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This study aims to extend the knowledge and literature on which information sources influences (explicit service promises such as advertising, personal selling; implicit service promises such as tangibles and price; past experiences; word of mouth; image and reputation) Chinese students’ expectations of overseas universities’ service quality.

Data were collected from undergraduate Chinese students from two universities in Australia. A total of 133 questionnaires were returned for data analysis. Factor analysis and multiple analysis of variance were conducted for this study.

Results indicate the three most influential sources of information on Chinese students expectations of universities are: past experiences, advertising and word of mouth. Findings suggest that the more explicit and implicit service promises the respondent is exposed to; the higher the desired and predicted expectations of the university's service quality. However their level of expectations (both desired and predicted) is considerably greater when exposed to explicit service promises.

One limitation of this study includes the results obtained as not necessarily generalisable or applicable to other cultures (for instance Europeans). Future research could examine Chinese students’ formation of expectations based on other factors such as human values.

The theoretical contribution of this study consists of applying and extending Zeithaml et al.'s model, that proposes that a customer's level of expectations is dependent on several antecedents, within a higher education (pre‐purchase) context using a Chinese sample. The main managerial implication is that measuring the influence of information sources on Chinese students will provide universities with more effective ways of targeting Chinese consumers with their marketing communication campaigns.