Architecture graduates move on to the Ivy League

The excellence of the School of Architecture and Design's architecture program was recognized recently when two of its graduates received offers to pursue their graduate studies at a number of Ivy League universities in the US.

Both Abdullah Ali Al-Shamsi and Maher Sami, members of the AUS Class of 2004, gained admission to the prestigious architecture graduate programs at Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Al-Shamsi has also been offered a place to pursue his graduate work at Harvard University while Sami has also been accepted at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Being accepted to the top three or four universities in the world is indeed an honor and a testament to how well AUS prepares its students,” said Al- Shamsi. “We were always encouraged to strive for excellence by our teachers,” agreed Sami. “I really enjoyed my final year at SA&D and learned a lot from the experience.”

It is truly an honor and yet another feather in the cap of SA&D that two of its graduates were accepted into the same program at MIT in the same year, which is rare as the program accepts only a selective group of individuals from diverse backgrounds each year.