Short answer first. For the 2024 intake, the University of East Anglia (University of East Anglia) publishes two parallel average thresholds for applicants holding a Chinese bachelor's degree, and which pair applies to you depends on which type of institution your degree came from:
| Type of Chinese institution | 2:1 degree | 2:2 degree |
|---|---|---|
| 211 / 985 / universities ranked in the top 300 in the 13-year 网大 (NetEase) ranking | 0.65 | 0.6 |
| Other institutions — including 双非 universities, affiliated colleges, independent colleges and university branch campuses | 0.7 | 0.65 |
Note the direction of the table: the lower average is required at the higher-tier institutions. The university lists the groups in its own tier words, and this page does not convert them into counts or rank them.
How to check which row you fall into
Take the name of the university that awarded your degree as it appears on your diploma, and match it against the two groups above. If your qualification comes from an affiliated college, independent college or a branch campus, treat it as the second row rather than assuming the more favourable first row. If the awarding body does not appear in the 211/985 list and does not appear in the top 300 of the 13-year ranking, the 0.7 / 0.65 pair is the applicable one.
These are the averages for degree classification purposes. Whether your actual average clears a given programme still depends on the offer level that programme is set at.
Where the bar is set higher than the table
The table is the general classification threshold, not the threshold for every programme. Several categories sit above it or work differently:
Business and management taught master's. The university currently lists the following programmes as having no undergraduate background requirement and no dissertation, taught across three terms, and set at the 2:2 level: Business Management, Human Resource Management, Finance and Management, International Accounting and Financial Management (ACCA exemption of 6 papers), Investment and Finance Management (CFA and CISI accredited), Marketing (CIM accredited), Marketing and Management (CIM accredited), and International Business Management.
The same adjustment explicitly does not apply to a named set of programmes and schools, including: MSc International Masters in Applied Ecology; MA in Brand Leadership; MA Broadcast and Digital Journalism UK; and all programmes within the School of Health Sciences and the School of Medicine, among others. The published list is truncated on the university's own materials, so if your target programme is in a health, medicine or ecology area, treat the general table as not applicable and check the programme page directly.
Film, media and journalism PGT. From autumn 2023 the university reset the academic background requirement for three popular one-year taught PGT courses in film and media. Students with any social science or humanities background — explicitly including business and economics backgrounds — may apply on the general average requirement alone, with no portfolio and no CV required. Two of these programmes, Media Culture and Society, and Film and Television Creative Practice, were moved down from a 2:1 requirement to 2:2. Because these two now sit at 2:2, check whether your average clears the 2:2 column rather than assuming the 2:1 level still applies to them.
Reference letters. Since 2023, reference requirements have been removed for most master's applications across the UEA social sciences faculty — including the Business School, economics, law, education, international development and psychology — plus selected humanities and arts schools (history; arts, media and American studies; politics, philosophy and language studies) and selected science schools (environmental sciences; computer science). The application system has been updated so that reference details are no longer requested for programmes that do not need them. Whether a specific programme still asks for references is a programme-level question.
What is not in these materials
The published information for this intake does not state English language requirements, application deadlines, tuition fees, or deposit terms, and this page does not infer them. For those, go to the programme entry on the university's own site.
Order of operations before you apply
- Find your degree-awarding institution on your certificate.
- Decide which row of the table it falls into.
- Compare your average against the 2:1 figure in that row.
- Compare your average against the 2:2 figure in that row.
- Check whether your target programme is one of the named exceptions to the background adjustment.
- Check that programme's own English language requirement on uea.ac.uk.
- Confirm whether that programme still requires references.
- Apply through the university's own application system.