[12 August 2011]
SMU welcomes 12th batch of students for Academic Year 2011
Singapore, (Friday) 12 August 2011 – Singapore Management University (SMU) welcomes its 12th batch of freshmen at its Convocation Ceremony today. The 1,770 students will pursue existing undergraduate degree programmes in business management, accountancy, economics, social sciences, information systems management and law.
SMU's holistic admissions criteria ensures an annual intake of freshmen who display not only academic excellence but are also multi-talented with a wide range of skills, aptitude and leadership qualities. Many amongst the present intake are national sportsmen, accomplished artists, young entrepreneurs and passionate community service volunteers. This attests to the growing popularity of SMU as a university of choice among well-rounded, academically accomplished students.
Outstanding incoming students can tap on over 200 scholarships in SMU, including the NOL Lua Cheng Eng Memorial Scholarship, GEOK-ENG Scholarship and Mochtar Riady Scholarship introduced this year. With the strong support from external private donors and the university community, including alumni, students and faculty, 1 in 8 freshmen continue to be awarded scholarships, a very high ratio of scholarships available for freshmen in a local university.
Besides merit-based awards, in line with SMU's needs-blind admissions approach where no qualified student will be turned away just because he or she cannot afford tuition fees here, SMU has a wide range of bursaries, grants and subsidies in place. This is especially important in the current economic climate, where needy families need as much financial support as possible as their children embark on university life. The Encompass Bursary, Uniweld Bursary, TAK Bursary are among the new ones introduced this year which provides up to S$6,000 per student from low-income families. The grant is readily available as long as applicants meet the minimum eligibility criteria. Each year, about 1 in 6 freshmen can get some form of financial assistance.
A hallmark of a global-oriented education at SMU, all local and international students will also have the chance to receive global exposure through programmes such as overseas university exchanges, Business Study Missions, overseas internships and community involvement projects, summer study, overseas conferences and work and travel programmes. The global exposure complements SMU's interactive teaching pedagogy and broad-based curriculum that emphasises compulsory internships and community service.
Even before they started school, SMU freshmen have already participated in a series of community service projects during the orientation period in July: starringSMU 2011, Ballooning Blitz and Inspirar . Freshmen carried out painting and spring cleaning; organised games in reaching out to the elderly; ran teambuilding and arts & crafts activities for children; organised carnivals, camps and balloon sculpture workshops, raising a total of S$53,000 for various beneficiaries.
The well-rounded undergraduate experience at SMU is aimed at shaping undergraduates into visionary business leaders who possess cross-cultural understanding, are compassionate and selfless towards society, civic-minded, and who are also equipped with highly relevant industry and out-of-classroom experiences.
In SMU tradition, all freshmen attended the university's unique team building camp in July and August. The camp is led by senior student facilitators with the objective of introducing freshmen to SMU's collegial environment and inculcating the important SMU ‘CIRCLE' values of Commitment, Integrity, Responsibility, Collegiality, Leadership and Excellence, the university's clarion call for newcomers.