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SINA.com Teams With Embark.com to Offer Online School
Searches and Applications for Chinese Students Worldwide

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 30, 1999-- SINA.com, the leading destination site for Chinese worldwide, today announced a global partnership with Embark.com, the leading college and graduate school search and online application site.

SINA.com will be the primary Chinese language portal for Embark.com's content about colleges, graduate schools, and ESL programs as well as online application services. This partnership will allow prospective Chinese students to access vast information about schools and studying abroad. More importantly, it will enable students to apply and submit applications directly via the Internet at no additional charge.

"Every year, thousands of prospective students from China apply to study abroad," said Jim Sha, CEO of SINA.com. "We see this as a huge market need that has not been sufficiently addressed until now. Our partnership with Embark.com enables us to provide our users with best-of-breed tools and information to make a better decision regarding their educational and career goals and simplify the application process."

The SINA.com/Embark.com partnership will be welcome news to the tens of thousands of Chinese students seeking academic excellence in the United States. In a report published by New York's Institute of International Education titled "Open Doors: 1997/1998 Report on International Education," the total number of international students enrolled in the U.S. during the 1997/1998 school year was 481,280. Of that number, 277,508 were from Asia and 46,958 were from China. Chinese student enrollments in the U.S. rose 10.5 percent in the school year of 97/98 and the growth continues.

Through this relationship, SINA.com will provide its users with the following: -- Introduction to study abroad -- Information on college, graduate and ESL programs in the United

States and abroad --- Online school searches -- Online applications -- Information about financial aid opportunities

"This global partnership with SINA.com supports our company mission to help individuals everywhere achieve their lifelong learning goals," said Young J. Shin, Embark.com's president and CEO. "We will work closely with SINA.com to help prospective Chinese students around the world in their school selection and application process. This partnership will also benefit our university partners who are seeking to add diversity to their enrollment."

About Embark.com

Embark.com -- formerly CollegeEdge -- is the No. 1 resource on the Internet for people seeking to achieve their life's aspirations. Embark.com has improved the way individuals explore and apply to school; the way universities recruit and enroll students; and the way high schools and community organizations help students achieve educational and career goals. Embark.com's partners include over 500 leading undergraduate and graduate programs around the world; thousands of high schools and community-based programs like the Boys and Girls Clubs and TRIO programs; and leading companies including Excite@Home, Lycos, Inc. and U.S. News and World Report. Founded in 1995 and backed by leading venture capital firms, Embark.com provides 120,000 pages of content and processed over 500,000 college-related transactions last season.

ABOUT SINA.com

SINA.com is the Internet destination site for the Chinese communities worldwide. With 200 million page views per month and about 1 million registered users, SINA.com provides best-of-breed combination of online news, entertainment, community and commerce. SINA.com also delivers a critical advertising access point to organizations such as IBM, Compaq, AT&T, Schwab and other multinational organizations and business partners seeking prime Internet "real estate" to reach the Chinese language market. The Company is headquartered in Sunnyvale with offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei and Hong Kong. To learn more about SINA.com, visit our sites at http://www.sina.com, http://www.sina.com.tw, http://www.sina.com.cn and http://www.sina.com.hk
 

For more information, press only:

At SINA.com
Cindy Lee
Tel: (852)2155-8858
Fax: (852)2295-3630
cindy@staff.sina.com


If you are interested in additional information on SINA.com, please visit the SINA.com.hk home page at http://www.sina.com.hk/