Singaporean connection

Student Lounge International Students
481

<p>Very good. Wassup junior!</p>

<p>edwinksl and elysium have done a good job, so I'll just contribute whatever I can.</p>

<p>For U Penn Wharton:
Basically you're still applying to U Penn, but in the application you will indicate that you are gunning for the Wharton school, and not the nursing school or college of arts and sciences. This applies regardless of ED or RD.</p>

<p>For Financial Aid:
Some US colleges may allow applying ED with requests for aid, some may not. You need to check the websites of the respective colleges. And please note: Don't expect much (need-based) financial aid. You won't get much because of your property price - which when converted to US dollars, is still substantially higher than those in the US. This screws up your financial profile and makes you look wealthier than you really are. And those folks in the US actually expect you to mortgage your home to finance your studies if they think you can afford to.</p>

<p>On Recommendations:
What happens is this - you get your teachers' commitments, you get the respective envelopes for the respective universities you are going to apply to, you pass them these envelopes, they put it in, and seal it. They will either post it for u or they will ask u to do it. Depends. For the Common App, they will NOT use the Common App teacher rec form, but RJ's one. SO yes, they will use their same rec (multiple copies) for all the universities that u apply to - one for each uni. Don't worry, in the coming months, RJ will hold US uni application talks, which will clarify a lot.</p>

<p>On Olympiads:
Okkaaayyyy...yes sometimes being in the midst of brilliant minds just demoralizes you - but please, don't worry. As I said, some schools are almost impossible to get into, and even olympiads don't guarantee success. One of my army mates got rejected by Yale even though he was ranked No.1 in the world for biology olympiads in his year. The key thing is to play to your strengths and interest - what did you do that was different and stood out? DO you have a passion for something unconventional? These US unis will be like "Ok kid, we know you have your distinctions, yes, we know you were captain of whatever, but WHO ARE YOU REALLY?" Show them a side of YOU that they won't know through your application forms. Just be yourself, but make it tasteful haha.</p>

<p>Who gives RJ the luurve? I would think:
Cornell
Michigan
Wisconsin-Madison
Chicago
Just go check out edwinksl's link to success rates</p>

<p>Good point on NS deferment: Please check the policies of schools towards deferment. If not sure, email them. Berkeley accepts NO deferment whatsoever, so if you want to go there, you have to apply in your last year of NS. Elysium, Berkeley is not easy to get in, just because it receives so many applications, especially from Asians. More than half the campus is Asian (ethnicity speaking) I think. I really can't comment on VJ students coz' I have no idea.</p>

<p>Good luck!!!</p>

482

<p>Thanks! That was really informative! :)</p>

483

<p>lol, one of my friends got into princeton without any olympiad in ED WITH GRANTS FROM PRINCETON. he just got 4 As and 2 s paper distinction for prelim. he didn even bother to go back school to take his results. i know all of u may think '***' but it is true. I think it is how u present yourself in the application that matters. they want someone that is unique and can bring diversity to the campus. results are not that important. may b this is an isolated case, i dont know. luck may b?
i think by joining the academic forum of ur dream school and participate actively may help. who knows, may be one professor just happens to get his eyes on u. lol</p>

484

<p>Lol. Elysium, I have a friend who didn't even do as well as your friend in A-levels. But his essay was phenomenal. And in he got in Princeton ED with full aid.</p>

485

<p>ok, i'm wondering whether that friend is albert87. if so, that guy isn't considered under the SG pool as he is a bruneian.</p>

486

<p>OMG, he is on CC? I think its a toss up. He did completed pre-u under the sg system.</p>

487

<p>unless you are a really stella candidate, you are most likely not going to get into Wharton if you apply direct - especially not as a RD applicant. DT is right on UPenn, ED gives you a DRAMATIC boost on your chances. thus if you really want to get into UPenn (or Wharton but you're not Lee Hong Yi), then the safest way to go is probably to ED UPenn Engineering or Arts and Sciences, and then apply for a double degree with Wharton after your first year. A lot of Singaporeans do that, and it's not hard to qualify at all - i heard you just need 3.5 GPA or something, which is easily achieveable by most Singaporeans. Of course, there's a risk involved... UPenn might suddenly realized students are taking advantage of this system and ban it altogether... but it's the most viable option for most IMO. </p>

<p>As for financial aid, I suppose DT's comments are based on what ng e-ching said (the property theory sounds really familiar), but let me assure you that it is not true. Most American unis do not expect you to mortgage your house just to pay for your university expenses. I personally got a full ride to two liberal arts colleges, and my effective family contribution was only $1500-$3000 USD a year - and I'm quite sure my little HDB flat is worth more than that... I also got a friend who got into Harvard and his effective family contribution is nearly as low as mine... and he lives in landed property. I suspect that he underquoted his assets and colleges usually won't and can't check the values of the assets that you declared, but that's completely out of the point. The point is, you still CAN expect a decent amount of financial aid as a Singaporean.</p>

488

<p>Anyone applying via Questbridge?</p>

489

<p>woebegone,</p>

<p>LACs tend to be more generous in their financial aid (see endowments per student), not surprised you got full rides to them (is one of them Conn College btw?), but I think the type of property your parents own matters. My friend lives in a condo and he only obtained 10k from both Reed and Oberlin, none from Colby. Family is still contributing to the condo, and it's worth more than a HDB, but otherwise his situation is pretty bad - Dad past retirement: can't take up substantial loans, Mum: not working, Sis: just starting out and the expenses (with the hourse, utilities and all) take up a pretty big slice of family income. He would have needed at the very least 30k per year in aid. He explained his situation clearly to all the ad comms but it didn't pan out.</p>

<p>It really all depends on what criteria the colleges/unis use when they are calculating your financial profile and how much weight they choose to place on your asset value. And yes, if you are a stronger applicant, they will be more inclined to give you more aid - though it will most probably come from merit based aid. </p>

<p>But what about the guy in Harvard who lived in landed property? My next point:</p>

<p>For your lucky Harvard friend, my point may become more pertinent - if he had declared fully, the outcome may have been different, but this is out of point, but only because of Harvard's pledge to fully meet the needs of every applicant that is admitted and enrolled. I heard this at a Harvard admissions talk 2 years ago. Whatever your friend's financial profile was, when he got admitted, as long as he explained his situation, they would have given him sufficient/generous aid coupled with work/study arrangements that satisfied. Many schools purport to meet full demonstrated need but the demonstrated need is determined from the financial profile. I don't think that applies to Harvard as rigidly. If your friend can corroborate or refute with his knowledge of Harvard's fin aid policy, it would be useful.</p>

<p>Again for fin aid, take the advice of woebegone and other posters about need blind, merit based aid and the like. Something you should try: Write to the Lee Foundation and state your case - a friend of my father's once wanted to go to Vassar College and his father refused to finance it because it had no "prestige" in Singapore (whatever). He wrote a letter to the Lee Foundation and within 2 weeks got a cheque for 400 k. But make sure you manage to call and speak to someone, and establish some form of contact and process, because they don't work fast and if you email them they may miss it and forget about your case.</p>

<p>Having said all that, I'll be glad if I (and by extension, ng e ching) am wrong in this assessment coz' that means that more Singaporeans can finance their studies in the States.</p>

<p>elysium, posting on the academic forum may help, but knowing a key admissions officer in the university will help even more ;)</p>

490

<p>D.T., i know getting to know a key admission officer will help more. but the problem is how to 'hook up' with one. any ideas or friendly advice?</p>

491

<p>Haha yeah one of them is Conn College (the other is Bates) and I'm going there this fall.. Hmm I don't know about your friend, but I know of quite a few Singaporeans who got financial aid in excess of 30K to schools like Harvard, Yale, MIT, Williams and Middlebury, among which I am quite sure not all live in HDB flats. Okay as I typed that list out I realize they are the typically generous schools with need-blind policies (though need-blind has nothing to do with this technically speaking), but if these schools are willing to look past fixed assets like your house, I don't see why other schools which also pledge to meet full demonstrated aid (and quite a few do) can't. Perhaps the policy varies from college to college, or it depends on how much the college wants the kid. Perhaps you are right. We may be talking about need-based aid, but the so-called demonstrated aid is determined by the college. And how much the college wants the kid will determine how stringent the college assesses the kid's need. My guess is that the schools want your friend, but didn't want him badly enough to pay him 30K/year, so they offered him the admission with 10K aid in the hope that he will decide to take loans or sell his condo to attend college. It's terrible to attach a price tag to a student's worth but that's the dark side to college finaid i guess. </p>

<p>As for Harvard, I think they waive the family contribution portion if your annual income falls below a certain amount... And this amount keeps going up (making it easier to qualify) as more schools - I believe Yale and recently Amherst, along with several others - entered into the competition. That seems to suggest only income is taken into the consideration and fixed assets are disregarded - I'm not sure about this - and that may explain why my friend (and his brother in fact) got so much aid from Harvard despite owning a private property. </p>

<p>okay i think i'm rambling... (typing in the office in between alt-tabs breaks your train of thought easily haha) but let me just conclude that while the situation may not be as hopeful as I made it out to be in my previous post, it should be fair to say that it is not that bleak either. many people have done it before, so it's definitely possible!</p>

<p>oh and that thing about lee foundation sounds incredible! there's actually such a thing? 400K cheque just like that?! did it happen recently or was it long long ago? (u mention your dad's friend...)</p>

492

<p>Ah ok, yes I think that was what the Harvard fin aid thing was about.</p>

<p>Yeah, there's such a thing, but that was about 30 years ago. But my dad says they are still doing this kind of work, albeit on a smaller scale I think coz' there's just too many people wanting to go to the US these days.</p>

493

<p>Oh okay... I remember my colleague was telling me that in the past you just need to get admitted into the university and pay for your flight there... I assumed he was talking about UK universities (coz it was still the fad back then) which left me pondering how come they were so generous back then unlike now... So maybe he was talking about this Lee foundation thing too. There's also a Loke Cheng Kim foundation that funds one to two students every year with no strings attached... this one is definitely not defunct coz I know a senior who got it last year. Probably the best deal of all haha.</p>

494

<p>Those were the days when paying for your (one-way) air ticket meant working for six months after graduation, which is what my uncle claims to have done :p</p>

<p>The LCK scholarship is a great deal, but they have a tendency to give scholarships to people who choose subjects that are difficult to get scholarships for, and those who do get it are either 1) beyond outstanding 2) truly passionate about what they want to do. The people I know who got it last year are studying english, architecture and vet. science.</p>

495

<p>haha true... i can imagine it's harder to justify why you need the LCK scholarship if you were doing something more mainstream. something along the lines of 'don't want to be bonded', while valid, may not be compelling enough. anyway yeah the senior of mine is doing architecture.. </p>

<p>but i think it was quite different in the past. i remember reading a list of LCK alumni somewhere and they were all from schools like Oxbridge and Caltech doing very predictable majors haha.</p>

496

<p>Hi people, Im from singapore and currently doing my NS. Im gonna finish is Mar '08 and would like to attend a US university after that to pursue my studies.
Unlike most of the people here, I have done rather poorly for my A Levels. I obtained C, D, E for Maths, Physics and Chem respectively. I plan to study business and major in either finance or insurance/risk management.
While i understand that i am not in the same league as many of the people who post here, i hope someone can enlighten me on what universities i might possibly want to look into to pursue my studies.
I have taken my SAT and got 570 for CR 590 Writing and 800 Math.
Any advice is most welcome.</p>

<p>And yes, in case any of you are wondering, the reason im choosing to study overseas is because im unable to get into a business course in singapore. =)</p>

497

<p>hit a cc and transfer. it's a good option. brush up on your SATs.</p>

498

<p>Hope is not lost. First things first, redo your SAT until you get 2100 and above. Use your O levels to apply. Or apply for some high school or CC in the US. </p>

<p>I'm sure SIM has a business program from SUNY buffalo. U can take that and maybe transfer.</p>

499

<p>so... any singa peeps going to McGill this fall?</p>

500

<p>hello s'pore
this forum is a godsend. my eyes were about to bleed from reading college review websites which are quite useless and completely irrelevant for international students. i really don't know whether to trust them. </p>

<p>i'm currently a j2 looking into US education (a little late, i regret to say), and most probably going on father mother scholarship because i will never get a govt scholarship and neither do i want to serve a bond.</p>

<p>it's not that i'm particularly affluent. but these days quite a lot of people do that right? </p>

<p>anyway i just wanted to know:
-is it about time to start writing essays and asking for recommendations? (3 to 4 weeks before prelims?) and what if you have the worst CT ever. my recommendations are clearly not going to be very outstanding.</p>

<ul>
<li>are schs like u of chic, umich, uva, cornell etc (and by that i mean no HYPs) easy to get into even for relatively average students? for eg. no olympiads and leadership positions whatsoever. -_-</li>
</ul>

<p>-liberal arts, or large universities? i always have the impression that LAC's are erm, liberal. and artsy. what if i want to do something science? are LAC's still right for me. </p>

<p>thanks guys (really, where are the girls?!)</p>