[3][4][5] The program selects 100–200 scholars per year based on their leadership ability, academic achievement, and commitment to advancing mutual cultural understanding and global progress.

[6] Selected scholars pursue a one-year master's degree in global affairs at Tsinghua University, residing at Schwarzman College.

[12] Since its founding, the program has maintained ties to the United Front Work Department as well as other organizations and personnel affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party.

In summer 2014, Tsinghua University announced it had reached its original fundraising goal and that it would increase it to US$350 million.

In 2014, when the program first launched its admissions process, Tsinghua's Schwarzman had already raised US$333 million for its endowment fund.

[22]Meanwhile, it became clear that the Yenching Academy at Peking University would be funded through Chinese private donations and government grants, which set off competition to further grow the two programs' endowments.

As a result of the increased competition among full-scholarship leadership programs, there was a marked growth in fundraising, with the endowments moving towards a half billion USD each.

[37] With an acceptance rate comparable to the Rhodes and Marshall scholarships, the founding class included five graduates of Princeton,[38] five students from Yale,[39] and six alumni of Harvard.

[40] In Emeritus: In Memoriam: Schwarzman Scholars has an advisory board whose members include former leaders in government and affiliates of institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Duke and Oxford.