholarship — called the Dingxin Scholarship inside the application system — closes on 30 April 2026. The Beijing Government Scholarship opens last and closes with the general deadline, 1 April to 15 June 2026. A fifth award, the Outstanding International Students Scholarship, is not an entry scholarship: it is a cash prize for students already enrolled for more than a year, applied for in October. Watch the age limits, because the funded routes are much tighter than admission — USTB will admit an undergraduate up to 35, but the Chancellor Scholarship stops at 30 and the Beijing Government Scholarship at 25. Every route still requires the RMB 600 application fee, which is never refunded.

USTB’s research identity is narrow and deep: metallurgy, materials and mining, and the safety, environmental and manufacturing engineering built around them. The university holds 1 national science centre, 7 national key laboratories, 3 national engineering research centres, 3 national technology innovation centres and more than 121 provincial and ministerial research platforms. Since 1978 it has filed 20,409 patent applications and been granted 12,820 patents, produced more than 2,300 award-winning research projects and won 185 national science and technology awards, 20 of them since 2013. Its historical claims are concrete: USTB built China’s first electric arc furnace, designed the housing materials for China’s first satellite, Dong Fang Hong 1, and built the country’s first industrial-size robot. Current work showcased on its research pages includes refining steel with carbon dioxide, lightweight high-strength metals, cleaner handling of mining waste, two-dimensional materials for extending Moore’s law, and the metallurgy behind braking systems for China’s high-speed trains.

USTB’s international links go back further than most Chinese universities’ — the first was with RWTH Aachen in 1979, followed by the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1980 and the University of Pennsylvania in 1982 — but most of today’s agreements were signed after 2005. Two official counts are in circulation and they do not agree: the university’s Chinese overview page says partnerships with more than 277 overseas institutions, while the Office of International Affairs’ own listing says "over 220 universities worldwide". Both are official; the OIA list is the one that names actual partners. It leans towards Europe (more than 50 institutions) and North America (more than 40), with more than 30 in Asia, a handful in Australia, and partners in Brazil and Chile. The Office of International Affairs also runs USTB’s Confucius Institute programme and a Belt and Road research institute, without publishing a count of institutes on its English pages.

USTB was founded to staff an industry, and that is still the shape of its graduate outcomes: its own framing is the "Cradle of Iron and Steel Engineers" and the "Cradle of Mayors", and fifty of its alumni have been elected academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences or the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Its research partnerships with Chinese steel producers — the Collaborative Innovation Center of Steel Technology is run jointly with major steel companies — are the clearest route from a USTB laboratory into the industry. Be realistic about what is documented for international graduates specifically: the International Student Center publishes no placement rate, no salary data and no dedicated careers service for international students on its website, and its Alumni section is an empty template. Treat any employment statistic for USTB’s international cohort you find elsewhere as unsourced, and ask the International Student Center directly about internships, part-time work permissions and post-graduation visa options.

Everything at USTB happens on one campus at No. 30 Xueyuan Road, which makes student life compact: dormitories, canteens, the Olympic gymnasium, the hospital, banks and supermarkets are all inside the gates, and Wudaokou — Beijing’s student district, with its subway interchange, malls and restaurants — is a short walk beyond them. International students live in one of four buildings: the International Student Dormitory (Dormitory No. 4), the Old International Student Dormitory, and International Student Dormitories No. 21 and No. 22. Rooms are doubles with two beds and an independent bathroom, furnished, with internet, telephone, television, air-conditioning and 24-hour hot water. You check in with your passport, visa, student ID card and admission letter; pets, smoking and overnight guests are not allowed. Medical and accident insurance is compulsory at RMB 800 a year or RMB 400 a term, arranged through Office 109 of the International Student Center.

Accommodation

Dining

Two main canteens serve the campus, both paid for with the campus card the International Student Center issues at registration. Wanxiu Canteen sits east of Dormitories 4 and 5 — the international student buildings — and serves breakfast 6:45–9:00, lunch 10:30–13:00 and dinner 16:30–19:00, with a late service from 19:00 to 20:00 on the first floor and until 21:00 on the fourth. Hongbo Canteen, to the south-east near Dormitory 2, keeps the same hours and serves Muslim meals on its third floor. Beyond the canteens there is the Food Street by the north gate, the Friendship Restaurant and the University Conference Center on campus, and Pizza Hut, Yoshinoya, McDonald’s and KFC nearby. USTB does not publish meal prices for international students, so budget for food separately.

Facilities

Reach the International Student Center, University of Science and Technology Beijing for questions about applications, documents, scholarships and arrival. Type university programs and offices are based on campus in Beijing.