Ashoka University Opens Admissions for the Young India Fellowship, Class of 2016-2017
New Delhi, India, August 17, 2015 (Newswire.com) - The Young India Fellowship, a one-year postgraduate programme in Liberal Studies at Ashoka University, today announced that it will be accepting applications for the sixth batch of Fellows starting 20th August, 2015. This unique Fellowship, now in its fifth year, is one of India’s most sought-after programmes and fosters academic, social and business leaders of tomorrow through a multidisciplinary liberal education.
The admission process for the Class of 2016 is divided into two rounds. The first round of admissions will begin on 20th August and will close on 15th December, 2015. This will be followed by a personal interview of the applicants commencing from 20th November. The second round of admissions will begin on 16th December, 2015 and end of 29th February, 2016.
The batch size of the Fellowship has quadrupled in the last five years and so have the number of applicants. To meet this increasing demand, the number of seats has now been increased to 225.
The current batch has 198 Fellows, who come from more than 25 states and from diverse academic fields such as Engineering, Humanities, Sciences, Business, Architecture and Law.
Dr. Pramath Raj Sinha, Founder and Founding Dean of the YIF, said, “As we open admissions for the sixth batch of the Fellowship, we are enthusiastic about making the transformational one year of this globally unique Fellowship available to more and more students in India without diluting the quality of the programme and, in fact, bringing in innovations every year."
The Fellowship offers breadth of learning and exposes students to multiple perspectives by imparting both skill-building and perspective-building courses. Some of the areas of study include Sociology, Economics, Statistics, Philosophy, Art, History, Literature, Business, Leadership, Group Dynamics, International Relations, Writing and Visual Communication.
The courses are taught by inspiring faculty from India and abroad. Some of the eminent instructors include Kenwyn Smith, Professor of Organisational Behaviour from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; Andre Beteille, Professor Emeritus, Sociology, Delhi School of Economics; Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Historian, Author & Vice Chancellor, Ashoka University; A.K. Shiva Kumar, Development Economist & Visiting Professor, Harvard and Mihir Shah, Member, Planning Commission of India and member of the National Advisory Council.
YIF offers full and partial scholarships to successful applicants and there is no fee for applying to the programme.
Alumni from previous batches have already begun to make a mark and are doing well in diverse fields. Some of the achievements by our Fellows for this year are as follows:
Ayush Prasad: Secured an all India rank of 24 in the Civil Services Examination this year
Sonali Chowdhry: Received the Rhodes Scholarship to pursue her M.Phil in Economics at Merton College, University of Oxford
Peeyush Khare: Received the Yale Fellowship to pursue a PhD Programme at Yale University in Chemical and Environmental Engineering
Avinash Kumar: Secured admission to a fully funded PhD Programme at University of Pennsylvania in Chemical Engineering
Abhishek Choudhary and Saransh Vaswani: Their startup, Saajha, won them the Echoing Green Global Fellowship, the most prestigious award in the social entrepreneurship sector
Apart from heading to leading universities across the world and winning scholarships, a substantial number of Fellows have also been placed at top corporate houses like American Express, BCG, McKinsey, Microsoft, Schlumberger, Cipla, Ernst & Young, Genpact, Goldman Sachs, Godrej, Google, Religare, Ratnakar Banks and Tata Power. Some work at start-ups like OYO Rooms, Zoztel, Convergenius and AsaanJobs. Some have decided to contribute in the not-for-profit, development and sustainability sectors and have joined organisations like Samagra, Pradaan and the World Bank. The Fellowship has also been encouraging entrepreneurial ventures and the Class of 2015 has over 10 Fellows who are working on their own start-ups.
Dr. Anunaya Chaubey, Deputy Dean, Young India Fellowship said, “We do look with a sense of satisfaction at the tremendous increase in the number of applications over the years for admission to YIF. However, these numbers also serve as a reminder that there are countless other brilliant young people across the country who need to be made aware of this opportunity to discover themselves and their potential. We will be making an extra effort this year to reach out to the hinterland in search of intellectually rich, curious minds with a sense of social commitment and leadership.”
About the Young India Fellowship
The Young India Fellowship (YIF) is a one-year multidisciplinary postgraduate diploma programme in Liberal Studies. The Fellowship brings together a group of bright young men and women who show exceptional intellectual ability and leadership potential from across the country, and trains them to become socially committed agents of change.
YIF commenced its first academic session in June 2011 with 57 Fellows selected from among 900 applicants. By its fifth year, the number of applications was almost four times that and now the Class of 2015-16 has 198 Fellows attending the programme at the Ashoka University campus. The programme is delivered in collaboration with University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS); Carleton College; University of California, Berkeley; University of Michigan; King’s College, London; Trinity College, Dublin and Sciences Po, Paris.