Minerva Schools at KGI Welcome its Inaugural Class
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 17, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Courses recently commenced for the Class of 2019 at the Minerva Schools at KGI, a reinvented university experience for the brightest and most motivated students from around the world. A children's safety advocate from India, a professional ballerina from Canada, and the co-founder of a nonprofit providing mentorship to disadvantaged youth and women in Rwanda are just a sampling of the backgrounds of the accomplished students in Minerva's Inaugural Class.
As awareness of Minerva has grown, the school saw a sharp increase in applications for its incoming class this year. Nearly 11,000 applications were received by students from 160 countries interested to matriculate at Minerva, and all 220 students who met Minerva's high admissions bar were admitted. The incoming class includes 111 students from 30 countries and territories. An additional small group of students chose to defer matriculation to September 2016, making Minerva's regular decision yield at or above those found at seven of the eight Ivy League universities.
"We are thrilled to welcome Minerva's inaugural class," said Dr. Stephen M. Kosslyn, Founding Dean at Minerva. "We have attracted remarkable students from around the world, and I am in awe of their intellect, talent, and personal and collective drive to tackle some of the world's biggest issues. Our expanded faculty of accomplished educators has trained intensively on the curriculum and the Active Learning Forum, and they are now focused on engaging, stimulating, and interacting with the students--with the overarching goal of facilitating learning."
Minerva's incoming class is a diverse group of students from around the world. American students comprise less than a quarter of the class; more than 75% of the class are International students with no single international country representing the majority. This is in contrast to peer universities that enroll on average only 10% international students. Minerva's Inaugural Class includes students from Argentina, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Kosovo, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Rwanda, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.
Among Minerva's exceptional students is Dorotea Deshishku, a student from Kosovo who has had a profound impact on her community while excelling academically. While in high school, Dorotea founded Project Maat, a volunteer-operated nonprofit that provides food and other basic necessities to hundreds of poverty-stricken families across Kosovo. While dedicating significant time to Project Maat, Dorotea has also served as an organizer for the TEDx Prishtina and TEDxPrishtina Women Conferences to help elevate the level of discourse about rebuilding and rebranding war-torn Kosovo.
"Coming to Minerva is an incredible opportunity for me, and already Minerva is challenging me in ways that I didn't even know were imaginable," said Dorotea. "Every minute during the seminar classes is valuable and requires my full engagement. After each seminar, I feel exhausted but it does not drain me one bit. It fills me with energy, new insight, and ideas. I feel like the everyday discussions we're having at Minerva are equipping me to have a lasting impact on the world."
Dorotea and her colleagues in the Class of 2019 recently arrived in San Francisco and moved into a Minerva residence hall in the city's Nob Hill neighborhood where they will live throughout their freshman year. As part of the unique global immersion experience at Minerva that extends the classroom into cities around the world, students will live, study and engage in cultural, social and civic experiences in a different world capital each semester starting their sophomore year. Their educational experience at Minerva will take them to Berlin, Buenos Aires, Seoul, Bangalore, Istanbul and London.
Minerva classes are intensive, highly interactive seminars that include no more than 19 students and are conducted on Minerva's proprietary Active Learning Forum technology platform. Earlier this year Minerva announced the expansion of its faculty to accommodate its growing student body; accomplished faculty previously at institutions including Harvard and Stanford will teach Minerva's four freshman Cornerstone courses: Formal Analyses, Complex Systems, Empirical Analyses and Multimodal Communications.
Admission to Minerva is based on the most rigorous intellectual standards and assessments with no weight given to ancestry, athletic ability, state or country of origin, or capacity to donate. Applications are now being accepted for matriculation in Fall 2016. Interested students can apply at https://minerva.kgi.edu/application/start/.
About Minerva Schools at KGI
The Minerva Schools at KGI offer a reinvented university experience for the brightest, most motivated students from around the world. Combining an interdisciplinary curriculum and rigorous academic standards, an accomplished faculty versed in the science of learning, an advanced interactive learning platform leveraging cutting-edge technology, and four years of immersive global experience, Minerva delivers an exceptional liberal arts and sciences education for future leaders and innovators in a variety of disciplines. The Minerva Schools at KGI were established in 2013 by KGI – Keck Graduate Institute – a WSCUC (WASC Western Senior College and University Commission) accredited institution, in partnership with Minerva Project. www.minerva.kgi.edu
SOURCE Minerva Schools at KGI
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