This study aims to explore doctoral students' perceptions and experiences of the admission process—from preparation to acceptance—and to assess their views on the fairness and transparency of the procedures. Additionally, it seeks to explore students' perceptions of institutional admission practices across different universities and to identify their suggestions for system improvements. The following research questions are proposed. How do Chinese students experience the doctoral admission process? What are their perceptions of merit, fairness, and transparency within the admission procedures? How do these perceptions vary depending on their target institutions, particularly between domestic and overseas universities?

Chinese doctoral education has been growing rapidly over the past two to three decades. Despite a wide range of studies focusing on Chinese doctoral students in overseas universities—particularly in English-speaking countries such as the UK, USA, and Australia—examining their mobility experiences, identity formation, and intercultural supervision experiences, there is a lack of research on how Chinese students experience the admission process across their domestic and international contexts.

Chinese doctoral education's selection criteria and admission system have unique historical and cultural contexts that are significantly different from many other higher education systems. It has a complex decision-making process among universities, departments, and individual academics, and it also requires multiple processes with standardized tests and interviews. The Ministry of Education in China introduced reforms in recent years to the doctoral selection system, aiming at stabilising enrolment numbers while granting institutions autonomy to diversify admission methods (Zheng et al., 2018). Currently, there are three types of admission methods, including undergraduate-straight-to-doctoral students ("straight through students"), successive postgraduate-doctoral students (“successive students”), and doctoral students from public admission (“public students”).

On the other hand, students aspiring to pursue their doctoral degrees at overseas universities, including those in Europe, adopt entirely different approaches to preparing for the admission process. With increasing internationalisation in higher education, Chinese students now seek degrees not only in traditional English-speaking countries but also in European and Asian universities, exploring new programmes and opportunities. Due to their limited knowledge of admission systems in different national contexts, it is common to encounter educational agencies in China that assist students and parents throughout the entire application process. It also demonstrates the marketized logics in the doctoral admission globally. While students often view reliance on these agencies as a natural and routine part of the process, overseas institutions and their potential supervisors each have their own admission criteria and procedures. This variability often increases students’ uncertainty and anxiety about their prospects.

This study will explore how students experience the admission process and navigate their doctoral studies, including activities such as identifying potential programmes and supervisors, collecting admission information, and participating in exams and interviews. By presenting students' experiences, the study will also identify the underlying values of the doctoral admission process, such as merit, diversity, and fairness.

The study is based on semi-structured interviews with twenty-five Chinese doctoral students from elite Chinese and overseas universities across various disciplines. Our interviewees come from different admission schemes in China and other higher education systems, which are preferred by Chinese students, offering insights into how they selected their chosen schemes and prepared for the admission process.

The preliminary findings indicate that students hold diverse perceptions of the admission criteria and procedures. For example, they have varying understandings of fairness in the process, with some perceiving the procedure as primarily focused on procedural efficiency. In addition, doctoral students in China observe an inflation of selection criteria in today’s competitive environment, which has intensified the preparation process, including an increased emphasis on publishing records. Based on their retrospective reflections, the findings also reveal challenges, including an overwhelming number of programme options, ambiguity in the selection process, and a lack of clear institutional guidelines at both Chinese and overseas universities.

Although the study is based on the Chinese students’ views, the issues and practices will have theoretical and practical implications across global higher education systems. In particular, the findings will offer insights into how to design and implement more rigorous, fair, and diverse doctoral admission practices in universities.

Merit-based financial aid plays a central role in shaping undergraduate enrollment decisions and has become a key tool for institutional enrollment management. In the United States, for instance Biswas and Dasgupta (2023) report that more than half of the states have implemented merit scholarship programs that offer tuition support to the top 20 to 30% of their in-state high school graduates.

The impact of financial aid on applicants’ decision to enroll in college is a well-researched area in higher education (particularly in the United States). A substantial body of empirical research demonstrates that financial aid—particularly merit-based aid—can increase college enrollment and influence applicants’ choices among institutions. At the same time, a growing literature suggests that these effects are sensitive to policy design, eligibility thresholds, and award generosity. As institutions face fiscal constraints and increasingly reduce or retrench merit scholarships, understanding how such changes affect enrollment behavior has become an important yet underexplored area of research. Beyond enrollment outcomes, these policy shifts also raise broader questions about institutional legitimacy, fairness, and public trust. Decisions about merit aid signal institutional priorities and values, and evidence-informed evaluation of such decisions is essential for ensuring that governance practices reinforce confidence in higher education’s societal mission rather than undermine it.

Studies using robust experimental and quasi-experimental designs offer strong evidence of the effect of financial aid on enrollment. Two landmark studies by the National Bureau of Economic Research (USA) found that a $1,000 financial grant offer increased the probability of attending college by four percentage points (Dynarski, 1999) and that receiving a financial grant improved college enrollment by three to four percentage points (Kane, 2003). Van der Klaauw (2002) confirmed the importance of financial aid and estimated that for federal grant applicants, a change in aid amount had a strong effect on the decision to enroll—specifically, a 1% increase in aid was associated with a 0.86% increase in the likelihood of enrolling. A field experiment by Monks (2009) on merit-based aid for extremely high-ability students at a most selective private liberal arts college found a statistically significant effect on enrollment: $7,000 grant awards, for instance, increased predicted enrollment by approximately 2.9 percentage points—a result which the researcher indicated was comparable to estimates from existing studies. Other studies that did not rely on experimental or quasi-experimental approaches also corroborate these findings. For instance, Albrecht (2020) reported that institutional scholarships and government grants positively influenced enrollment across most racial and income groups.

In conclusion, the literature consistently demonstrates that financial aid, particularly grants and scholarships, significantly impacts college enrollment decisions. The effectiveness of this aid often varies depending on student characteristics such as income and race/ethnicity. Robust research designs are crucial for reliably identifying these effects and mitigating biases.

This study examines how reductions in institutional merit-based scholarships shape undergraduate enrollment decisions, using evidence from the American University of Sharjah—a private liberal arts academic institution in the United Arab Emirates. Drawing on admissions data for 14,128 applicants from 2019 to 2024, the analysis evaluates the effects of lowering merit awards from 20–50% to 10–30% on enrollment yield. The study employs a quasi-experimental design, using statistical weighting to improve comparability between cohorts admitted before and after the policy change, followed by regression-based estimation. While the scholarship reduction had no significant effect on overall enrollment yield, its impact varied systematically by merit level. Enrollment among medium- and high-merit applicants declined by 5–8 percentage points, whereas yield increased among applicants without merit aid. Effects for low-merit recipients were modest and inconsistent.

The findings show that merit aid reductions affect student groups unevenly and may undermine the enrollment of high-achieving applicants. Consequently, more targeted merit awards may be necessary to maintain academic selectivity and fairness under fiscal constraints. This paper engages Track 2 by examining how institutional leaders navigate financial constraints while upholding academic mission and competitiveness. By evaluating the consequences of a merit scholarship retrenchment policy, the study demonstrates how data-informed governance can support transparent and responsible decision-making. The findings contribute to discussions on sustaining institutional legitimacy and trust through evidence-based management in times of fiscal pressure.