<p>1234 thanks...</p>
<p>so can anyone tell me if US colleges accept students with only secondary school cert? without A lvls?</p>
<p>i think they do... i know around 3 years back princeton took like 3 jc1 students from my batch for ED. but then again they were really outstanding even as j1s</p>
<p>cool .. i contacted USEIC , they said 80% of colleges will accept applicants with "just o levels" </p>
<p>yay!</p>
<p>1234d, I think that was because Princeton needed waterpolo players or something like that.</p>
<p>i know of a few singaporeans admitted to Princeton in J1 - they were all top school swimmers or even national reps.</p>
<p>petrina, you need to find out which ones do accept just o levels... i don't think columbia cornell etc do that often.</p>
<p>yes, but anyway, im pretty sure im going to do design/art, im fairly confident they accept students with just o levels( for example lasalle , and NAFA both are post-secondary with just o levels). I've e-mailed them, and hope to get an official reply soon. thanks everyone.</p>
<p>On the other hand, i would like to know why you(yes,you there , reading this) choose to go overseas rather than just staying in singapore.</p>
<p>
[quote]
fiona: actually being overrepresented may not be bad. it's just like a mini-NUS with a much better rep. if you're gonna come back to Singapore anyway, it's pretty unlikely that a lack of American connections would hurt you bad - in fact, the ridiculous number of singaporean scholars at umich would be a pretty powerful network. it's just like home i think i'll be homesick
[/quote]
</p>
<p>My reason for saying that Singaporeans are overrepresented, is because the diversity aspect doesn't come into play. A Singaporean at a Minnesota LAC is going to contribute diversity, a Singaporean at UMich is one of hundreds (exaggeration going on here...)</p>
<p>
[quote]
Originally posted by petrina_678
On the other hand, i would like to know why you(yes,you there , reading this) choose to go overseas rather than just staying in singapore.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>To stretch myself more (academically) and get an all-rounded education. I'm applying to an Ivy, MIT, Harvey Mudd, and Reed College.</p>
<p>The four colleges are all known for very hiong academics. It's a lot of work, but that's precisely why I don't want to attend school where the majority of people just want to pass exams and get a 5.0 CAP [literally less than 10 people have got a perfect 4.0 GPA at Mudd, so no stress to follow precedent there, lol] </p>
<p>Yeah, and all-rounded education - where the humanities education is truly up to par, not some shoddy Singapore Studies module where half the class is foreign and memorizing materials just to get their 5.0 CAP. Two of my colleges are liberal arts colleges, one is an Ivy with liberal arts education, and the last is MIT <need i="" say="" more="" here...=""></need></p>
<p>frankchn: wow i didn't know princeton even has a waterpolo team Ooo</p>
<p>M</a>. Water Polo - NEWS - GoPrincetonTigers.comThe Official Web Site of Princeton University Athletics - Apparently they do and they are ranked 16th (in what league out of what I don't know).</p>
<p>Hmm, fiona, why don't you try for Uchicago and swarthmore?</p>
<p>Well, I don't think I'd choose Swarthmore/UChicago over any of my current picks :) Plus... Um... I was supposed to interview with Swarthmore last Thursday, but I forgot to reply the admin lady so she gave my slot away. XD</p>
<p>Just wondering, which local school is the least popular among local elite students and why?</p>
<p>^ I suspect it might be NTU (sans Business School which is on par with NUS Business School that is).</p>
<p>I'm probably standing alone here, but I would prefer NTU Science to NUS Science. Still, most would choose NUS for name recognition and distance from civilization.</p>
<p>Amongst locals, probably NTU because SMU grabs the biz/law and NUS grabs the law/med.</p>
<p>Fewer locals take NTU science, although a good number take NTU biz/accountancy.</p>
<p>is SMU really any good? (i'm really curious about this, cos some seem to have glowing reviews of it while others think it's super overrated)</p>
<p>From what I hear, SMU business, at least, has a much more liberating experience. Something along the lines of having really small tutorial groups with a lot of flexibility, creativity and simply being in the town area. Since then it's been attracting top students to its business faculty. Another strong reason is probably that it awards 1/8 of its students with full scholarships - and their top tier ones like the Lee Kong Chian Scholarship attract top students.</p>
<p>Taken from Nus</a> Versus Smu Econs. Please Discuss! - <a href="http://www.hardwarezone.com.sg%5B/url%5D">www.hardwarezone.com.sg</a></p>
<p>SMU is very project intensive, but that doesn't mean the students cover less theory. The amount of theory they cover is still extensive and on par with NUS. Difference is that you are often given so many projects to ccomplete for your non-econ modules, you are rarely given any breathing space to digest your theories properly. Believe it or not, Acc students can progress into the 3rd year not knowing their double entry, and finance majors forgetting how to calculate present value etc. If you're someone who has good concentration, and able to "turn on" and study anytime, anywhere, in pockets of 1-2 hours here and there, good organization skills, and good memory, you'll probably do quite well in SMU. If you're the kind who takes it slow and cannot memorise without fully understanding the theories (like me), e.g. you HAVE to know why PV formula is 1/(1+r), or you absorb slowly, you'll find yhourself consistently short on time. I've seen a lot of dean-listers who rote-memorise their way to an A+, or have a strong math background to help them grasp the theories easily. I've seen Acc students who don't understand the essence of consolidation accounting, but scored an A+ in Advanced Financial Accounting. If you are the kind who can play your way through your JC years, and later on, spend 2 months sitting down for intensive study, and still get 4 As, then SMU is really the placce for you. If you're the kind who can't take intensive study, and has to spread out your studying evenly, and thrives when you have a more regular study pattern, then SMU might not be the place for you.</p>
<p>Next, the environment.</p>
<p>SMU's students are generally more proactive and more aggressive in securing internships, gathering knowledge about the industry etc., owing to the culture laid down by seniors, and originates from the ridiculous amount of indoctrination from the career centre that investment banking is the only good job around. Having attended several internship preparatory talks, i have lost count of the number of times Ruth (director of OCS) mentions Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. I have never heard her mention working for any other company other than a bank. The preferential treatment of students with high GPAs or are in double degree programs, (sometimes requested by the employers themeselves), serves to strengthen and perpetuate the belief that your GPA defines your worth as a student, and incidentally, the amount of respect among your peers. Beause the student population is so small, everyone knows each other, news of X or Y getting into certain ivnestment banks and drawing $x amt of salary can quickly spread around, and adds pressure even to the slackest student. NUS on the other hand, has a much more robust student population, and for the fact that people usually don't know each other, you don't hear too much word of mouth of who and who got into which investment bank, and that helps to take away some of your stress, but also makes you a less informed person. (of course, this fact is fast changing with all the rage on invetsment banking.)</p>
<p>If i have to choose again, i'll choose NUS econs anyday. Because i want to enjoy a real university life, not start work prematurely.</p>
<p>Taken from SMU:</a> Victim of its own success? Think, thought, thunk.</p>
<p>Once upon a time, when the giants NTU and NUS ruled the Singaporean university scene, a little known kid called SMU appeared from nowhere, and said,</p>
<p>Ahem.</p>
<p>NTU and NUS turned their noses up and ignored the newcomer, and it was easy for them to do so, because everyone else wasnt paying any attention to little SMU either, so young and inexperienced as he was.</p>
<p>But SMU was undeterred. He felt that the old system needed to be changed: lecture halls filled with hundreds of students fervently copying notes as fast as the professor could utter them, lack of interaction between students and professors, a lacklustre environment where most students felt nameless, faceless, soul-less </p>
<p>So he called for an era of change.</p>
<p>No more crowded lecture halls, but small class sizes where students get to interact with professors!</p>
<p>We interview each and every applicant to see if he can fit into the culture, because grades arent everything!</p>
<p>We dont want to reward mere memorisation of facts, lets include group projects and class participation!</p>
<p>SMU. Because were different!</p>
<p>It was indeed, at the time, revolutionary. It was a wonderful message indeed.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, not everyone was ready for such a message. Society wasnt ready for such a message.</p>
<p>Thus, most people viewed those who went to SMU as rejects of NUS and NTU, or worse, mavericks who were taking a silly risk.</p>
<p>But the mavericks, they didnt care what society thought. They knew that they had something special, and in fact they held a particular pride in bucking the trend, a veritable screw you to the naysayers.</p>
<p>Skip ahead a couple of years, and the world suddenly changed. Suddenly graduates from SMU looked real impressive. They were smart, they were confident, they were great communicators and most important of all, they were hired. They were indeed different.</p>
<p>Now, public opinion is truly a funny thing. Suddenly, the little nobody SMU became the young upstart everyone was talking about, and NUS and NTU started feeling hot under their collars a little bit. Soon, they too were talking about being multi-disciplinary, broad-based and interactive.</p>
<p>And when applications for universities opened once again, SMU found itself inundated with applications, and by the best and the brightest, no less.</p>
<p>Soon enough, as these things do, things started to change.</p>
<p>The grade criteria for entry into the different schools suddenly became way higher than ever, and took more precedence.</p>
<p>Class participation became a dirty word, and everybody knew (and hated) that guy who talked for the sake of talking.</p>
<p>Competition between students became the norm. Everybody tried to top each other in everything, and the dreaded bell curve made things even worse.</p>
<p>The library became a second home to most students, break week was a misnomer, and going to school on a Sunday became the norm.</p>
<p>And the school suddenly became way.too.crowded.</p>
<p>Suddenly, being different started looking like exactly the same.</p>
<p></p>
<p>To answer the question I posted in the title of this post, yes, I do believe SMU has become a victim of its own success. There was a time I was truly proud of being from SMU. These days not so much. Sure its a business school, but the level at which the rat race has crept into university life is truly something a lot of us find hard to believe. Some say its because of the city campus, some say its the marketing, some just say hard luck, thats the way the cookie crumbles.</p>
<p>Call me idealistic, but I think SMU had something special in the beginning, and somewhere along the way, it lost the plot somewhat. I think Ive been luckier than some in that I got to do something I truly believe in, something beyond getting the perfect grades, and I truly hope that everybody gets to experience this in some form or another. Life is not all about that perfect presentation, that A+ that you spent all your time in the library for, or that ungraded presentation that for some reason became yet another game of one-upmanship.</p>
<p>Dont get me wrong, I know some of the most talented and intelligent individuals in this school, but most of us agree that things just arent the same anymore.</p>
<p>SMU, revisit your ideals once more. Then ask yourself, am I shortchanging those that believed in me from the start? If the answer is yes, then lets change the situation. It isnt too late.</p>