More than 300 students from many backgrounds are drawn together from some 70 countries to live, study and explore the concepts of international understanding and active service to others. Respect for and understanding of diverse cultures motivates the academic and social life of the college. AC is the first of the United World Colleges which are now located in ten different countries and all five continents.

The founders of the college saw the late teenage years as an age of idealism for young people, when commitment, ideals of justice and an impatience for fair solutions motivate their thoughts. The colleges are vehicles to allow such principles to be encouraged through the development of knowledge, values, and the will to act. The college curriculum is designed to allow expression of these ideals and the students are seen as equal partners in creating the community, in showing leadership and in taking initiatives.
Students do not 'come to the college'- they become the college.