About Us
The Gao Kao Admission Consortium (GKAC) is composed of five U.S. educational institutions seeking to provide study abroad options for China’s Gao Kao students in Fall 2019. Facilitated by WholeRen, LLC, GKAC includes two public four year universities (the California State University-Fresno and the University of North Texas), one private four year university (Western New England University), and two public transfer colleges (University of Hawaii-Kapiolani Community College and Santiago Canyon College).
GKAC will visit China in May, June and July 2019 to recruit Gao Kao students for matriculation in as early as Fall 2019. All schools have reserved conditional admissions seats for Gao Kao students. With a simplified process for conditional admission, students who achieve scores in the top 25% of their province and provide all necessary documents will be guaranteed admission for fall 2019. To further open doors to welcome students, four of the institutions have waived application fees and two provide scholarships to high achieving GKAC students.
Founded in 2010, WholeRen LLC is accredited by the American International Recruitment Council (AIRC) and headquartered in Pittsburgh, boasting nine offices nationally and four internationally. As a holistic educational service provider to international students from China, WholeRen works directly with institutional partners on student recruitment and international marketing.
GKAC welcomes the opportunity to attend college fairs, speak with school counselors, and visit local schools in China. If you are interested in hosting such an event, please contact info@gkac.us to arrange a speaking engagement.
Best Gaokao Practice
The Gao Kao Admission Consortium (“GKAC”) is the first American higher education group established to actively recruit students from Chinese Gao Kao student pool and develop best practices for use of the Gao Kao exam in U.S. college admission.
Facilitated by WholeRen LLC, the five institutions: California State University-Fresno, Kapiolani Community College (University of Hawaii), Santiago Canyon College, University of North Texas, and Western New England University work collaboratively to gather data on best practices for recruitment of Chinese Gao Kao students to the U.S. by considering not only their academic strengths but additional areas of preparedness needed to succeed.
With a multicultural lens, GKAC considers the educational lifespan of the Chinese Gao Kao student whose goals have historically been to study within China. Recognizing that such students’ are disciplined academically, GKAC also notes that these students have not, like their international school student counterparts, prepared for study abroad.
Having experience recruiting Gao Kao students in the past, GKAC is able to offer solutions to educators about best practices in recruitment — from understanding the Gao Kao exam, to addressing the challenges institutions may face internally as they begin discussion of changing admission requirements, to creating admissions procedures that are culturally competent for this group of students.
Additionally, possessing knowledge of the cultural differences which impact Chinese students’ success in the U.S., GKAC is able to offer best practices in supporting and retaining such students at their institutions given unique cultural tenets that may be diametrically opposed to those in U.S. culture.
