Seoul National University

Seoul National University   (University)
Formation	1946
Headquarters	Seoul, South Korea
The most prestigious university in South Korea

Seoul National University (SNU, colloquially Seouldae) is a national research university located in Seoul, South Korea.

Founded in 1946, Seoul National University is considered to be the most prestigious university in the country. The university has three campuses: the main campus in Gwanak-gu and two additional campuses in Daehangno and Pyeongchang. 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, Faculty of Humanities at 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, or its undergraduate liberal arts college in particular, 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 Republic of Korea merged the remaining properties with nine colleges and professional schools,Template:NoteTag and the consolidated institution was renamed as Seoul National University in accordance with the Act of the National University Seoul enacted in the National Assembly.

Notable alumni and faculty

Among its notable alumni are prominent figures in international organizations and businesses such as Ban Ki-moon, the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), Hoesung Lee, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Song Sang-hyun, former President of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Lee Jong-wook, former Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), O-Gon Kwon, former Vice President and Permanent Judge in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and Kwon Oh-hyun, CEO and chairman of Samsung Electronics, and Bang Si-hyuk,the CEO and founder of Bighit Entertainment.

 

Alumni on Wikispooks

Person	Born	Died	Nationality	Summary	Description
Ha-Joon Chang	7 October 1963			Academic Economist
Suh Hoon	1954		South Korea	Spook	South Korean spook chief who promised to stop domestic spying. Arrested for "tampering with evidence" in 2022.
Ban Ki-moon	13 June 1944		South Korea		8th UN Secretary General
Kim Young-sam	20 December 1927	22 November 2015	South Korea

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