The future of education or just hype? The rise of Minerva, the world's most selective university

A Silicon Valley startup could offer a template for universities shifting their courses online due to coronavirus

This year Minerva received 25,000 applications from 180 countries for undergraduate entry in 2020 and admitted just 2% of them, making it the most selective degree programme in the developed world...

There are no lectures, faculty buildings, or exams. All teaching is done through online video classes.

There is only one programme of study for first years, and rather than reading maths or history, students take courses aimed at teaching transferrable skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving, through classes named “multimodal communications”, “empirical analyses” and “complex systems”. Subject specialisms are chosen in the second year.

There is no...

A Silicon Valley startup could offer a template for universities shifting their courses online due to coronavirus

This year Minerva received 25,000 applications from 180 countries for undergraduate entry in 2020 and admitted just 2% of them, making it the most selective degree programme in the developed world...

There are no lectures, faculty buildings, or exams. All teaching is done through online video classes.

There is only one programme of study for first years, and rather than reading maths or history, students take courses aimed at teaching transferrable skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving, through classes named “multimodal communications”, “empirical analyses” and “complex systems”. Subject specialisms are chosen in the second year.

There is no campus; students are housed in a residence hall in San Francisco in their first year. Subsequent year groups spend semesters variously in Seoul, Hyderabad, Berlin, Buenos Aires, London and Taipei.