A total of 300 students from 10 provinces and cities in China will be the first undergraduates to enter the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), when they enroll this fall, the academy said last week in Beijing.

Six majors will be open to the new undergraduate students, including mathematics and applied mathematics, physics, chemistry, biological science, computer science and technology, and materials science and engineering.

UCAS currently educates about 41,000 master’s and Ph.D. students using a “two-phase” training mode whereby students take core courses at UCAS’s Beijing campuses and undertake scientific research at Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) institutes. DENG Yong, chairman of the UCAS University Council, said the university would adopt a “tutorial system” to train the new undergraduates.

Over 400 scientists from CAS will serve as mentors for the students. This group will include academicians from CAS and the Chinese Academy of Engineering as well as recipients of awards from the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars.

The new undergraduates will be drawn from 10 provinces and cities, according to DENG. Twenty-five students each will be selected from the city of Beijing and Jiangsu, Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces, respectively, using a method of “comprehensive assessment” before the administration of this year’s National College Entrance Exam, or ”gaokao.” The remaining 200 will be chosen from the provinces of Zhejiang, Shandong, Liaoning, Henan, Hunan and Yunnan on the basis of their gaokao scores.

UCAS, evolved from the Graduate School of CAS, was founded in 1978. UCAS offers Ph.D. programs in 146 fields and master’s programs in 170 fields. Its programs primarily focus on the natural sciences, engineering, medicine, management and education. So far, UCAS has conferred almost 110,000 master’s and doctoral degrees.

Currently, UCAS has 12,658 academic advisors, including 330 CAS and/or CAE academicians and 6,185 doctoral supervisors.