<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>