With the arrival of their winter vacation, many students are heading overseas, not for fun in sun, but to visit serious academic institutions and check out programs for future study.

Su Jianhua, a senior teacher from the experimental high school attached to Beijing normal university, told METRO that the school is organizing a troupe of 70 performing arts students to visit the US for 15 days.

The group includes dancers, singers and traditional instrument performers, who were invited by US schools to perform in New York, Washington DC and Los Angeles, according to Su.

In LA, they will perform in a Spring Festival celebration organized by overseas Chinese.

"This trip is free. It aims to promote the Chinese culture while expand the students' vision," Su said.

"But we are also incorporating other elements like visiting the Juilliard School of Music and prestigious universities like Harvard and Yale."

In addition to such sponsored activities for artists, the school is scheduling trips for other students who have the desire to learn and see more.

One is an amateur journalist program open to all the secondary and high school students. During the trip, they will visit the UN, interview Chinese embassies and talk with the staff at the US television network NBC.

"The cost is about 30,000 yuan for each student," Su said. "It's cheap compared with programs organized by commercial companies."

For students whose schools do not provide similar opportunities, parents are turning to agencies.

"Every winter and summer vacation we schedule trips to the US," Li Ling from the China Future Leadership (CFL) agency told METRO.

"The program is very popular," Li said. "We are going to depart on Jan 27 and our group is already full with 75 people."

The agency offers three plans - one enables students to visit a schools such as Harvard, Yale and MIT over a week's period and costs 19,000 yuan, while others take them to more cities and more institutes in west coast and charge between 26,000 and 29,000 yuan.

"Most parents choose the most expensive," Li said, "After all, the chance is not easy to get, so they are quite generous."

The program doesn't have a high standard on student qualifications except for conversational English.

Liu Ting, a staff from New Oriental Vision Overseas Consulting, said the popular destinations are the US, Britain and Australia, which are also the top-three choices for students who want to study abroad.

During their study trips, they have a chance to talk face to face with professors from world-renowned schools.

Most of students are middle school students and some are freshmen and sophomores from colleges.

"Thirty percent of our clients registered for this trip as early as August," Liu said.

"We now have more than 1,000 students, a 100 percent increase from last year."

Behind the popularity of the programs are parents who pin high hopes on their children.

"I will send my son to study abroad after he graduates from high school," said a mother surnamed Dai, whose son is a senior year student in high school. "I want him to feel the country first before he begins his college life.

"This year I'm sending him to winter camp in the US and later to the UK, so we can decide which country he will study in."

While safety is an issue that concerns many parents, Li from CFL notes insurance for all students is included and the travel company uses partner hotels in the US.

There is also a pre-departure training course with safety tips "so parents and students don't need to worry about it", Li said.

Zhao Liqiong, a sophomore from the Hebei Institute of Communication who went on a study tour to Singapore a week ago, told METRO the trip was "very rewarding".

"I could find any book I wanted in the library of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore," she said, adding the atmosphere on campus was uplifting.

"They begin working at 10 am, but many students rise at 7 am to read or do exercises."

"If possible, I will apply to study photography or art design in Singapore," Zhao said.
 

（www.eduwo.com, Anna）