1. About SICA
SICA (Study in China Academy) is an education consultancy based in Guangzhou, China. We help international students identify suitable universities and programmes, prepare and submit applications, and prepare for the visa and arrival process. We are an independent consultancy: we are not a university, we do not own the universities we work with, and we are not endorsed by them.
2. What we provide
Our guidance, including university matching, programme advice, scholarship information, document review, application submission and interview preparation, is provided on a best-effort basis against the information available to us and the stated requirements of each university. It is professional advice, not a guarantee of any particular outcome.
3. Admission is decided by the university
Every admission, scholarship and visa decision is made by the relevant university, scholarship body or immigration authority — never by SICA. We cannot guarantee admission, a scholarship award, a specific grade, or a visa outcome, and nothing on this site should be read as a promise that you will receive one. Where a university publishes minimum requirements, meeting them is a necessary but not sufficient condition for admission.
4. Fees and payments
Where we quote a fee for our own service, it is confirmed in writing before you commit to it. Application, registration or enrolment fees that you pay directly to a university, scholarship body, testing centre or immigration authority are set by that organisation and are generally non-refundable. We do not mark up those third-party fees. Any refund of our own service fee is governed by the terms we gave you in writing at the time of purchase, and refunds are handled at the earliest practical opportunity after you raise the request.
5. Your responsibilities
You are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the information and documents you provide, for the completeness and authenticity of your application, and for meeting every deadline the university or authority sets. Please tell us promptly if anything changes — a new passport number, a revised grade, a withdrawn application — because an application built on stale information is our biggest source of avoidable problems. We are not responsible for outcomes caused by information you did not tell us about, by documents that were not genuine, or by a deadline we flagged and you did not meet.
6. Intellectual property
The text, design, layout and code of this site, the SICA name and logo, and the articles and guides published on it are owned by SICA or used with permission. You may read, print and share our articles and guides for your own study purposes with attribution and an unchanged link. You may not republish them commercially, translate or rewrite them for redistribution, or present them as your own. Applying the guidance in our articles to your own application is always fine.
7. Third-party links and content
This site links to university pages, scholarship portals, official government sites and other resources we do not control. Those sites have their own terms, fees and privacy practices, and the accuracy of their content is their responsibility, not ours. Use them at your own risk.
8. Limitation of liability
To the extent permitted by law, SICA is not liable for decisions made by universities, scholarship bodies or immigration authorities, for the availability or accuracy of third-party information, or for indirect or consequential loss arising from our guidance. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited, including liability for fraud or for anything that would be unlawful to exclude. Your statutory rights as a consumer are unaffected.
9. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms as the service or the law changes. The date at the top of this page shows when they were last revised. If a change materially affects you, we will tell you by email or on the site before it takes effect. Continuing to use the site after the change means you accept the updated terms.
10. Governing law and contact
These terms are governed by the laws of the People’s Republic of China. If you have a question or a complaint, email us first — most issues are resolved by a conversation. If you are a consumer resident in the European Union or the United Kingdom, you keep the protection of the mandatory consumer law of your country of residence.