Tsinghua Amgen Scholars Program: The 2026 Round Closed 1 March 2026 and No 2027 Dates Are Published Yet

Status: historical reference for the closed 2026 application cycle. The official application page set the deadline at 23:59 Beijing time (UTC+8) on 1 March 2026. The published programme window was 4 June to 6 August 2026. The official English pages still show the 2026 call and do not publish a 2027 application date, and there is no discontinuation notice on the pages checked. There is nothing to submit for the 2026 round, but the application is unusually document-heavy, so the months before a future call are the time to prepare.

The Tsinghua School of Pharmaceutical Sciences recruitment article contains a 15 March 2026 note, while the programme’s own application page, homepage and footer state that the 2026 application ended on 1 March 2026 at 23:59 Beijing time. This page uses the application page’s more specific deadline and preserves the discrepancy here so readers do not mistake the later note for the operative closing time.

Tsinghua Amgen Scholars at a Glance

What the Programme Actually Is

The Amgen Scholars Program is an international undergraduate research initiative funded by the Amgen Foundation. The Tsinghua version is an eight-week, faculty-mentored, residential summer research programme in biomedical science, with a stated emphasis on biotechnology and drug discovery. Tsinghua’s own 2026 recruitment notice describes the wider programme as having 25 host institutions and identifies Tsinghua, the National University of Singapore, the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University as the Asian hosts; this page does not add other institutions to that list.

The current Tsinghua School of Pharmaceutical Sciences notice reports 14 scholars for the 2026 programme. The English programme overview still contains a generic statement that 10 scholars will be enrolled, so the public pages are inconsistent. For the cycle covered here, the dated Tsinghua notice is the better current-cycle figure; either way, this is not a large summer school with lecture halls and cohorts of hundreds. The scholars are drawn from across Asia and placed in research laboratories.

Every scholar is paired with a faculty mentor drawn from one of three Tsinghua schools: the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the School of Life Sciences, or the School of Medicine. Alongside the faculty mentor, a postdoc, technician or graduate student is assigned to train you and work with you day to day, which in practice is the person you will learn most of your bench technique from. You join one or more specific research projects rather than designing your own from scratch.

The rest of the eight weeks is structured around the lab. Scholars take part in weekly lab meetings, group discussions, presentation training, and campus-wide seminars. Non-academic gatherings — networking events, exploration of Beijing and Chinese culture — are organised separately. A Program Manager works with scholars on everything outside the lab and meets with them regularly to coordinate between faculty, lab members and students.

In August, every Amgen Scholar in Asia attends a shared symposium covering biotechnology, drug discovery and development, and scientific careers, hearing directly from scientists working in both industry and academia. The FAQ says transportation and accommodation for that symposium are covered by the programme. It is also a chance for Tsinghua scholars to meet participants from the other Asian host universities.

What Is Funded, and a Caveat About Air Travel

The programme’s Overview page describes benefits as “a stipend, round-trip air travel to Beijing, paid summer session tuition, housing, and part of meal allowance on campus.” The Program Information page phrases it more conservatively: “a certain amount of transportation support, part of meal allowance and accommodation are provided, plus a stipend of CNY 10,000.”

Those two statements do not say quite the same thing. One implies round-trip airfare is covered outright; the other implies a capped travel contribution. The stipend figure — CNY 10,000 — is the one hard number the site publishes, and it appears to be a total for the eight weeks rather than a monthly payment. If you are travelling from a long way away, ask the programme office directly what the transportation support amounts to before you assume flights are fully reimbursed. The contact address is [email protected].

Housing is provided by Tsinghua and is not optional: scholars are required to live in university-provided accommodation for the duration.

Eligibility, Read Carefully

The Asia-wide Amgen Scholars criteria require that you are an undergraduate enrolled at a college or university in Asia that awards a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent; that you have completed at least your first year of undergraduate study by the time the summer programme begins; and that you are not graduating before it begins, returning afterwards for at least one more semester or quarter.

The FAQ tightens the first of those considerably. It states that freshman applicants are ineligible because you must have completed three semesters or four quarters of college before applying. That is a stricter bar than “completed your first year by the time the programme starts,” and it is the version to plan against.

The graduation rule is enforced literally. The FAQ answers the question directly: a student graduating in the summer of the programme year is not eligible, because you must be returning to your undergraduate institution the following autumn.

Tsinghua adds three further requirements on top of the Asia-wide ones: a strong record of academic performance, a working knowledge of English, and an interest in pursuing a PhD. No minimum GPA is published anywhere on the site — if you have seen a specific number quoted for this programme, treat it as someone’s guess. The only GPA guidance the FAQ offers is arithmetic: to convert a 5.0-scale GPA to a 4.0 scale, divide by 1.25.

The English requirement is a genuine document requirement, not a soft expectation. Unless you are a native English speaker or your undergraduate institution teaches in English, you must supply a scanned test report showing TOEFL iBT above 72, IELTS overall band above 5.5, Cambridge English FCE, TOEIC 1095, TOEIC L&R 785, or TOEIC S&W 310. Note that this is assessed on your undergraduate education specifically — prior schooling in English does not exempt you.

Research experience is explicitly not required, though the FAQ says it is strongly recommended. If you list research experience, list only what you did as an undergraduate; high school research can be mentioned in your written materials but should not appear as a listed research position.

You can participate in an Amgen Scholars programme only once, anywhere in the network. If you apply and are not selected, you may apply again in a later year provided you still meet the criteria.

How the Application Works

This is the section most likely to catch people out, because there is no application portal. Everything is submitted by email.

You assemble a single email to [email protected] containing every document except the reference letters, named “Your Name + Location of Your Current University.” The programme is emphatic that you get it right first time: additional emails, resends and corrections are not forwarded to the admissions office.

The package consists of a personal CV; a Personal Information Form, an Open Questions document and a Statement of Purpose, all three downloaded as templates from the Application page; official current transcripts, signed and stamped, giving a year-by-year listing of every course and the grade received; English qualification scores where applicable; and optional supplemental materials.

Transcripts must be official — unofficial copies are rejected. If the original is not in English, you need an English translation provided by the university itself, and you submit both. Your transcript must include the most recent autumn semester’s grades; if those grades are not available before the deadline, the FAQ tells you to email the programme rather than submit late.

Two reference letters are sent separately, by the referrers themselves, from their institutional email addresses, to [email protected]. Each letter must be on professional letterhead, must be signed, must name the candidate in full, and must close with the referrer’s full name, title, institution, mailing address, telephone number and email address. Letters must come from a faculty member of your current institution. There is no set form. Two letters from the same lab count as one letter — so a letter from your PI and a second from the postdoc you worked with will not satisfy the requirement. Choose referrers from different settings.

If you submit supplemental materials, include a short note explaining what makes you a stronger applicant than the rest of the field.

Selection and Notification

Admissions are not rolling. The FAQ is explicit that decisions are made after the deadline rather than continuously, so submitting in December buys you no advantage over submitting in late February — only insurance against the last-minute failures that keep applications from landing at all.

In the 2026 cycle, general admission selection was completed in March, with results sent to every applicant — accepted, rejected and waitlisted — in April. Applicants who had heard nothing by mid-April were told to contact the admissions office. You should expect the same rhythm whenever the next cycle runs, and you should receive an acknowledgement email confirming your materials arrived.

What Scholars Are Required to Do

The commitments are spelled out and are not negotiable. Scholars must not take any additional course or hold a job during the programme, and must attend for the entire duration. They must live in the accommodation Tsinghua provides. They must attend orientation, lab meetings, and all required conferences, activities and social events, on time. At the end of the eight weeks, each scholar presents a poster describing their summer research project and submits a research paper to the Tsinghua Amgen Scholars Program Director.

That final paper is a real deliverable, and it is a useful thing to know in advance. Eight weeks is a short time to generate results and also write them up properly. Scholars who start drafting methods and background in week three tend to have a much easier August than those who leave everything until the last fortnight.

What to Do Between Now and the Next Call

Since no 2027 application date is published, the honest advice is to prepare and watch the official site. Do not turn the 2026 dates into a promise about the next call. The homepage and application page are the places to check for a new announcement, deadline, templates and instructions before sending anything.

Three things are worth doing now rather than later. First, sit an English test if you need one; scores take weeks to arrive and the requirement disqualifies people who leave it late. Second, line up two referrers from genuinely different settings, and give them the emailed-letter mechanics in writing, because the letterhead, signature and contact-block requirements catch out academics who are used to filling in web forms. Third, request an official, signed and stamped transcript — with a university-provided English translation if yours is in another language — and find out how long your registrar takes to produce one.

Also worth considering: the other Asian host institutions run their own Amgen Scholars programmes with their own deadlines and their own application systems. Since you may only ever be an Amgen Scholar once, it is worth comparing the available Asian host options before deciding where to apply.

For the eventual next announcement, check tsinghuaamgenscholars.com and the network-wide site at amgenscholars.com. Questions about eligibility or documents go to [email protected]. The programme’s official pages are the authority for whether the next cycle opens, which thresholds apply, and whether any travel support is capped.