As my son would have been graduating in the class of 2026 had we stayed in Singapore, I was curious where most graduates from SAS end up. Based on two data sources published by SAS for the years 2015-2017 and 2018-2020 (no numbers provided after that), here are the top 20 destinations. I’ve included the number of students for both of the 3 year periods, the total, and the U.S. News rank.
1. *NYU 43+33 = 76 #32
2. Northeastern 24+32 = 56 #46
3. *U of British Columbia 23+20 = 43 #41 globally
4. *Boston U 18+18 = 36 #41
5. USC 18+14 = 32 #28
6. *Toronto 6+18 = 24 #16 globally
7. *Berkeley 12+11 = 23 #15
8. CU Boulder 9+14 = 23 #97
9. *Northwestern 12+10 = 22 #9
10. *UW Seattle 10+11 = 21 #42
11. *Carnegie Mellon 11+9 = 20 #20
12. *Illinois (UIUC) 7+11 = 18 #36
13. *Purdue 8+10 = 18 #46
14. *King’s College London 5+12 = 17 #31 globally
15. *Cornell 6+11 = 17 #12
16. Santa Clara 9+7 = 16 #59
17. *Tufts 3+12 = 15 #36
18. *UCLA 10+5 = 15 #17
19. Chapman 7+8 = 15 #110
20. *UC San Diego 6+8 = 14 #29
It’s interesting that the most popular destinations for SAS are also among the most popular for local students in Singapore who go overseas. NYU has the most Singaporean students of any school in the US. Out of the 20 schools, 15* are deemed “top tier” by Singapore and earn an extra 20 points in the COMPASS evaluation criteria. My son won’t be attending any of these, but will transfer to a top 50 school this fall.
