CIEE
Programs and Reviews
A nonprofit, non-governmental organization, CIEE is the world leader in international study and exchange programs. For 65 years, CIEE has helped thousands of students, professionals, and educators gain the knowledge and skills necessary to live and work in a globally interdependent and culturally diverse world by offering the most comprehensive, relevant, and valuable exchange programs available.
Programs Abroad
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Reviews
100%Overall
Rating
90%Overall
Rating
I have read some of the reviews and I was surprised. My experience with CIEE was excellent.
Pre-arrival in China, any questions I had about the program were answered fully and in a timely manner. This being my first real trip abroad, I had no real idea of what to expect, especially when visiting a developing country. Help with a visa and other official "stuff" was great.
Information about my school was provided by CIEE in the form of email addresses and other contact information for CIEE participants that were/had been at my future school. I got some great information from the people I wrote and I felt much more at ease and informed about my new assignment.
The airport pickup and the orientation in Shanghai were great. Kelvin Li and his staff did an excellent job. We were wined and dined, saw some great sights, and had a lot of fun. Experienced teachers were there to give us some guidance on what to expect at our destinations and in lesson planning, class preparation, and teaching ideas. I found that very helpful. Finally, transportation to our schools was provided. I think the money for the program was well spent.
As far as issues at/about my school, they were minimal. I took up any issue with the FAO myself and if it couldn't be resolved, I simply contacted Kelvin, CIEE's prgram director in Shanghai, and the problem was fixed.
I am now almost halfway through my fourth year in China after teaching in three different cities and virtually every grade level. I now return to Shanghai for CIEE's orientation where I help out as an experienced teacher.
I am loving my life in China and I would not hesitate to recommend CIEE as a way to get here.
Critical Feedback:
I am not sure what I would change, but I might add a trip to some local schools as part of the Shanghai orientation so that participants could get some idea of what they might expect to see at their schools.
50%Overall
Rating
First, let me explain my ratings for the program categories. In terms of benefits I gave CIEE a 5. This has nothing to do with CIEE, they give you the slightest hint of your pay, which we actually had to work out in our contract with the school before signing. CIEE never mentioned a "trial" period where you were paid close to nothing for your work. If we didn't rework the wording in our contract this trail period could have technically never ended. CIEE has no control over your housing there, so they shouldn't include this part in their ratings. The only reason it gets a 5 here is because we (foreigners) get paid more than the locals, of course that was thanks to our own reading/comprehensive thinking abilities. Support (2), while in China for a year the only contact I had was when I forced CIEE to do something about my placement. The school brought in 4 teachers for 3 positions because they know they can sell the 4th person to another school for a profit. We knew this was happening because other workers at the school told us the school had been planning to do it. CIEE contacts in China said it was a language barrier (with other foreigners whose wives are Chinese and fluent?!?!?!). When I emailed US offices, I got nothing back from them. Worthless. Facilities (5), the 5 goes to school's materials, which has nothing to do with CIEE. CIEE gets 0 on their end. Fun (5), fun is from the other foreigners in the city, CIEE has no control over who you end up with and how they act. Safety (3), as a foreigner we had things thrown at us and were spit at during anti-sentimental feelings towards foreigners because the government wanted to rally the people around their causes against Japan. So all foreigners were targeted in my area.
CIEE is not worth the $2000 for TEFL and health insurance (I got sick and my school's insurance provided me coverage). Health insurance was negated in that aspect. CIEE provided next to no help with my school's problems, so that was useless. This also eliminated the whole "piece of mind" using a recruiter was supposed to give someone going to a foreign country for a year. The TA's (teaching assistants) at my school were nice and the most help, CIEE does nothing to give piece of mind.
Overall, its not worth your money to use CIEE and pay their fees when you don't get the service in return. Find the schools in China directly through foreign expat websites and get your TEFL on your own.
A tip for people who reuse CIEE over and over. Any smart person who does use CIEE once, should realize not to pay their resign fee and just negotiate directly with the school for more money.
CIEE's Response to WillB:
Thank you for the feedback. CIEE has been working with the group of people in the area of China where the teacher is located to address the specific concerns of each individual and to improve the quality of the program moving forward. These improvements will result in better communication between the host schools and the teachers. Teachers will not be hired in groups, by schools who will then re-hire them to other schools. Additionally, the training program, when it is required, will be explained more clearly in school profiles and in working contracts.
Regarding salaries, each teacher is given a school profile before confirming their position and fully-committing to the program. This profile includes information about the school, teaching schedule, and salary details. Additionally, each profile and contract includes details about appropriate trial periods. Really, this is a training period and is not included in all contracts. These are sent to the teacher before commitment to the teaching position. If any of these details are problematic, any member of our staff can help explain or interpret the details and even to help re-negotiate the contract if necessary. As the commenter noted, negotiations are possible up to signing the contract. The culture of negotiations is deeply embedded in the experience in China; CIEE recognizes this and through cultural workshops in the orientation and 24 hour phone support, usually negotiations can be successful. We have also noted the challenges and misunderstandings that occurred with the trial period/training period this year and are working with the schools to make sure that the period is more transparent.
Hopefully other foreigners in the city are not the only source of fun, as a year in China should hold many other adventures. However, other foreign teachers in your network when you arrive is a major advantage of CIEE as CIEE operates the program in a group setting, in an effort to ensure that the program participants can network with each other before, during, and after the program.
Health insurance is a requirement of any CIEE Teach Abroad experience and iNext insurance has proven to be effective and to cover people adequately in China.
To effectively use CIEE support, CIEE only requires communication. Kelvin Li is a very dedicated supporter of teachers in China and he holds a 24-hour cell phone that does not get ignored. Equal support is available with the four, dedicated staff members in Portland, Maine. On the chance that this participant's email(s) got filtered by a junk filter, all CIEE participants have access to their CIEE account which directs messages directly to the entire team and is impossible to ignore. We are here to answer questions before, during, and after the Teach Abroad experience. As an organization with over 65 years of history, we are here to support your experience abroad and to validate your employment with anyone who requires a reference after your year abroad is over.
Please call us directly at 1-800-407-8839 ext 6 and we can explain our services, how we respond to challenges, and connect you with blogs and program alumni. Matt Redman, Director of Teach Abroad Programs
90%Overall
Rating
After completing our Bachelor's degrees in the US, my husband and I taught at Shandong University of Science and Technology located in an area called Huangdao which is outside of Qingdao, China. I had been to China before and studied abroad with CIEE in Beijing while completing my degree, which is how I learned about their Teach Abroad opportunities.
My husband and I weren't sure what we wanted to do career-wise so we decided to spend a year in China while we figured things out. Neither of us had much teaching experience so we knew we needed to be flexible and open to different locations & age groups. We were excited when we learned of our placement and immediately started to research the area.
The year that we spent in Huangdao China is certainly something that we will never forget. After our year teaching at Shandong University of Science and Technology we relocated to Shanghai where we stayed for the next 2.5 years. We both agreed that the year in Huangdao gave us a much clearer perspective on Chinese students than many of our friends who had only been able to live in Shanghai or Beijing.
We were not paid much while teaching at SUST (roughly 500USD/month, mind you this was 4 years ago) however housing was provided and food cost next to nothing. In our first semester we were able to save enough money to travel around China, Hong Kong and to Singapore for the majority of our six-week summer holiday.
Our teaching load was incredibly light, which allowed us to spend time on self-development (which mainly meant binge-watching Mad Men and and catching up on my long list of novels to read) but we also had a lot of time to get to know the students better and experiment with different lesson plans. We were fortunate to have each other to bounce ideas off of the first semester, because the university didn't offer much support for development. However the second semester we were at SUST we were joined by another group of incoming CIEE teachers that were equally as enthusiastic about self-improvement in the classroom. We definitely bonded with these other teachers, and 3/5 of them I still communicate with regularly.
Overall I loved my experience teaching in China with CIEE. I was grateful for the support that we received before our departure and upon arrival in Shanghai. I don't feel that my local university did an excellent job of setting expectations for us, however I also learned that this is how things often go in China. If you're about to embark on this journey, no matter what organization you go with, I believe the most important thing to remember is that it's going to be different from what you're used to (and that's the whole point of going). Keep an open mind and be flexible.
Have fun, I wish I was about to start this journey again!
Critical Feedback:
The support at our local university. The first semester we had a wonderful contact, he was extremely helpful and prompt however the second semester he was replaced by another gentleman who wasn't as accessible.
As new teachers this was intimidating because we had no way to gauge if we were doing well in the classroom.
10%Overall
Rating
My boyfriend and I went through CIEE for Teach Abroad in China and would not recommend going through CIEE to anyone, for the following reasons;
1) The program costs a great deal of money ($2000+) and the services rendered are advertised as placement, an orientation, information on the teaching process and living abroad in China, and visa acquisition. When placing people, CIEE does not closely follow the requests of either the individual (We specifically requested to not be placed teaching children and were placed at a preschool) or the school (our school asked for people with two years of experience or more and they were provided with us. We had no experience working with children and my boyfriend had no work experience). Furthermore, they do not provide clear information about the ability to reject a placement. As for the orientation, the location was nice, as well as some of the activities, but the information rendered was far too little and, often, not accurate (For example, CIEE provided us no information on taxes, little information on teaching [especially for the preschool level], and their Chinese lessons, although split up into different competency levels, were all provided with the same packet).
The visa acquisition in particular is the largest strike on their system for me. We were provided little information about how the visas are secured and no forewarning about how the visas may not be acquired in time. It came as a shock to receive an email from CIEE telling us that our visas would not be acquired in time and that we needed to change our arrival date. We had spoken to CIEE previously about visa acquisition, as we wanted to arrive a few days early, and they had informed us that this would be no problem. However, when the visa wasn't coming through, I tried to get more information from them, and they became impossible to reach. Once I finally reached Mr. Redman, he begrudgingly agreed that the visa could be acquired in Hong Kong at our own expense, but would not provide me with details as to what would go into this effort. I understood that CIEE was not at fault for the visas not coming through, but their literature had not been forthright about the possibility. As information was the bulk of what I was paying them for, I pointed this out to Mr. Redman and suggested that the literature be updated to be more forthright. It was not updated.
When I asked Mr. Redman if I was guaranteed to get my visa by the date they told us to arrive, he informed me that we were never, in fact, guaranteed to get any visa from them, but if we had not received any visa by October, they would refund "a part" of our program fees. This was, in fact, generous of them, as their contract rather brutally absolves them of pretty much everything that can go wrong.
Once we informed CIEE that we did intend on getting our visas in Hong Kong, lest we incurred more cost, they danced on thin ice with our visa applications, waiting for the Z paperwork to come in, even though I requested that they didn't and I wanted to incur the cost on my own. We did not receive our passports with the L visa back until the day we were leaving. Once we reached Shanghai, we had been no better informed about what would occur, even after asking 2 CIEE representatives who were supposed to be the head of their departments. We were told that our school would handle everything. Once we finally went to Hong Kong to acquire our Z visa, we were informed by the Hong Kong office that our US physicals were not valid for visa acquisition in Hong Kong. When we called CIEE Shanghai, they were surprised by this fact, but did nothing to help us solve the situation. When we called CIEE Portland, they condescendingly informed us that we had been "warned" and informed that this would happen. When we told them that we were, in fact, not, they, again, did nothing other than admit their mistake.
2) CIEE representatives have often fallen off the grid and been completely impossible to get a hold of (this has been an experience program-wide over here). When CIEE representatives are reached, they often have nothing better to tell you to talk to your school about it.
3) I was informed by my school that they go through CIEE partially because it allows them to pay their teachers significantly less. That said, there are jobs in my area that require less time and experience (and no degree) that pay over double what I receive in a month.
In conclusion, what you can receive through CIEE Teach Abroad, be it information, TEFL certificate, a job placement, visa paperwork, and a short stint in Shanghai, can easily be acquired on your own and is not worth the large program fee forked over. If you are looking for a support network in China, CIEE is not a strong candidate.
CIEE's Response to syntheticcat:
CIEE has been operating the Teach in China program for over 15 years and works towards the mission of building intercultural competency and mutual understanding. CIEE Teach in China provides all applicants with pre-departure guidance and school placement information that is very detailed. The school placement profiles detail hours and age level taught. We work with the schools to ensure that this information is accurate and all participants confirm their placement after reading the school profile, by paying most of the program fee. If CIEE fails to place a candidate we refund program fees. CIEE is dedicated to following through on commitments to providing services outlined in program materials. Visas are rushed to ensure arrival, even if they need to arrive on the same day as in the case above.
CIEE strives to ensure that positions offer competitive benefits and fair pay to all candidates. Compensation is monitored according to candidates' qualifications. Inexperienced teachers can expect similar pay throughout China, as experience and pay grows, regardless of degree.
As an organization that is over 65 years old, CIEE continues to grow and be the leader in international educational programming. Our employees are dedicated to responding to all program participants' needs and questions. Each experience is different and we strive to help make each experience great. The comments in this review will help us to work with the ever-changing visa situation in China and help teachers, with or without 2 years of experience, to have life transforming experiences. We have adjusted pertinent documents according to experience and as needed for all future departures. Please feel free to call me or any member of the CIEE Teach in China team, we are happy to be honest about the challenges one might face when taking the leap to teach in China. Sincerely, Matt Redman, Director, Teach Abroad Programs
We didn't focus on learning facts and statistics, but instead learned how to learn. After going through this program I feel comfortable in any situation, foreign or familiar. After talking to villagers, NGOs and politicians and understanding all perspectives of an issue I feel confident in approaching any situation or issue without any prior knowledge and able to handle it.
The most important thing I took out of this program was realizing how I learn and how I can teach myself and how I can take charge of my education in life.
Critical Feedback:
The program could be a little smaller, when I went it was about 20 people which was slightly too large in my opinion. I think about 12-15 people is a good size for a program like this.