<p>To be perfectly honest, the world in general is not a very good place to live in. lol</p>
<p>we could at least manage a bare survival before Bush came along</p>
<p>woah woah woah I just found my way to this discussion and why is everybody so cynical and anti-govt and anti-raffles and anti-gep :( :( :(</p>
<p>It's not about being bitter. I am thankful I was born in Singapore and had I not been, I would not be the person I am today.</p>
<p>The decision is not regretting one's previous citizenship, but wondering whether it is wise to continue citizenship.</p>
<p>GEP would be less of a scam if 1) entrance was not merely based on an tutorable exam 2) it identified kids with actual aptitude (and who, having their gifts bloom late, might become victim of a 'vicious cycle') as opposed to kids who are merely doing well in their previous non-GEP environment 3) relied (like the college application system) on teacher recommendations that actually looked at real intellectual passion and a drive for learning. </p>
<p>Maybe the secondary school entrance process should also make kids write "why school X" essays, just to give them a small taste of college applications. ;) That would help weed out the kids who go to elite secondary school X simply because their parents have been pushing them to do so. PSLE Common App, anyone?</p>
<p>
[quote]
GEP would be less of a scam if 1) entrance was not merely based on an tutorable exam 2) it identified kids with actual aptitude (and who, having their gifts bloom late, might become victim of a 'vicious cycle') as opposed to kids who are merely doing well in their previous non-GEP environment 3) relied (like the college application system) on teacher recommendations that actually looked at real intellectual passion and a drive for learning.
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</p>
<p>in the first place, is GEP even a system that we should keep and perpetuate? </p>
<p>and how do you suppose we identify those kids? uniformly excellent teacher recommendations cannot weed out the good and bad. i hope you don't believe that teachers would actually write bad recommendations. behavior in classroom is also tutorable. wow, wouldn't it be great if parents begin sending their kids for acting classes?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Maybe the secondary school entrance process should also make kids write "why school X" essays, just to give them a small taste of college applications. That would help weed out the kids who go to elite secondary school X simply because their parents have been pushing them to do so. PSLE Common App, anyone?
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</p>
<p>do you suppose that if essays became a requirement for getting into top schools, parents would keep themselves away from the essays? essays are equally tutorable, and in the end, you perpetuate the educated upper class because educated parents tend to write better essays. please stop treating the flawed American college application process like some kind of godsend. every single thing is coachable and can be faked. </p>
<p>also, who cares if kids aim for top schools of their own volition or their parents'? to anyone who believes in true meritocracy, these kids have every right to enter the top schools if they're qualified, regardless of how.</p>
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uniformly excellent teacher recommendations cannot weed out the good and bad.
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<p>"Uniformly excellent" == average </p>
<p>There will be recommendations that will stand out because they will display the candidate's intellectual passion (as opposed to mugging and doing well because society told them to). </p>
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parents would keep themselves away from the essays?
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<p>Such actions would destroy the "voice" of those essays ... just as parent intervention also tends to backfire in college essays.</p>
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these kids have every right to enter the top schools if they're qualified, regardless of how.
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<p>Ah, but what is qualified? The very idea of "gifted" is about aptitude and talent, not just current performance or mere grades. Current performance is the y, not the y'; I should believe that the student whose mugging-based performance has been egged on by society, as opposed to a student who takes charge of his/her learning, is not qualified.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"Uniformly excellent" == average </p>
<p>There will be recommendations that will stand out because they will display the candidate's intellectual passion (as opposed to mugging and doing well because society told them to).
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<p>and how do you suppose teachers would know the difference? how would teachers know if "society" didn't whisper to them outside the classroom, in the middle of the night, to mug hard enough to stay ahead in the rat race? short of a polygraph test or a mind-reader, any screening process you ask for would depend on measuring ostensible and coachable attributes.</p>
<p>and are you actually serious about trying to find "intellectual passion" in a 12 year-old?</p>
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Such actions would destroy the "voice" of those essays ... just as parent intervention also tends to backfire in college essays.
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<p>an extremely outstanding essay would backfire, but an extremely outstanding teacher recommendation wouldn't? how do you control for the teacher's favoritism if that personal bias has nothing to do with the student's aptitude? anyway, the child you're looking for - someone with "intellectual passion" and a maturity beyond his years - would probably write an essay that backfires.</p>
<p>don't talk in ambiguous terms like "destroying the voice of the essay" - in the first place, when is a "voice" valid, genuine or acceptable, and when is it not? a consistent and clear "voice" could easily be achieved by a parent who writes the entire essay. successful examples of essays with a "genuine voice" could be emulated. they will definitely happen in Singapore.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Ah, but what is qualified? The very idea of "gifted" is about aptitude and talent, not just current performance or mere grades. Current performance is the y, not the y'; I should believe that the student whose mugging-based performance has been egged on by society, as opposed to a student who takes charge of his/her learning, is not qualified.
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</p>
<p>seriously, what do you have against mugging and coaching? results are results, whatever the motives behind the accomplishment. why should the accomplishments of good students be diminished even if they were mostly pressured to do so? if you have shown yourself to be just as capable as some other naturally-gifted kid, why would you deserve the rewards less than him? </p>
<p>everybody has been coached throughout childhood, one way or another. as long as you've stepped into school, read textbooks and novels on your own, you HAVE been coached, knowingly or not, by some segment of society. while no examination is perfect or "uncoachable", it is ridiculous to suppose that there's an alternative process available today that is.</p>
<p>A parent-written essay would not be an "extremely outstanding" essay. On the contrary, it would be ill-fitting with the style of the rest of the application and be quite poor. Even if it was written in the most lucid prose, the voice wouldn't match that of the student in the rest of the application, or even if the voice were consistent, a parent will inevitably fail to express (or will express them cheesily) the passion and drive in the essays that a real applicant would exhibit. </p>
<p>A considerably mature applicant will write an essay with voice.</p>
<p>Parents cannot write essays for their children with any sort of real voice. The kind of real voice where the applicant not only employs a variety of rhetorical techniques, but does so to the heart of the adcoms, regularly switching between maturity and intimacy ("Well it all began in primary three...") Using parent-written essays is sort of like trying to feed essays through a translator. You can tell right away.</p>
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and are you actually serious about trying to find "intellectual passion" in a 12 year-old?
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<p>That is when it tends to be developed, isn't it?</p>
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as long as you've stepped into school, read textbooks and novels on your own, you HAVE been coached, knowingly or not, by some segment of society.
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<p>Because not being coached means that, when you step out, you will actually make some sort of intellectual contribution to society as you grow up, rather than parroting what society has told you.</p>
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and how do you suppose teachers would know the difference?
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<p>Anecdotes are the most vivid. </p>
<p>Maybe interviews would work too.</p>
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A parent-written essay would not be an "extremely outstanding" essay. On the contrary, it would be ill-fitting with the style of the rest of the application and be quite poor. Even if it was written in the most lucid prose, the voice wouldn't match that of the student in the rest of the application,
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</p>
<p>simple: let the parent take charge of the entire application. you can bet that'll happen here.
[quote]
or even if the voice were consistent, a parent will inevitably fail to express (or will express them cheesily) the passion and drive in the essays that a real applicant would exhibit.
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</p>
<p>is that failure you speak of something that students are incapable of? on the contrary, a wide-eyed 12 year-old neophyte to the English language may tend to overuse cliched phrases and expressions and use big and bombastic words in the most awkward fashions.</p>
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A considerably mature applicant will write an essay with voice.
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</p>
<p>a considerably mature person could do the same - say, a parent?
[quote]
Parents cannot write essays for their children with any sort of real voice. The kind of real voice where the applicant not only employs a variety of rhetorical techniques, but does so to the heart of the adcoms, regularly switching between maturity and intimacy ("Well it all began in primary three...") Using parent-written essays is sort of like trying to feed essays through a translator. You can tell right away.
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</p>
<p>why do you regularly suppose that parents are incapable of that? it's equally valid to say that smart parents know how to pretend to be a primary school student. or they could hire people who know.</p>
<p>and what if you were wrong? what if you mistook a genuine voice for an artificial, coached one? you're asking for a perfect admission process that probably requires private investigators, polygraph tests, psychic mind-reading and 24-hour surveillance throughout the essay-writing process to achieve perfect candidate selection. but everything can be coached. you just have to face it.</p>
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Anecdotes are the most vivid. </p>
<p>Maybe interviews would work too.
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</p>
<p>and both, of course, can be coached. being the perfect angel in class isn't so hard if you're a vicious, ruthless go-getter, if you're desperate to get into top schools and have been told by parents that it's important to impress the teacher for that purpose, or if you try.</p>
<p>galoisien,</p>
<p>some schools in singapore don't even have the money to do simple upgrading programs... i'm not sure if they will even entertain the prospect of hiring a whole admission office to start reading application forms...</p>
<p>even then, the better and richer schools will probably provide better support and guidance/advice for their students, leading to higher success rates. and what does it lead to? elitism?</p>
<p>stop trying to paint an overidealistic picture of the US admission process just to diss the singapore system.</p>
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why do you regularly suppose that parents are incapable of that? it's equally valid to say that smart parents know how to pretend to be a primary school student. or they could hire people who know.
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</p>
<p>A parent has the ability to express in a great voice something that matches his or her person, individuality and so forth, but unlikely to create something that matches the character of the child. A parent may know how to craft an essay that sounded like it came from precocious child -- but not something that matches his or her child, especially when matched with coursework, interviews and the actual writing samples of the student. Furthermore, parents will often fail to fully "get" why their children's interest are directed in a certain fashion -- only the children themselves will; parents may understand the "symptoms" but not the root cause. </p>
<p>I am not being idealistic about the US admissions process; on the contrary I see many flaws. The goal here is to combine the best of both Singaporean and American processes, something which has always been my aim.</p>
<p>
[quote]
even then, the better and richer schools will probably provide better support and guidance/advice for their students, leading to higher success rates. and what does it lead to? elitism?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Just like the top schools in Singapore have been giving "support" to those students to go overseas, right? Ultimately the best applications will be the self-researched ones.</p>
<p>Note that the most elegant-sounding prose does not necessarily exhibit personality; that is what is meant by "voice".</p>
<p>
[quote]
A parent has the ability to express in a great voice something that matches his or her person, individuality and so forth, but unlikely to create something that matches the character of the child. A parent may know how to craft an essay that sounded like it came from precocious child -- but not something that matches his or her child, especially when matched with coursework, interviews and the actual writing samples of the student. Furthermore, parents will often fail to fully "get" why their children's interest are directed in a certain fashion -- only the children themselves will; parents may understand the "symptoms" but not the root cause.
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</p>
<p>you've merely expressed en entire paragraph of pure speculation that you're of course entitled to - but don't expect the rest of us to join in.</p>
<p>Ever seen a parent-assisted essay that was truly brilliant?</p>
<p>nope. neither have i seen Nepal. nor light being gravitationally bent by a star. but you must get used to the idea that the world doesn't revolve around you or me.</p>
<p>screw it da</p>
<p>Actually many stars you see are visible to you only because of gravitational lensing. But I digress. I'm only making am argument based on probability. You're the one speculating about parents - show me proof that they're a significant issue. Unless the parents are gifted themselves, REAL gifted kids should be smarter than their parents. The fact remains that many people currently in the GEP should not be there. (Look at how many grow up to rule the country, then look at our rank for press freedom.)</p>
<p>(Pardon the double post, i'm typing this from a phone.) I've never been impressed by GEPers' intellectual passion (or rather, their lack thereof). If it's not an MOE subject to mug for, they show little interest in it. Discussing quantum physics, libertarianism, non-Euclidean geometry, Euthyphro, etc. is quite out of question. Had Einstein been born in the Singaporean system he probably would have gone unrecognised, reduced to sweeping roads.</p>