The first Candidate Weekend for the class of 2018 took place from Dec. 6 to Dec. 7. Ninety prospective students from 45 different countries were flown in and accommodated at the Cristal Hotel. This was the first of a series of four Candidate Weekends that will determine admission to said class. They will also be the last Candidate Weekends to be held at Sama Tower and the Downtown Campus.

The Saadiyat campus is still under construction. No students or candidates are allowed on the premises. For this reason, these weekends will focus generally on the experience of living in the UAE and attending NYU Abu Dhabi. Regardless, the admissions department said, "student candidates will leave the UAE with a clear understanding of what life as an NYUAD student on Saadiyat Island would be like should they be admitted."

Candidates will be shown DTC and Sama despite the fact they will receive no classes at the campus nor live in the downtown residence.

The structure and quantity of the Candidate Weekends will strongly resemble those of the past. For example, the visit to the Grand Mosque, the tour of Sama and the desert trip will remain the same. Despite these similarities, there have been changes made to the activities of the Candidate Weekend.

Sophomore Nino Cricco, who was a peer ambassador for both this and last years’ Candidate Weekends, comments on these differences.

“The candidates this weekend did not get a tour of DTC,”  Cricco said. “They did get a more extensive Saadiyat presentation and drove past the Saadiyat campus.”

Although faculty one-on-one conversations have been a part of Candidate Weekends since the school’s inception, last year saw the implementation of an additional one-on-one conversation with an admissions representative. Cricco comments that these conversations are designed to get to know candidates beyond their academics.

“I think Admissions really wants to get more facetime with the candidates,” he said.

“This year's December [Candidate Weekend] will not see a significant departure from previous iterations,” said Lisa Taylor, assistant dean of admissions. “Students will still visit DTC and Sama to gain an understanding of the type of community NYUAD is. The Class of 2018 will not be living in Sama or studying in DTC, but it is important for them to see where our university has come from to know where it is going.”

Another major change is the expected number of students to be admitted. The current freshman class consists of 175 students. Although classes have gradually increased in size for the past four years, the class of 2018 is expected to be even larger because the Saadiyat campus can accommodate more students. According to Taylor, class sizes will continue to rise in the coming years until NYUAD reaches an undergraduate population of approximately 2,000 students.