The Registration Process, Preface

I registered late for the Fall Semester of 2011-2012 (September). The registration period was from August 31- September 4 (for long-term students). I was scared because it was written in the Admission Notice that failure to register within the given period will automatically means forfeiture of your admission (and in my case, as well as the scholarship), unless you were granted the permission to register late.

Side bar

I emailed BLCU regarding my situation explaining that I will late and I do not want to give up my admission and scholarship. My email was about 2 paragraphs long and after few days they replied with “No problem”. That was it. “No problem”. I replied again and asked who should I look for when I arrive and they gave me a phone number. I tried to call the BLCU office numbers, the one given in the email and the one in their website for Long-term students.  Unfortunately, the person who answered my call does not speak English. Strike one!  This made me wonder if the person who replied to my email understood what my email said. Thus, I sent another email and again I got a one-sentence reply. I was a bit sceptical about the email replies because there was no particular person owning the replies and I am worried that they might deny the email correspondences once I arrive here. So, I asked my uncle to call BLCU. He can speak perfect Mandarin. And he said the respond he got was a bit vague. If he will translate it in English, “she can, but I (the person from BLCU) am not saying yes”. Strike two! This made me send another email to BLCU. This time, I ask my uncle to write a Chinese email.  I got a short reply again saying “No problem” in Chinese. I printed the Chinese email and brought it with me during the registration. This was my only proof that they allowed me to register late. But this letter will be useless in the registration process.

BLCU is lenient in enrolment. I think as long as you can pay, they will accept you. I have classmates who came in to class around October already.  So being a week late for the registration is not a big deal.  I arrived in Beijing on September 9; classes have already begun on September 5 for the long-term students and September 8 for the intensive classes. I arrived Friday afternoon and the coming Monday (September12) was the Mid-Autumn Festival, which was a holiday. To make my point shorter, I only have about 5 hours to finish my registration process. Now, I know you are more interested in the registration process than my story, so here are the steps.