Singapore’s first US-style liberal arts college in collaboration with Yale University, set up at the National University of Singapore (NUS), has selected its first cohort of 157 students to start in August – after sifting through 11,400 applications from over 130 countries – the college announced last week.
This was more than the 150 students initially planned. Around two-thirds of the first cohort are Singaporean, with the rest from 25 countries, Yale-NUS said.
Student numbers will be increased by 250 new students per year to reach around 1,000, and they will receive NUS degrees.
Many students from outside Asia were attracted to the idea of being part of the ‘Asian century’, said Yale-NUS College President Pericles Lewis.
All the students had been selected for their “leadership potential”, not just their academic records, which Yale-NUS described as “stellar”.