NYUAD Receives Record Number of Applications for Class of 2016

ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, November 11, 2015:Students, walking to and from classes, are seen around the NYU Abu Dhabi campus on Saadiyat Island. (Photo / Silvia Razgova - Philip Cheung)

Far surpassing even last year's record numbers, freshman applications for NYUAD's Class of 2016 totaled 15,489 — compared with 5,854 for the Class of 2015 — with applicants vying for approximately 150 spots.

For the first time, this year's applicants, applying to both NYU New York and NYUAD, had the option of selecting one campus as their "primary" choice and the other as their "alternate" choice. Of the total number of applicants, 2,454 chose the Abu Dhabi campus as their primary choice — more than double the number from the prior year (1,184), when applicants could apply directly to NYUAD or, when applying to NYUNY, ask to be considered for admission to NYUAD — and 13,035 applied to the campus as their alternate choice.

It was also 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 applications.