Dutch princess set to attend elite Welsh finishing school
A DUTCH princess is set to be the latest royal to attend an elite finishing school in Wales.
Princess Alexia of the Netherlands will attend Atlantic College, at St Donat’s Castle in the Vale of Glamorgan, it emerged last night.
She will join Princess Leonor, the future Queen of Spain, who enrolled in the sixth form college last month.
Alexia Juliana Marcela Laurentien, Princess of the Netherlands, Princess of Orange-nassau, is the second daughter of King Willem-alexander and Queen Maxima.
The King also attended the college from 1983 to 1985.
Previous royal pupils include Crown Princess Elisabeth of Belgium, who joined the school in 2018, King Willemalexander of the Netherlands, and Princess Raiyah of Jordan.
However many of the Princess’s other classmates won’t be from such aristocratic roots as over 75 per cent of students at the school receive partial or full scholarships from the institution’s many wealthy donors.
Jens Waltermann, executive director of United World Colleges (UWC) International, said: “UWC’S mission is to make education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and sustainability. We fulfil this mission by bringing together young people who would otherwise never meet.
“Her Royal Highness Princess Alexia of the Netherlands will join 4,500 other students from 155 countries, and from a diverse range of backgrounds, at one of our 18 schools.”
UWC Atlantic, which has 350 students aged from 15 to 19, was the organisation’s founding college and was established in 1962.
It is located in the 12th century St Donat’s Castle, which was once the home of American millionaire William Randolph Hearst and enjoys views of the Bristol Channel.
The castle grounds include a moat, battlements, dungeons and tiered gardens.
A statement by the Royal Household of the Netherlands said that the Princess’s time at the school was private and requested that her privacy continued to be respected.