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HSK for a Chinese Government Scholarship: Level 3 or Level 4, the pass mark and how long a score is valid

Sources checked · Unofficial summary

The Chinese Government Scholarship application guide sets the level by the type of programme you apply for: HSK (Level 3) for the Chinese-taught general scholar and senior scholar programmes, and HSK (Level 4) for a Chinese-taught master's or doctoral programme. The guide says "have passed the HSK" and asks for a "valid HSK score report" — it does not name a minimum score anywhere in its eligibility or documents sections. The passing mark and the validity period come from the official HSK pages instead, and they are the same at both levels.

The level the guide asks for

The Application Guide for Chinese Government Scholarship lists the Chinese language requirement inside its eligibility section:

Applicant type, as listed in the guide What the guide requires
Master's programme taught in Chinese have passed the HSK (Level 4)
Doctoral programme taught in Chinese have passed the HSK (Level 4)
General scholar programme taught in Chinese (excluding Chinese language majors) have passed the HSK (Level 3)
Senior scholar programme taught in Chinese have passed the HSK (Level 3)
Programme taught in a language other than Chinese meet the admission requirements of the university of preference in terms of language proficiency and academic ability
Bachelor's programme take the China Scholastic Competency Assessment (CSCA) and upload a valid score report

Two things follow from that table. The guide does not attach an HSK level to the bachelor's programme; it names the CSCA for bachelor's applicants, with the CSCA website given as www.csca.cn. And for a programme taught in a language other than Chinese, the guide sets no HSK level at all — it hands the language requirement to the university you are applying to.

The documents section repeats the same split. It says applicants for master's, doctoral, general scholar and senior scholar programmes taught in Chinese "must submit a valid HSK score report that meets the corresponding Chinese language proficiency requirements", and that applicants for programmes taught in other languages provide the relevant language certificates, such as IELTS or TOEFL score reports, "in accordance with the requirements of each university".

What "passed" means on the official HSK pages

The scholarship guide never defines "passed" with a number, so the number has to come from the test itself. The HSK (Level 3) page and the HSK (Level 4) page on the Chinese Tests Service Website both describe the score report in the same way: it provides four scores, Listening, Reading, Writing and Total; a full score is 300 points; and a cumulative score of 180 or above qualifies as a passing mark.

That 180-point figure is the test publisher's passing mark, not a scholarship threshold. The guide does not say it adopts the test publisher's pass mark as its own minimum, and it does not state any score of its own. An applicant reading both documents together can say that the guide asks for a pass at a given level, and that the test publisher defines a pass at that level as 180 out of 300 — but nothing in the two documents states that a score above 180 is required by the scholarship, or that a score at exactly 180 has been accepted in any particular case.

How long a score stays valid

The HSK (Level 3) page says HSK scores are valid for two years starting from the day of the exam. The HSK (Level 4) page says the same thing in slightly different words: valid for two years from the exam date. The two-year period therefore runs from the date you sat the test, not from the date the certificate was printed or the date you submit your application.

The scholarship guide itself uses the word "valid" for the score report but does not define the period. So the two-year figure comes from the HSK pages, while the requirement to hold a valid report at the time of application comes from the guide.

The materials list for a different programme uses the same wording. Appendix 2 of the Application Guidelines for International Chinese Language Teachers Scholarship 2025, published by the Center for Language Education and Cooperation, asks all applicants for "a scanned copy of score reports of the HSK/HSKK tests (within the two-year validity)". That is the International Chinese Language Teachers Scholarship's own materials list, not the Chinese Government Scholarship's; the two figures happen to agree, but neither document states that it is applying the other's rule. Note that this edition is dated January 2025 and was written for programmes starting between July 2025 and March 2026, so its dates belong to that cycle.

A few points worth checking before you apply

The guide page on Campus China carries no publication date and no academic year, so the level requirements quoted here cannot be pinned to a specific intake from the page itself. The requirements of the university you apply to sit on top of the guide: the guide's own eligibility section makes meeting the university's admission requirements a separate condition, and its documents section routes non-Chinese-taught language certificates through "the requirements of each university". If a university sets a higher HSK level or a higher score than the guide does, nothing in the guide says it overrides the university.

For applicants comparing programmes, the International Chinese Language Teachers Scholarship is administered separately and has its own guidelines, which is why its two-year validity wording is quoted above as a parallel rather than as the rule for this scholarship.

Questions people ask

Does the scholarship guide set a minimum HSK score?

No. The guide says applicants "have passed the HSK" at the relevant level and must submit a "valid HSK score report that meets the corresponding Chinese language proficiency requirements", but it states no minimum score, at any level, for any applicant type.

Is 180 the score I need for the scholarship?

180 out of 300 is the passing mark stated on the HSK (Level 3) and HSK (Level 4) pages of the Chinese Tests Service Website. It is the test publisher's definition of a pass. The scholarship guide does not quote that number, so the two figures come from different documents.

Will an older HSK certificate still count?

The HSK pages say scores are valid for two years from the exam date, and the guide asks for a "valid" score report. A report for a test sat more than two years before you apply would fall outside the period stated on those pages.

Do I need HSK for a programme taught in English?

The guide does not ask for HSK in that case. It requires applicants to meet the admission requirements of the university of preference in terms of language proficiency, and for documents it refers to certificates such as IELTS or TOEFL "in accordance with the requirements of each university".

Do undergraduate applicants need HSK?

The guide's eligibility section requires bachelor's applicants to take the CSCA and upload a valid score report, and its documents section requires a CSCA Score Report for bachelor's degrees. The HSK requirement in the guide is written for master's, doctoral, general scholar and senior scholar programmes taught in Chinese.

Does the Level 3 rule apply to Chinese language majors?

The general scholar programme entry carries an explicit exclusion: HSK (Level 3) is required for a Chinese-taught general scholar programme, excluding Chinese language majors. The senior scholar entry has no such exclusion in the text.

Sources

Checked 10 October 2026 for the Application Guide for Chinese Government Scholarship and the International Chinese Language Teachers Scholarship 2025 guidelines, and 11 October 2026 for the HSK level pages. This page is an unofficial summary, is not published by the China Scholarship Council, Chinese Testing International or the Center for Language Education and Cooperation, and if it differs from the official notice, the official notice prevails.

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