Nexus was pleased to once again host the Lion City Fair, welcoming representatives from over 150 top universities from over 19 countries who came to share more about their admissions processes with our learners and families. Read on to find out how opportunities like this benefit our learners and what some of our learners’ key takeaways were.
Learners Meet Top Global Universities at Nexus’ Lion City Fair 2026
Preparing for the Lion City University Fair
Before the fair, our Year 11-13 learners had researched universities and undergraduate programmes with the support of their tutors and our Careers and University Guidance team, ensuring that they arrived at the fair equipped with questions. From understanding more about IB requirements and tuition fees to student visas and personal essays, learners knew the exact questions they wanted to ask the university representatives who shared more about their institutions and courses available.
Aine Massey, Head of Careers and University Guidance, explained “We really hope that our Year 11 to 13 learners will come away from this experience today feeling much more confident about their future plans, feeling inspired and motivated to work hard to get to where they want to be when they graduate from us at Nexus.”
Top University Destinations for Nexus Learners
The UK and Australia continue to be some of our most popular destinations with queues of learners lining up to speak with the University of Cambridge, University of Sydney, Imperial College London and the University of Bristol. Bocconi University in Milan also remained a popular destination for Nexus learners, perhaps made more pertinent by the fact that some of our Class of 2026 graduates are now attending this world-class institution to study Business Management. Other top European universities such as University College Dublin, IE University, ESSEC and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, as well as North American institutions like Penn State, University of Miami and University of Arizona also drew attention from our Class of 2027 as they considered their next steps.
Jonathan Gunzi, Head of Secondary School, noted the impressive breadth of universities who visited Nexus, sharing “It’s so wonderful to see our learners engaging with their futures and all the opportunities they have to look into, to see them have these deep meaningful conversations about what their passions are. It’s really wonderful to see them engaging so much with this process.”
Key Takeaways from our Learners
For many of our learners, they spoke about how having this opportunity will allow them to make better, more informed choices as they move through their university application process.
For Divyansh who’s currently in Year 13, he explained how the Lion City Fair was valuable because “it’s allowed me to better understand the kind of person they want in their university and how I can better improve my portfolio.”
Finlay, Year 12, explained how the Lion City Fair helped him understand more about how certain university courses would be taught. “I found coming to the Lion City Fair very valuable as I learned that Imperial has a very hands-on aerospace course. Before, I thought it was quite lecture based, so learning that it’s so hands-on has made me want to go there more.”
This was also echoed by Marc, Year 13, who shared, “One thing that’s very useful about having all these universities here today is seeing the diversity of each kind of programme. Even though courses might be named the same thing, a lot of universities have different ways about how you study, what modules you might take.”
Overall, the Lion City Fair allowed our learners to gain more insight into their options for life after Nexus. As Krithin, Year 12, explained, “Before I came in today, I had a more narrow-minded perspective of my options and what I wanted to do, but after talking to so many different universities, it’s given me more knowledge and I feel like I’m going to walk out of here having learned something really interesting.”
Many of the university representatives commented on how prepared our learners were and how well-researched they were into various institutions and courses.
Alfredo, the representative from University of Oregon, shared how impressed he was with our learners. “They know which universities they want to meet with and are coming with some really specific questions about academic programmes and other opportunities.”
Once again, the Lion City Fair was a great success and our Nexus learners represented themselves incredibly well with prospective universities. We are so grateful to the parents and guardians who took time out from their busy schedules to accompany their children at the fair, supporting them as they begin to make important decisions about their lives after Nexus.
If you’d like to find out more about how our Careers and University Guidance team support learners through a personalised programme, click here.
