Zewail University plans to open its doors to the first batch of student next September.
Starting early next week, Zewail University of Science and Technology will start receiving applications from high school students seeking to join the first class at the new university for the autumn 2013 semester.
The deadline for receiving the complete applications – along with all the required supporting documents – is 25th July 2013.
The minimum requirement will be a score of over 90% for students with either a science or mathematics major in high school. All applicants will then need to take a series of admission exams prepared by the university itself, including English language, before they are accepted.
“We are looking to recruit the best students there are, regardless of social or financial status,” says Sherif Sedky, the founding provost of the university. “For the first year, we will recruit the 300 students who score highest in the admission exams.”
The university will also be taking transfers from other Egyptian universities, but details of this will be announced at a later, unannounced date.
Over the past several months, the university has been receiving several inquiries about tuition fees, since the premium education it is expected to give will probably be unaffordable to the vast majority of Egyptian families, which might make it an elitist institution. Sedky repeatedly stressed that the only criteria for selection will remain merit-based, and that they will offer financial aid for students who cannot afford the tuition fees (which he declined to reveal exactly).
“Eventually, I expect all the students to be on some form of scholarship of varying levels. I don’t think anyone will be paying the full tuition fees and we will study all cases very closely so no smart, good candidates are excluded due to financial issues,” he added.
This has raised questions about how sustainable the project is, however. Since it was first announced, Nobel laureate Ahmed Zewail, who is the head of the board of directors of Zewail City, said the project aims to raise an initial endowment of 2 billion EGP (~US$297 million).
But Sedky says they need five times that much to be sustainable without depending on tuition fees. “We are also depending on the science research that will take place in the City. We believe this should be sustainable on its own.”
However, the budding science city – with the tagline of “Egypt’s national project for science renaissance”, has yet to reach its first aim, let alone Sedky’s much more ambitious target.
The campus of Zewail City is still under dispute with Nile University, which had won a court case which allow them access to one of the buildings. However, a final decision on the case is still over a month away. Sedky added that this wait is not stopping the progress as they prepare to host students, by setting up facilities, securing book references and upgrading the registration facilities.
“We need to diffentiate between the building and the Zewail City project. The project is our faculty, researchers and staff. These are all we need to keep this project alive anywhere,” he says.