In November 2012, KAIST became a new member of the Global Engineering Education Exchange (GE3) Program hosted by the Institute of International Education (IIE), which boasts partner universities such as Georgia Institute of Technology, Technical University of Munich, and many more. This means that more doors are now open for KAIST students to spend a semester abroad as an exchange student and that the choice of available universities is more flexible since the program is conducted among its member universities rather than a specific pair of universities.
On February 6, the International Relations Team (IRT) at the Office of Special Projects and Institutional Relations officially announced about the GE3 Program together with the existing student exchange programs, and welcomed the first pool of KAIST GE3 applicants. At the orientation held on the same day, the IRT introduced GE3 as an exchange program targeted exclusively at engineering students. The application is limited to engineering majors and computer science students with GPAs over 3.0, a minimum official English proficiency test score of 80 in TOEFL iBT, and at least 66 credits by the point of application.
The selection criteria for the newly implemented opportunity are the same as those of existing student exchanges’: 40% academic performance, 30% statement of purpose, 15% standardized English test score, and 15% English interview. However, the number of applicants chosen is limited to only five, so fierce competition is expected for prospective exchange students. Furthermore, after the filtering process, the IIE conducts the second and final procedure, examining all the selected students and choosing the final applicants and their destinations. Then, the participants are sent abroad for six months to study, and they are exempted from paying the tuition fees there.
After the round of applications and selection for the Fall semester, the IRT announced the first selected few: Law Yiu Wei from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Angela Choi from the Department of Bio & Brain Engineering.