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NYUAD Receives Record Number of Applications for Class of 2016

Press Release

NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) announced today that it received a record number of freshman applications for its Class of 2016.

A total of 15,489 young men and women applied for the approximately 150 places in the class. Of that number, 2,454 applicants asked to be considered for the Abu Dhabi campus as their primary choice and 13,035 applied to the campus as their alternate choice. Last year, NYUAD received a total of 5,858 applications (1,222 applied solely to NYUAD, while 4,636 applied to both NYU’s Abu Dhabi and New York campuses).

For the first time, this year, applicants to NYU’s Washington Square campus and NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus had the option of selecting one campus as their “primary” choice and the other as their “alternate” choice on their application.

It was another record year for NYU’s global network in general, with a total of 43,728 students applying for spots in NYU’s Class of 2016 across the New York and Abu Dhabi campuses, exceeding last year’s record 42,242 applicants. Applications for freshman admission to NYU have more than quadrupled over the past two decades, and NYU has received a record number of applications for five consecutive years.

NYU’s global network — with two portal campuses (New York and Abu Dhabi) already operating, a third (Shanghai) under construction, 11 global academic centers, and unparalleled opportunities for study around the world — continues to exert growing influence on NYU’s admissions, with more than 1,000 additional applications this year coming from students attending secondary schools outside of the United States.

In total, 42,776 potential members of NYU’s Class of 2016 applied for approximately 4,700 seats in NYU’s freshman class in New York. Of that number, 41,274 selected NYU’s New York campus as the primary choice, and 1,502 applied as an alternate choice.

About NYU Abu Dhabi

NYU Abu Dhabi is the first comprehensive liberal arts and research campus in the Middle East to be operated abroad by a major American research university. NYU Abu Dhabi has integrated a highly selective undergraduate curriculum across the disciplines with a world center for advanced research and scholarship. The university enables its students in the sciences, engineering, social sciences, humanities, and arts to succeed in an increasingly interdependent world and advance cooperation and progress on humanity’s shared challenges. NYU Abu Dhabi’s high-achieving students have come from over 115 countries and speak over 115 languages. Together, NYU's campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai form the backbone of a unique global university, giving faculty and students opportunities to experience varied learning environments and immersion in other cultures at one or more of the numerous study-abroad sites NYU maintains on six continents.