<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I cannot decide whether I should go to NUS or BU. which will get me into a better masters</p>
<p>depends largely on where you wish to get your “better masters”, but i personally think that for the US, BU’ll have an edge… oh- and where’re you from? i guess that’ll matter too! :)</p>
<p>oh- and while the people are at it (discussing BU versus NUS), whatsay about UCLA versus NUS (in terms of getting a better US/UK masters)!</p>
<p>I’m going to say BU, too.</p>
<p>(NUS is still a fantastic school, highly respected. But if you’re going to be working in the US, or working in Southeast/East Asia, BU would still be the way to go, IMO).</p>
<p>Definitely NUS if you are taking Engineering/Law/Medicine. If it’s social sciences or arts you are after then United States will be better by longshot. However NUS is ranked like top 5 for engineering globally and very highly for law and medicine too. One of the main reasons why us Singaporeans go overseas is to basically experience life outside this 30km across island where we have been living for so long. NUS is unparalled in some fields and if you are an Indian citizen, this is by far the cheapero option.</p>
<p>A large propotion of my friends who graduated from NUS go on to study in Oxbridge or HYSMC for their masters.</p>
<p>merlion (lol! nice username): i have to disagree here! yes- NUS is definitely a good school and surely good for engineering- among the best in asia for sure! but i’d disagree with you when you say it’s a better option. NUS ranks high (not top 5, i’m sure), but ever tried looking into the rankings? they take into consideration “number of foreign students” for diversity… and you know better than me… about how “diverse” NUS is! majority of the population is ASEAN/Indian/Chinese. so… though they have a HUGE number of foreign students, it’s not that diverse a student body. second, they take into consideration the number of foreign instructors- again… same as the first point. next comes faculty to student ratio. a significant proportion of the NUS/NTU faculty is research faculty and don’t really teach. so though the ratio’s pretty low, actual class sizes are HUGE!! i crashed a few lectures at NUS and NTU… after having lived in singapore for 2 years and knowing people in NUS, i’d definitely say it’s overrated by the rankings… again, it’s a good school. definitely. but just not THAT good. and yeah, it’s definitely a cheaper option! by far!! there’s the bond but that’s not a biggie! most people like to go for work ex before they head to grad school! so if finances are an issue, NUS. otherwise, i’d still say BU! :)</p>
<p>i cannot see any reason why NUS should be ranked in the top 50 in the world</p>
<p>go to US if you want something new :)</p>
<p>You know what Tuna…most of the criticisms you have on how NUS appears better on paper actually applies to U.S. universities too! More so if you asked me. Gaming the rankings have been around the U.S. for a long time, and I won’t be surprised if BU does it as well.</p>
<p>limnieng: wow! that’s some allegation!</p>
<p>1) NUS has students MAINLY from india, china and the ASEAN countries… agreed? i can’t really comment on BU since i don’t know much about it- to be frank. so i’ll just choose to talk about UCLA… students go to UCLA from over 120 countries. so though there are less than 10% internationals, they come from crazily different backgrounds- and THAT’S real diversity. that’s what adds “value” to a university- the fact that you interact with people from soooo many different countries with different values, different traditions and ways of life! 
performance in ranking stats?? NUS gets awarded a 100/100 on “number of international students”, while UCLA gets merely 36!!</p>
<p>2) international faculty… well, i attended several lectures at NUS and NTU- sadly, their “international faculty” mainly consists of chinese and indian profs who’re frankly worse than even their singaporean counterparts when it comes to teaching!! (SMU does a much better job in this department though… they have faculty recruited from top-colleges all over the world including wharton, IIMs, HBS, UCLA, LSE, berkeley, oxford, cambridge etc. etc.). UCLA might have a lower proportion of international faculty- but those who’re there are there for a reason. example? terence tao!! he’s arguably the world’s most intelligent man alive right now and the greatest mathematician of the modern times!! he won a gold at the IMO at age 13! the guy’s a GENIUS! so that’s why he’s there!! and every other international faculty member at UCLA (they have detailed student reviews at <a href=“http://www.bruinwalk.com%5B/url%5D”>www.bruinwalk.com</a>) is there for a reason- unlike NUS. result? NUS gets a 100/100 for international faculty and UCLA gets a 23/100!!! </p>
<p>3) 6 factors were taken into considerations for the times higher education rankings (the only rankings that place NUS as high as UCLA- according to the rest, UCLA pwns NUS- anyways) so… for 2/6 factors, NUS scores crazily over UCLA… they STILL are ranked the same… so if we remove those factors where NUS has an “unfair” advantage, NUS goes down in the rankings!! if we hypothetically give UCLA 100s in both these categories (like NUS unfairly gets), UCLA (initial rank of both NUS and UCLA is 30) <em>sighs at how UCLA is underrated</em> gets the same rank as (drumrolls) STANFORD!! and if we award NUS the points that UCLA got according to the rankings (for those 2 given factors), NUS goes down from rank 30 to rank 144. see the difference??</p>
<p>:) still not impressed? ;)</p>
<p>Sorry, still not impressed… but then again, did I say anything about being impressed with UCLA or not? :)</p>
<p>I did not say that NUS did not game the ranking. Neither did I dispute that UCLA should comes up tops in a ranking exercise with NUS.</p>
<p>My only point was that your criticisms of NUS gaming the rankings to appear higher than they should on paper also rings true for a lot of U.S. universities, though I will be hard-pressed to provide evidence on any specific college. However, I believe there’s a recent scandal involving USC (see: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-southern-california/727030-ranking-rigging-usc.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-southern-california/727030-ranking-rigging-usc.html</a> ) and UF (see: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/732180-uf-president-cooks-usnews-rankings.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/732180-uf-president-cooks-usnews-rankings.html</a> )</p>
<p>As for UCLA,</p>
<p>1) As you said, the “crazily different backgrounds” of internationals only account for 10% of the student populace, making it difficult for me to concede that “the fact that you (will) interact with people from soooo many different countries with different values, different traditions and ways of life!” is indeed a fact.</p>
<p>2) Again I did not dispute that UCLA may have a more prominent faculty than NUS, nor did I say that the international faculty criteria is a valid factor in assessing faculty quality. But guess what, Terence Tao has not taught a single undergraduate course since 2005.</p>
<p>3) Please…I have never said anything to the effect that NUS and UCLA should be ranked equally, so you don’t have go on the defensive and impress me that precious UCLA is great. You enthusiasm in being a Bruin is commendable but try to rein it in lest you appear arrogant.</p>
<p>Therefore, in saying to me “wow! that’s some allegation!”, please read carefully on what I’m actually alleging before commenting. I don’t think I made any amazingly surprising allegation that merited astonishment.</p>
<p>P.S. UCLA do receive some criticisms of being higher on some rankings than they should, due to the selectivity criteria where UCLA has the advantage of being the most applied to undergrad college in the U.S., making its selectivity percentage a lot lower. Though I wouldn’t say this is gaming the rankings, it’s simply the factual situation; same as NUS having a huge number of foreign students is a factual situation. Some criterions on rankings just don’t convey an accurate or adequate picture of what they allegedly convey, NUS, UCLA, BU or otherwise.</p>
<p>Good job Tuna, nice to know UCLA has 10% international students (which it doesn’t… it only has 5% 630 out of 12098) and nice to know UCLA has Terrence Tao. Wow seriously the OP was asking about BU, why do you talk so much about UCLA… I agree with limnieng, your posts seem very very arrogant…</p>
<p>dude! i said “there are less than 10% internationals”- so peace out… i didn’t bother getting exact stats, so yeah!! and i was basically doing a US versus NUS discussion to reply to what limnieng said. and i don’t know much about BU. why? cuz i didn’t apply there and i’m not going there. that’s the ONLY reason why i used UCLA instead. oh- and i’d say, in reality, even a purdue degree’s better than an NUS one. i really thought NUS was awesome at one point of time and that was precisely why i went to singapore after the 10th grade- for NUS- but after spending days on campus (crashing friends’ lectures and staying with them), NUS seemed far less impressive compared to how high the ranking shows it.</p>
<p>arrogant? i won’t say that i’m not proud of going to UCLA. i definitely am! but showing off or being arrogant wasn’t the intention here. it was just a comparison of a how NUS unfairly trumps US universities in the rankings due to certain misleading factors taken into counting. if i sounded arrogant, i apologize.</p>
<p>limnieng- i agree american schools do play around with the rankings. i’ve heard of a VERY prestigious school using admitted students’ stats as the enrolling class’ stats. so that’s definitely true- but the NUS case is extreme, i’d say. and no, NUS is NOT lying. it’s just that the factors taken by THES favor NUS. i agree UCLA (or for the sake of our dear friend, ysbera, ANY OTHER COLLEGE WITH A DECENT INTERNATIONAL NAME) has very few internationals- but then again, i really do think that because of the different backgrounds, it contributes more towards the “out of the classroom learning” part that colleges want to achieve by having people from all over. all i’m saying is… that NUS is overrated by the rankings. i did NOT intend to be defend UCLA (bah! UCLA wasn’t even in question when the OP started the thread), i just wanted to compare two apparently equally ranked colleges. peace out, guys! :)</p>
<p>triti, i’d say BU! there’re different opinions floating around. read up, do some research and form your own informed opinion! good luck! :)</p>
<p>@Tuna Hmm. maybe I just took your message the wrong way. :D.</p>
<p>But I have to agree, I think top US schools are the best universities in the world but again I think it’s kind of hard to compare schools from different countries. This is because each school is to an extent designed to provide labor for it’s own domestic market. </p>
<p>Regarding on which will get you into a better master program, can you please specify where though? But anyways I’ll assume you are talking about US Ivy Leagues. I would assume BU would get you easier into one of them because their admission offices are more familiar with BU’s education quality. But you should research more into the requirements into the masters program you want and then see which school would allow you to do better to meet and exceed those requirements.</p>
<p>NUS is overrated, especially in Singapore and in ASEAN countries. NUS prides itself in the fact that they are 30th among world university rankings and 4th in Asia, but the honest truth is that these rankings are very bad indicators when it comes to gauging the quality of academics in a school. BU is obviously the winner here, and will provide many more resources as compared to NUS.</p>
<p>If you guys notice, there’s is new ranking table of top 400 universities in the world on USNews.com
and it’s ridiculous to see in there schools like LSE and Dartmouth are ranked lower than Nus…</p>
<p>i see a lot of singaporeans here ****ting on NUS
but let’s be perfectly honest, it’s a lot better than a second/third-tier US uni like BU</p>
<p>^ not alot better, but yeah i think NUS > BU if you aren’t working in the US</p>
<p>meh. UCLA and BU = party schools!</p>
<p>@hbrad8002: lol ditto</p>
<p>Most college bound Singaporeans consider rankings almost exclusively when considering overseas colleges, particularly to the U.S. My observation is that there are 2 practical and important considerations often overlooked (or denied) in this process:</p>
<p>1) Accessibility of resource: A lot of the high-ranking colleges are ranked highly because of the eminent faculty, great laboratories, excellent programs for internship etc. Quite a few college-bound CC-ers also often mention that they are going to XXX college because of this or that great opportunity or resource. But guess what…much of these are only accessible at the graduate level. Eminent Prof. only does research and care for their fav grad student, most don’t teach undergrad. Lab research are the exclusive territories of grads too. Programs that are accessible to undergrads are the usual candidates: exchange programs (to NUS etc…) and cheap labor to work in school. Both also accessible at NUS. Therefore, when you strip the resource factor away from these prestigious colleges, what they offer is going to look a lot like NUS.</p>
<p>2) Peer Influence: Contrary to some expectation, the average college-bound Singaporean is going to be more academically-inclined than the average U.S. white boy (I use “white boy” without racial slur, primarily because Asian have a rep in the U.S. for being very nerdy and smart. This is due to the strong emphasis on education coming from the home. But for a place like BU in the east coast, then you’re going to be surrounded by “white boy”). I’m not going to say smarter, not only because its politically incorrect, but also I don’t think it’s necessarily true. it’s just that the average U.S. high school grad is simply not as prepared for the academic environment as is a Singaporean JC student. They often suffer a rude shock at the rigor required to ace a college module when compared to high school courses. Not only are they ill-prepared, a lot of U.S. students also don’t seem to want to be prepared. U.S. students talk about this elusive concept of a “college experience” when choosing a college, but what is it exactly? At the end of the day, I think it’s a glorified term to justify having fun and games at the college level, a term crafted so that it seems that constant parties and craziness while being an undergrad is some sort of an entitlement. These two factors combined is a potent distractor to academic hard work and commitment. Thus I often see the Singaporean student here ace their course with relative ease when compared to their classmates (Grades are often graded on a curve). However, this also means that the Singaporean student is a lot less academically challenged when surrounded by U.S. college students than at NUS.</p>
<p>Rankings are the worst measure of how good a school is and you should never use it to judge a school. NUS is just a sad sad school, who’s too pompous for their own good. You will get no where with NUS. No where… The lack of diversity, innovation, etc. at NUS is just plain sad. Good luck on your decision thoughI really mean it.</p>