Seoul National University (SNU)

Seoul National University is a national public research university located in Seoul, South Korea. Founded in 1946, Seoul National University is the most prestigious university in South Korea. The university has three campuses: the main campus in Gwanak District and two additional campuses in Daehangno and Pyeongchang County. The university comprises sixteen colleges, one graduate school and nine professional schools. The student body consists of nearly 17,000 undergraduate and 11,000 graduate students. According to data compiled by KEDI, the university spends more on its students per capita than any other universities in the country that enroll at least 10,000 students.

Seoul National University holds a memorandum of understanding with over 700 academic institutions in 40 countries,the World Bank and a general academic exchange program with the University of Pennsylvania. Moreover, the university is part of Washington University in St. Louis’s McDonnell International Scholars Academy. The Graduate School of Business offers dual master’s degrees with Duke University, ESSEC Business School, Hitotsubashi University and Yale School of Management and MBA-, MS- and PhD-candidate exchange programs with universities in ten countries on four continents. Furthermore, the Graduate School of International Studies offers dual master’s degree with the Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo, ESSEC Business School, KU Leuven’s Faculty of Social Science, the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Tübingen and Peking University’s School of International Studies, as well as exchange programs at distinguished universities in 17 countries for MA- and PhD-candidates. Following a government mandate to globalize Korean universities, the university’s international faculty head count peaked at 242 or 4% of the total in 2010, but subsequently declined.

Seoul National University, and specifically its undergraduate liberal arts college, finds its roots in the remaining properties from the abolished Keijō Imperial University, one of the Imperial Universities founded by the Japanese Empire. In the 1940s, with US Military Ordinance No.102 of United States Army Military Government in Korea, Keijo Imperial University was abolished. Later, the government of the Republic of Korea merged the remaining properties with nine colleges and professional schools, and the consolidated institution was renamed Seoul National University in accordance with the Act of the National University Seoul enacted by the National Assembly.