<p>
</p>
<p>Agreed. At the top JCs in Singapore, the people who do take the APs (in addition to the A-levels) in their academic subjects are pretty much expected to get a 5. A school in Singapore (ACSI) also did produce half the world’s IB 45-pointers so I would say the courseload (at the top schools) are very demanding compared to America.</p>
<p>It’s rare in my school, AFAIK, and i did state that explicitly.
Yes, overall it’s not that rare, but it’s not easy either. Don’t give the kids false hope. This is coming from a kid who expected at least a 2250 on the first try and was slapped across the face :D</p>
<p>^ Well you got into Yale so that’s nothing to complain about =p. SAT scores aren’t the world anyway.</p>
<p>Ah, I now feel better about my SAT score 
(objectively it isn’t bad per se, but I keep hearing stories of 2400 scorers from my alma mater <em>shudder</em>) They don’t matter that much anyway so I’m quite glad I didn’t become one of those people who memorised entire bookshelves of vocabulary words - not that I have anything against such practices, but the cost-benefit graphs mean it’s not for me 
</p>
<p>AP/IB exams in run-of-the-mill US high schools are taken with a pinch of salt because they don’t matter in college <em>admissions</em> (they can’t hurt you anywhere, and many schools explicitly say they can’t help you either) and especially if one lives in a school district where exam fees are fully paid for (:D) then it literally just becomes a formality. Oh and exam scores come out during three-month-long summer vacations so by the time goes back everybody has forgotten about them and thus there is no “I got 10 5s! What did you get?” moments and no social pressure to have something nice for one/one’s parents to say. Then there are ulu high schools with lousy teachers and ill-prepared students who still title classes “AP” for no reason. But the clever people in decent HSes who take the exams seriously score decent marks; maybe not 4.80 but definitely not 2.14 or whatever the national average is.</p>
<p>P.S. fully indulge in chicken rice/hokkien mee/nasi lemak/kway chap in the upcoming months. You’ll miss them. Muchly. :P</p>
<p>Still, looking at the respective curricula of the AP and A Level exams, I do doubt that Singaporean students do the APs with all that much pressure. The AP curriculum for the humanities (can’t comment much on the sciences) is broader but not as deep, and the foreign languages are about O Level standard. Of course things are different though, given only about 20% of any cohort goes to JC.</p>
<p>I think this isn’t something that can be argued, lol. I’d love to do a documentary sometime with an AP kid and an A Level kid switching places, or something.</p>
<p>And about the SAT score - while not everyone gets >2100 on the first try, it’s usually not a problem to break 2100 once you get the hang of it. Pretty much everyone I know who needed a SAT score to apply got >2100. 2250 is of course more difficult, but I think the difference is focus more than anything else.</p>
<p>Okay, I need some assistance.</p>
<p>Say, for instance, my passport name is Cheryl Ong Shu Hui. (It’s not.) I’m in the midst of getting things in order for my visa. </p>
<p>Is my name</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>OR</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>?</p>
<p>Basically I want it to appear in the exact order in the Duke records as it does in my passport… Plus the online visa form they sent me only has fields for first and last names, no middle names. </p>
<p>To put it in a more Singaporean way: like that how?</p>
<p>how did you do it on your Duke application?</p>
<p>I think it’s
First name: Cheryl
Middle name: Shu Hui
Last name: Ong
Even if they don’t give you a space for your middle name, this is how they expect it to be in the US.</p>
<p>Anyone going to Johns Hopkins??</p>
<p>screwitlah, I did it first name Cheryl, last name Ong Shu Hui, but I keep hearing that it should have the Chinese name as the middle name. If that’s the case, I’ll do it the latter way on my visa and write to Duke to change the records.</p>
<p>Oh you definitely need to change your records at Duke, because your last name is just Ong.</p>
<p>Regarding your first and middle names on your I-20 and visa, they have to be the same as your passport name. If your passport name were Ong Shu Hui Cheryl, then forget about first and middle names, it’s just given name : Shu Hui Cheryl and last name: Ong for your I-20 and visa. If it’s Cheryl Ong Shu Hui, My guess is Cheryl Shu Hui for given and Ong for last - but it’s only a guess. You should ask your seniors at Duke who have similar name formats as you and find out what they did.</p>
<p>Anecdotally, I’ve seen it done the way screwitlah described. But your last name is definitely just Ong.</p>
<p>Hi! The-happy-neighborhood-fish is back with a question! :)</p>
<p>I got into these colleges and programmes. NOW I’m totally confused as to where I should be headed. Some places, I didn’t really get in yet, but I’m appealing. So, even if though I probably won’t get in (the chances are verrry verrrry low to get through after appealing), I’d request you guys to put this into your ranking as well.</p>
<p>1) NUS (Comp Engg). [with tuition grant, which cuts most of the fee)
2) NTU (Comp Engg+BBA). [same as above]
3) Warwick (Math+Statistics) [Full Fee]
4) UCL (Math+Economics) [Full Fee]
5) Kings (CompSci+Math) [Full Fee]
6) UC Los Angeles (CompSci and Engineering) [Full Fee]
7) CMU (MechE) [waitlisted for Comp Engg] [Full Fee]
8) uMich (MechE) [Full Fee]
9) Purdue (Comp Engg) [Full Fee]
10) UC Berkeley (Comp Engg) [Didn’t get in, but appealed- so, if by a 1/234737974 chance I do get in, I wouldn’t have to ask all over again!] :)</p>
<p>Now, could you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE rank them in order of preference… taking into account the following factors in decreasing order of importance!
Prestige>Starting Salary Averages>Opportunities>Cost>Experience.
Thanks sooo much in anticipation! 
:)</p>
<p>-tUnA :)</p>
<p>@100%Tuna</p>
<p>Which curriculum did you do? And, can you post your statistics up so its easier for us to tell what the unis are looking at. And how come NUS/NTU gave their outcomes already?</p>
<p>@Vaishu12: NTU, i had a telephonic interview and the woman said that it wasn’t official, but i would almost certainly make it. (i asked her what the chances were after the interview). NUS, i’m pretty sure i’ll make it, my grades were safely higher than last year’s cut-offs for comp engg. curriculum=singapore GCE a-levels… for the stats, you can go look for my chances thread- and there’s a post in the UCB forums which lists most of it out. so you could check it out there… anyways, what do you think?? rank them up! please please! :)</p>
<p>@100%tuna
thanks! i’m sorry coz i don’t really know much about the rankings of ur unis! so won’t be able to help you out on that…</p>
<p>@others
do NUS/NTU only look at academics or do they also look at extra curriculars for international students (i’m doing the AP diploma)?</p>
<p>NUS NTU only look at academics. It’s pretty much very very less selective than even UK schools except for Law, Medicine, Dentistry and some double degrees. Even the business faculty is a no-brainer to enter. They have a specific cut off for A-level but not AP diploma though. Look at the website to read the A-level cut off to determine your chance.</p>
<p>NUS and NTU is ultra unselective unless you are gunning for Law, Medicine, Dentistry and double degrees, I repeat.</p>
<p>Thanks lettersfrompluto, Agneisse and screwitlah.</p>
<p>"NUS NTU only look at academics. It’s pretty much very very less selective than even UK schools except for Law, Medicine, Dentistry and some double degrees. Even the business faculty is a no-brainer to enter. They have a specific cut off for A-level but not AP diploma though. Look at the website to read the A-level cut off to determine your chance.</p>
<p>NUS and NTU is ultra unselective unless you are gunning for Law, Medicine, Dentistry and double degrees, I repeat."</p>
<p>uh… no?</p>
<p>I agree to disagree with rs_ong</p>