Last week Minerva Schools at KGI in the USA announced that due to high admission acceptance it will welcome two sections of its founding class in San Francisco in September. The institution claims to have “reinvented the university experience” via online delivery and systems and will be granting the first cohort of students four years’ of free tuition.
The Minerva approach combines an interdisciplinary curriculum being taught remotely via interactive online technology while students live together in residences, changing location each semester to up to seven cities in the world.
Out of 1,794 applications, a total of 45 students were admitted amounting to an acceptance rate of 2.5%.
“The founding class are pioneers that will help us shape Minerva’s identity as a university and rethink higher education”
“The founding class are pioneers that will help us shape Minerva’s identity as a university and rethink higher education,” Marielle van der Meer, Minerva’s Managing Director for Europe told The PIE News.
“We aim to select the best and brightest, and that’s what these students are all about.”
Applications were received from students in 88 countries, the largest percentage from the US but with no single nationality comprising more than 30% of the applicant pool.
Students outside of the US made up 58% of the applicants admitted, with 10 countries and five continents represented.
In order to maintain a 15-19 student-to-teacher ratio, the university has decided to accept two sections of the founding class. It is currently making offers to exceptional students from the second round of applicants that applied after the December 31 deadline.
Established by KGI in alliance with the Minerva Project, which received $25 million in funding from Benchmark Capital in 2012, the school will offer four years’ free tuition to the founding class.
The founding group of students will study together at the school’s first residential location in San Francisco for one year before beginning an interim year they can use for internships within Minerva or to travel.
Minerva hopes to attract 250 or more students paying $10,000 a year for the first full class in 2015.
In 2016, the school will open two more residential locations in Buenos Aires and Berlin where students from the second and founding class will join to continue their classes together.
The school currently offers 12 undergraduate concentrations approved by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges in schools of Arts & Humanities, Computational Sciences, Natural Science, Social Sciences and Business.
