<p>hey guys, do u know where i can get a list of schools that offer ED?</p>
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<p>This jumped out at me. Scholar = money is a very Singaporean connection (pun!). I guess I could understand the eyebrow raising if it was called a “scholarship”, but it’s not - it’s called the “Scholars Program”, effectively an honors program.</p>
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<p>It’s true that it’s “not that hard” for Singaporean students to get in most places, relatively speaking. As a group we have a lot of admissions advantages:</p>
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<li>many SG students are full pay</li>
<li>our A Level curriculum is rigorous, schools know students can handle the work, high incoming SAT scores</li>
<li>more proficient in English than many other internationals</li>
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<p>Then there is a certain “superstar effect” (google “superstar effect Cal Newport”) in your ECs - if you’re one of the best in Singapore at something, you’re “nationally ranked”. If you’ve taken part in any competitions at the national level, that gets reflected on your application as “national”-level participation. That comes off very well in the app (I freely admit I used this to my advantage in a couple of applications - ASEAN competitions are “international”, for example!)</p>
<p>We definitely have a lot more opportunities available to us than even the average “top” American student - imagine how internship/work experience at a ministry, stat board, law firm, accounting firm, whatever, GIC (a sovereign wealth fund!) looks like on an app. If your specialty is in a niche field, even better - big fish, small pond, “national” or “international” experience. We say no big deal, but really, it is a big deal.</p>
<p>I think it’s a difference of perception - we probably think of American schools as elite because many Singaporean students who do manage to go to these schools are on scholarship. I don’t doubt that getting in is easy. It’s the paying that’s difficult.</p>
<p>You guys got any info on dartmouth’s admission statistics for Singaporean. One year they take and reject how many? thanks a bunch</p>
<p>@Eloriel</p>
<p>Yup I was at the recent STRAITS TIMES scholarship & uni fair! Were you there too? (:</p>
<p>What do you mean by other passions/hobbies that you are successful in? I think the main passion I have is singing + creating music on my piano. So sometimes I make up songs on my piano but that’s purely for my own relaxation, I call it my escapism. But I don’t know whether that kind of stuff should be included in the PS, because it’s not exactly very substantial imo.</p>
<p>But my SAT1 was only 2060, and you talk about your >2300 as a genuine disappointment ._. Makes me feel like my chances are so bleak. Hopefully I’ll be able to score much better during my retake in Dec! If not then I can forget about applying to US. + my CCA was nothing spectacular, no leadership position cos it’s quite hard to get - my CCA has around 70 members in my batch alone. And regarding the holistic part, I’ve been reading some articles online and apparently they said you should focus on one or two activities to show that you’re really committed and not just doing it for portfolio. Admissions officers don’t really like to see a whole list of different clubs/societies you’re in.</p>
<p>Do you think U Virginia is recognised in Singapore btw? They’re ranked 2nd this year on BusinessWeek…but I don’t have the impression that Singapore employers recognise it.</p>
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<p>No exact numbers but it is probably going to be as competitive as HYPSM due to the need-blind and meet-full-need policy towards international students.</p>
<p>^ I heard they only take 2-3 max, due to the student body size. Somehow I don’t think it’s entirely need-blind actually.</p>
<p>@firrisse:</p>
<p>Yep I was at the fair 
You can guess who I am haha.</p>
<p>Well what I meant was certain talents - you play the piano. maybe you’ve won piano competitions? That would make you quite “successful”. Or if you sing and perform with a choir/singing group, or you’ve displayed your paintings somewhere, or have won some sporting events, etc.</p>
<p>About the SAT, 2060 isn’t very strong, you might want to retake it. Well I’m not being arrogant or anything, it’s just that I felt that I could’ve done more and got a higher score (I was careless, trust me). And all my friends were getting higher scores than me, so that made me a little demoralised haha. </p>
<p>And yes, you are right about the jack-of-all-trades bit. But that wasn’t what I was referring to when I said “holistic”. What I meant was, you can’t be just a one-sided character (mug 24/7, no social life, but fantastic grades), you have to have other sides to your personality, e.g. you volunteer with a society, you play in the national orchestra, etc. Oh and leadership positions/evidence of leadership is getting more important in the college admissions game, I think. Schools are increasingly looking out for leaders because these people indicate that they have potential to influence and inspire their community and the people around them. So having leadership experience is a definite plus.</p>
<p>UVA is widely thought of as the second-best public school in the US. I don’t dispute that. But I think you’re right, many employers probably won’t recognise it (it’s all Ivy League = good, anything else = nahh to them), many people I talked to don’t even know it exists. My friend who applied always has people asking her why she applied to Virginia, thinking it was some lousy school. Unless it has a niche area and you are looking for employment in that field (e.g. Berkeley’s computer science - infotech employers will probably know Berkeley’s name as compared to some other employer in another field that Berkeley is less famous for).</p>
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<p>I see that since you’re going to NYU you’d probably know about this. Yeah on the website it said that this program offered money along with it, but I called them up and they said it was a typo and removed it soon after. Thanks, NYU. Also, the offer letter arrived AFTER their response deadline. Lol.</p>
<p>And it’s not exactly an honors program /per se/, but I think it’s closer to the USP that’s being offered at NUS with special classes for scholars and some trip to Florence, Italy or something. I must admit, it was quite hard to give that opportunity up. :(</p>
<p>I have to LOL at the late offer letter, too. They mailed my health forms to me four weeks ago. I haven’t received them… I emailed them about it and they said well, if you haven’t received it, you can download the forms from the website and send it to us, and the one form that (I’m assuming) has some special barcode, you can fill it in when you arrive in NYC. Wow, wonderful.</p>
<p>While we’re at it, my class registration information also arrived late… and the promised information on microwave/fridge rental “that will be mailed during the summer” for NYU dorms is nowhere in sight, either…</p>
<p>… to be fair, though, they’re very quick to reply to email! I guess mail just can’t help getting lost on its way from the other side of the planet.</p>
<p>And yes, you’re right - the Scholars Program is probably closer to USP than to the typical honors program.</p>
<p>@firrisse:
Just me, but I wouldn’t put piano-playing in my personal statement - I would put it in the Extracurriculars section of the application. The general advice I give to Singaporean students who get overwhelmed by the number of ECs American students seem to have is: You have 24 hours a day. What do you do with them? Most students will find they have two or three other hobbies that take up a small but significant portion of their time - playing a musical instrument, playing a sport recreationally, volunteering, some sort of art, craft or skill that isn’t taught/developed through school or school-based activities (web design, cooking, that kind of thing). I’d put that stuff on the application - you usually don’t have to elaborate. Of course if you’ve reached some level of achievement in one or more of these hobbies, list them! But I wouldn’t worry too much about it.</p>
<p>Let’s put it this way… if by this point the ECs do not already reflect some strong areas of interest for you, it’s kind of late in the game to change anything. I don’t think necessarily having a long list hurts you - I think having a long incoherent list is what hurts. If we’ve got someone whose EC list includes being a Sungei Buloh tour guide, rescuing horseshoe crabs, working in a flower shop, volunteering with SPCA and being a member of the school’s Environmental Society, I don’t think anyone would accuse the applicant of resume-padding. Now if you had a student who was in the Ultimate Frisbee team, did the 30-Hour Hunger Challenge, played guitar, joined the Art Club, and then added “Environmental Society: Member” to his EC list, I think that would look like resume padding - ECs for the sake of ECs.</p>
<p>Fact is, most of us don’t have enough hours in the day to nurse more than a small number - probably not more than three - serious interests. If you do have enough of a passion or interest in something that you devote a fair chunk of your time to it, I don’t think it’s going to count against you if you list it as an EC.</p>
<p>@Eloriel: Oh haha I think I know who you are. You’re from UCB right? (:</p>
<p>I have never won any piano competitions before, because I didn’t even participate in them before. I hardly know anyone who participated in piano competitions unless they are really very good - ie music talent. Most people like me who play it leisurely just take ABRSM exams. But I have been playing since I was 3 years old though haha. I used to sing with Nanyang Girls’ Choir, which is quite a top notch choir, because we won the gold award in World Choir Games…but I didn’t participate in that because my parents didn’t allow me to. (It was in held Austria and costed >$3500 and it was near to my CA2 back in nanyang)</p>
<p>My interests do mainly stem from music and community work though…I have been quite actively volunteering in different things. However, I didn’t really had big leadership positions before (ie exco of CCAs) but I was my Service Learning project Team Leader - me and my team organised a public charity flea market. Mmm and I also learnt 4 years of french under MOELC. Should I talk about that in my PS or just list under EC?</p>
<p>Problem is, I still don’t quite get what is a good PS, because some of the sample PS that I’ve read from books that I’ve borrowed from my school lib is quite narrative, eg in one PS this girl talked about her near-sightedness and her glasses, then she linked it to being able to see things in perspective in life and all that. But to me it just seems rather forced, even though the comments she got were very good :/</p>
<p>Same goes for SAT Writing section! Some of the sample essays in the collegeboard book were built entirely on hypothetical examples and still got a 5 -.-</p>
<p>@gt607rmcf
does common app allow you to list your ECs?</p>
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<p>They are mainly looking at your language and expressions. By their standard, I believe you can say that William Shakespeare was born in the 1900s and they should not mark you down.</p>
<p>I typed a reply but lost the Wireless@SG connection, sigh:</p>
<p>@firrisse: I don’t know if Common App does - I applied to three US unis but only one used the Common App so I chose not to apply via Common App. I know that NYU’s non-Common App application has a section for listing ECs, years participated, avg involvement per week, etc.</p>
<p>Re personal statements - for US schools, the PS is typically not used to discuss what you’ve done but rather who you are/what interests you/what you believe/things that are important to you. The mark of a good PS is that it is highly specific to the applicant (after all, it’s meant to be sort of a window into your personality) so the reason you’re seeing lots of narrative personal statements is because many of them are “the story of how I came to believe X” or “the story of how I came to enjoy Y”. I didn’t apply to the UK but I believe UK applications are more achievement-oriented.</p>
<p>No need to mention French in your personal statement or in your ECs - French should be reflected on your NYGH transcript. It’s academic, not extracurricular.</p>
<p>SAT Writing is a whole different animal from JC writing. The emphasis is on essay/argument structure rather than on content. There have been examples of essays with factual errors that have scored high on the SAT Writing section. For the purposes of SAT Writing, a well-structured essay with weak content > an information-rich essay without a strong argument.</p>
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<p>Damn right. Just spend the 25min spamming whatever comes to mind and craft something logical/readable. Apparently the essay score is found to be proportional to length.</p>
<p>Hello everyone,</p>
<p>I’m 18 this year and just finished my CIE A levels. I’m sitting for my SAT Reasoning test in October and my A level results are coming out soon. Would anyone have any advice for me on gaining admission to a US university?</p>
<p>I did relatively well for my O levels and went to a poly. I stayed in the course for a year but quit because I didn’t want to study or work in that field (biomedical science) in the future. The poly calendar is out of sync with the JC calendar so I didn’t want to waste another 2 years+ to enrol again and decided to take the CIE A levels as a private candidate, especially since they are “easier” than the Singapore Cambridge A levels and they’re available in June.</p>
<p>Results-wise, I don’t think there’s much to talk about besides “get as high as possible”. The recommendations on the other hand might be a bit of a problem for me, as well as ECs.</p>
<p>My EC record was alright during my secondary school (international competition, Olympiad etc) but I haven’t had any recognized extracurricular activity for the the last 2 years. That’s not to say I did nothing besides study, I do have a small Internet Marketing business going on for one, but I don’t know if that or any of my other activities would be recognized the same way a school activity would be.</p>
<p>As for recommendations, I suppose I could go back to my secondary school for them. What about tutors? </p>
<p>Some of the common app forms are to be written by your high school counselor, I suppose I could fill those up myself and probably the home school supplement as well?</p>
<p>I’m planning to major in anthropology and/or classics with a math minor. I’m thinking of mainly the University of Michigan or the UCs at this point, reach schools – probably Dartmouth, Columbia and the top LACs.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
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<p>You can also look for your poly lecturers if they have a good impression of you.</p>
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<p>You might be interested googling for home-school students. Those are probably the most relevant instructions for you. I am not sure how counselor recommendations would work in your case.</p>
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<p>Yes, they will be recognized. Talk about them in your essays.</p>
<p>Anyone got their meningcoccal meningitis vaccination from TTSH Traveller’s Health and Vaccination Centre? How much did it cost?</p>
<p>I did. About $40.</p>
<p>Oh, that’s good. Was expecting it to cost more. Excellent.</p>
<p>How should I send recommendations from employers or anyone other than teachers?</p>
<p>i think this question is really relevant for everyone out there! </p>
<p>What do you think would make a killer common apps essay? </p>
<p>Face it, most of us here are Asians, ORM’s and that sucks, so i guess it would be cool if we knew what would be really loved by that guy who sits down and reads our essays like a fairytale before deciding whether we have passed through the first hoop…</p>