Stanford University set to attract future leaders, but Hong Kong’s Joshua Wong likely to miss out
US university is seeking people with leadership potential and high academic qualities
A new US$750 million scholarship scheme at Stanford University is set to be used to train top students from across the globe, including possibly from Hong Kong, as future world leaders.
Stanford’s outgoing president John Hennessy said, in a recent interview in Hong Kong, that the university would be looking for people who are academically outstanding, who “have already done something” that showed their emerging leadership qualities, and who were passionate about contributing to making the world a better place.
Nike founder Phil Knight donates US$400m to Stanford, creating world’s biggest scholarship
But this raises doubts over whether the scholarship will become a tool for elite students – often from rich family backgrounds – to develop their personal connections to forge their future careers.
Hennessy admitted that he could not guarantee every student would give back to society after taking part in the leadership programme, but he said the university would “go the extra mile” to find students from disadvantaged backgrounds who possessed the desired qualities and make sure that the programme would admit those committed to change.
“Certainly it’s a programme for students who are elite in terms of their ability and their desire to do something,” Hennessy said. “But I think we are going to have to do our work to ... ensure that we are reaching students.”
Hennessy said there would not be any threshold for academic scores, but applicants’ academic performance should be good enough to qualify for Stanford’s graduate programmes.
The Knight-Hennessy Scholars programme, also named after Nike co-founder Philip Knight, who donated the single largest amount of US$400m, will admit 100 top students every year. They will be nominated by undergraduate universities around the world for admission to Stanford’s various graduate programmes.