The work opportunity situation may be very different for Singapore and the US. Investigate that very thoroughly before you commit to one of the colleges/universities on your list. After you finish your education, you need to be able to start a career. If you come to study in the US, you need to know that wherever it is that you do study, and where it is that you do study, will be able to get you a job in your home country after your OPT expires.
OP, I’m an international applicant like yourself who was accepted to Williams, Princeton, Yale and Yale-NUS last year. I chose to accept my Yale-NUS offer, and I’ll tell you why. (However I did take a gap year, and will be joining the Class of 2019 with you should you choose to attend).
Looking at all these comments above urging you to go to Middlebury for various reasons (my favourite: apparently most YNC professors are from NUS! News to me…), I think you should realize that CollegeConfidential is a primarily American forum for American students and American parents — and the deluge of advice pointing to top U.S. schools (and indeed looking down upon Asia as a destination) is part of the fact that it is primarily a domestic platform.
Let me start with your point about job opportunities. I, like you, am neither a Singaporean nor an American. I, like you, would like to attend top U.S. graduate schools, and maybe find work there for a while after I complete my degree(s). Yale-NUS was perfect for me because of the sheer opportunity it presented, and its comparatively tiny student population size. Of all of the schools that I was considering, Yale-NUS was the only one which guaranteed an internship or summer opportunity point blank. There is so much corporate interest in the young school that there aren’t enough people to fill places at CIPE! I’m not sure if you’re watching the Welcome page on Facebook, but Nik posted a link to CIPE’s website with a list of its current career partners. Let me say, that list is eyewatering. Not only are you part of an intimate community of the world’s best and brightest*, but the world is at your doorstep. You get access not only to the fruits of the West, but, key, the much harder to access markets of the East. Yale-NUS is at the center of the world’s most dynamic region, and all of its newly minted Fortune 500 firms are more than eager to snap up graduates from the continent’s (and, indeed, one of the world’s) most selective undergraduate institutions — with an acceptance rate even lower than Yale’s.
Just as a supplementary point, Singapore’s unique position also offers you a lot more safety when it comes to the job market. From Yale-NUS, you have the security of a country eager for you to stay after you earn your YNC degree (with the added bonus that it’s the one that regularly tops the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index**), as well as a platform to look West. What I mean is: suppose you decide to enrol at Yale’s Silver Scholars’ program. After that finishes, you have America’s 15 trillion dollar economy beckoning, before your student visa expires. H1B visa cap reached? No problem! America’s loss. The angels at CIPE have got fantastic opportunities lined up for you everywhere from Brussels to Beijing! Because you’re one of only 200 graduates in your class, you may as well have written offers served to you on a silver platter.
Third point, which, admittedly, is the most subjective: the social life. For me, it was an absolute no brainer. Williams was the epitome of a WASP’s nest. Yale, while it had a vibrant international community, finds its small non-U.S. community drowning in its much larger American context. Where else in the world can you go to a school with a 40% international population? Not only that, but Singaporeans themselves are incredibly diverse. As a third culture kid myself, I can’t imagine a better opportunity than this; to truly straddle all worlds during some of the most interesting years of my life. Multiculturalism aside, please don’t be under the impression that Yale-NUS’s student body is in any way monolithic. In my gap year, I have had the pleasure of meeting so many of its students, who truly range from all ends of the spectrum. Ultra conservatives? Check. Bleeding-heart Liberals? Check. Party animals? Double check. Book worm ukulele players? Check, check, check. If we were to encompass mannerisms and behavioural quirks into two camps, ‘Asian’ and ‘Western’, Yale-NUS has a home for all. It’s not an ‘Asian’ school, after all; not like how Yale is an ‘American’ school. Yale-NUS is an experiment in internationalism and global citizenship. In free thought and mutual understanding. In developing a center for scholarship with room for all.
OP I suggest you get in touch with current students at Yale-NUS. Leverage the Facebook group, because there will be many students who have had offers from the West’s best and who can give you the facts on the ground. This forum is a poor one to learn about YNC, not least because of the fact that it’s brand new, and the only people qualified to tell you anything about it are those who have experienced life there for themselves. If you have any more questions, don’t hesitate to send me a PM. For a broader perspective, seriously, the people at YNC are lovely — please do reach out to them!
*Which, happily, self-selects: prestige, Western-degree-hunters don’t even consider the College, and, in all my interactions with YNC students, I continue to be blown away by their conviction and humility. The student body just has a flavour that I found more agreeable than Princeton’s or Williams’. But, I must stress, this is a personal opinion.
@noncomposmentis’s comments on YNC are compelling (although I would take exception with his description of Williams as a “WASP’s nest”); however, it sounds as if @kiwi367’s objectives are focused more toward U.S. graduate school and employment. In that context an American undergraduate school makes sense.
Most students at small liberal arts colleges wouldn’t have internships during the school year. For summer internships they would go where the jobs are – New York, Boston, wherever they have the best opportunity. This always results in a scramble for housing, but one way or another they work it out.
Middlebury is also well known and well respected among Ivy League – and other top – graduate schools. I think it’s difficult to make a direct comparison to YNC in graduate school placement as YNC is relatively new.
If you have doubts, write to Middlebury’s economics and CS departments and ask them what kind of summer internships their graduates have held and which graduate programs they’ve been admitted to. I don’t have experience with Middlebury per se, but as a general statement the selective liberal arts colleges all have excellent graduate school admissions records, robust internship placement and helpful alumni/ae networks.
Jobs after graduation are tricky to predict for international students in the U.S. Right now, it’s difficult – but not impossible – for internationals with undergraduate degrees to find jobs with American companies. The market loosens up a bit with a graduate degree, but there are too many variables to generalize. I think you have to take it step by step and concentrate on the immediate goal at hand which is your undergraduate experience. A lot can change over time. You may want to stay in the U.S. or you may not.
I think the biggest difference between your two choices is the widely different environments and cultures – urban Singapore vs rural Vermont – hard to find two more disparate surroundings. My son attended a small rural New England LAC – not Middlebury, but similar. Up to that point, he had only ever lived in mega-cities (in the U.S. and Asia) and the opportunity to spend four years in a remote but beautiful mountain setting was a strong positive. He enjoyed the insular close-knit campus community and access to outdoorsy activities. Which is best for you is a highly subjective decision, however. There is no right answer.
As far as abstract prestige goes, it depends on whom you’re talking to. In New York, Boston, throughout the Northeast and among people who have an awareness of selective colleges, Middlebury is well known and respected. In Asia /ANZ, all small LACs have low name recognition, so be prepared for a lot of blank stares from people who don’t follow USNWR rankings :). I would assume that “Yale” in YNC would garner greater respect in Asia. It’s a subtle thing: if you want a college that shouts Big Name, then Middlebury isn’t it, but those who know it, recognize the value of a Middlebury education.