<p>Today was the release date of A level result. For tis year, which Jc top the a level, bishan or bukit timah?</p>
<p>hey people, do i need to send in my a level results to the schools i applied to right away (i got them today)? i applied already through the common app in january. and if i do, how do i do it? i might wanna just do it anyway to prove the veracity of my predicted grades, haha</p>
<p>I’m so so depressed now. I applied to UC Berkeley and UCLA with decent O Level and JC1 grades. However, for A Level, I got one D for Econs, which was really unexpected. I put my intended major for both schools as Economics. How likely would i be rescinded if i were to send them my A’s results?</p>
<p>Hi this is my first post…I have a serious problem…pls help me. I recd my A level results and got an AAB for pcm but I have got an U for my econs H1 subject…wondering whether this will affect my Uni admissions in US …I have already recd a offer from Texas…so will they reject my seat if I send them my A level transcripts?..Pls help…I need to know this!</p>
<p>@rjpatel, @hoivenpro - The only way is to contact the admissions office and explain your results. They would tell you what you could do from there on.</p>
<p>hello all, can i check for US applications, do we use common app? Also, is it compulsory to take SAT/SAT II ? Can we just submit oiur A levels and O levels result?</p>
<p>do we use common app? Some do, some dont. Check the school’s website.</p>
<p>is it compulsory to take SAT/SAT II ? Again, top 20 schools normally need SAT 2. As for SAT 1, I think most of the schools need it. And no, you cant just submit your A levels and O levels even if you got straight As you’re gonna need at least SAT 1 score… unless you’re applying to some schools which are less selective.</p>
<p>any guys applied to US colleges twice in NS? wondering if I can reuse the same commonapp account I used last year to apply this year to save trouble, eg filling in the forms and getting my teachers to submiit my references.</p>
<p>all data and accounts will be deleted from the server once each cycle is over. if you want to re-use, remember to extract and save everything from your account.</p>
<p>Sooo, howdy do? Sing-a-Pore rocks!</p>
<p>thanks, screwitlah!</p>
<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>I’ve just gotten my A Level results and am about to go into NS. Would like to apply to US LACs and Universities this fall and am looking for advice on where to apply. I have done extensive research on this and other threads. My stats are as follows:</p>
<p>O Levels: 7A1 2A2
A Levels AAA/B AA H3 Merit (received interview invitations at both NUS & SMU Law although not really my interest)
SAT: 2310 (800M 720CR 790W) SATII (Math2:800, Lit:790)
Avid musician. Participated in a lot of local gigs at clubs & events.
Won or placed top 3 in three national essay writing competitions, published in compendiums etc.
Horrible JC grades, but a straight A student until JC</p>
<p>Generally, I’m a very good student, but clearly not the top (missed the AAA/A in my A Levels and didn’t get 9A1s in my O Levels). Given the number of 4 H2 A students, I would struggle to consider myself in the top 10% of my JC class, which is a normal requirement for the top U.S. universities. I would say my CCA is decent in that I show talent in music and writing competitions, even at the national level, but am quite thin on leadership and sports. I don’t need financial aid as a relative is willing to pay my U.S. university fees so that I don’t serve a bond. </p>
<p>I’m not interested in medicine, but should otherwise be qualified for any other degree program in Singapore (assuming interviews go well). If I get into an Ivy League school (or similar like Stanford), then I’m thinking it might be worth giving up a place in NUS or SMU law, but would admission to any of the top LACs be worth giving up local law school?</p>
<p>It sounds that I shouldn’t bother with HYP because of an imperfect academic record, in particular poor JC grades and decent, but not outstanding CCA. I’m also thinking that Penn, Dartmouth and Columbia are probably out, but what about Brown and Cornell? Would I have a reasonable chance? Some of the LACs also seem impossible. Swarthmore had 1,000 international applicants this year and only 29 were enrolled last year. I’m also a little concerned that the LACs, while well known among U.S. employers, are relatively unknown in Singapore.</p>
<p>I sound skeptical because while most of my academic record looks strong on paper in contrast to American applicants, there are hundreds of Singapore students with AAA/A from the JCs who would be ahead of me and many I know have outstanding CCA records, particularly in atheletic endevours. I suppose I could just SPAM out my application with the Common App, but there is some commitment in spending time to writing compelling essays as well.</p>
<p>Any thoughts or suggestions as to where I should apply would be welcome. Thanks.</p>
<p>Hi,</p>
<p>Congrats on your A Levels and your scores! They’re pretty good actually, you should be proud of yourself. Why not consider schools other than the Ivies? To be honest I’m no help there because I’m not familiar with them (other than the fact that I got rejected from a couple, haha - I got better SATs than you, but lousier JC grades). Depending on your interests, I would suggest Berkeley (duh lol since I’m here), UCLA, Duke, Stanford, MIT, CalTech, Tufts, NYU, UChicago or similar; there are many options.</p>
<p>However, it seems like you want to do law. In that case, I would advise you not to come to the U.S., but instead go to the UK or stay in Singapore. As you probably already know, the system here is completely different. If it’s just a matter of the experience and/or supposed “prestige” of U.S. colleges, which is often the case, then it’s up to you I guess. To be honest, based on rankings (I know, not the most useful things) and your own research I’m sure you’ll understand that top-tier non-Ivies like Stanford, MIT and Berkeley are better in almost all areas that lower-tier Ivies (Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth and maybe even UPenn). Then again, it depends on your interests - Cornell’s engineering is pretty good while its humanities are not, and UPenn’s business school is legendary while its social sciences are not. </p>
<p>I hope this helps! (And I agree, depending on your field or career choices, employers may not regard LACs highly.)</p>
<p>@hoivenpro: Just to let you know, UC Berkeley does not care what you put as your intended major on your application. Everybody is considered as undeclared. So if you’re worrying about Economics specifically, they won’t reject you because of that.</p>
<p>On the whole, having a D, however, may be a problem. 2 more days though! All the best (:</p>
<p>Thanks Eloriel, As for my A Level scores, as my parents’ put it, “they were not ideal”, certainly true for getting local scholarships to top universities, which I’m not. It does look like I’ll have to try other schools, which is why I’m looking into the LACs. I suppose I should put Duke, UChicago, NYU, Berkeley and Tufts on my list as matches or safeties, but aside from UChicago & Berkeley, the others probably don’t have that strong a reputation in Singapore. Berkeley got a great ranking recently (4th in the world) which was published in the Straits Times, but I have concerns over California’s fiscal situation.</p>
<p>I don’t want to do law, but if I end up going to University on this little red dot, its probably the best thing to do. SMU focuses on business law, so there might be a path to an Investment Bank. I didn’t get the sense from my research that Berkeley is better than Cornell or Brown at the undergraduate level, but its possible for some of its graduate schools. Harvard, for example, is apparently much easier to get in at the graduate level. I suppose Singaporean employers would regard Berkeley graduates with great esteem, but I hope to eventually work for a bulge bracket investment bank and I was told (by the head of one of them in Singapore) that they generally recruit graduates/MBAs from the ivies and a few schools like Stanford, MIT. As a major, I’m thinking of Political Science.</p>
<p>You want to make money, correct? Then go do investment banking through a top US school or SMU.</p>
<p>I’ve tried to engage as many lawyers and bankers in Singapore that I can find. Even talked to a senior Judge. I think you can make money in law, but the initial slog is as bad as being in a bulge bracket investment bank, and half as exciting i.e., it may be more fun working 18 hours a day on a trading desk with screens flashing around you rather than being stuck in a quiet office at 2am with thousands of pages to read and summarize.</p>
<p>As for SMU, its definitely not a school where bulge bracket investment banks (like Goldman, Deutsche etc) recruit for their graduate programs although apparently some local U grads make in eventually through a back door. For local law firms, NUS law is also ahead, but SMU is getting a good reputation. The only institution that the big boys of investment banks recruit from in Singapore is Insead. However, they don’t have an undergraduate program, so I’m considering that for a MBA eventually. I’m told, however, that its almost impossible to get into top MBA programs without a few years of work experience.</p>
<p>^@wkwoods: LOL my stats are almost identical to yours, exact same O’level and A’level grades, bad/average JC grades. did writing competitions (although i only did notably well in one), gig locally sometimes, SAT 2270, very involved with music (school choir). i even got the smu law interview (w/o real interest either lol)</p>
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<p>You got some bad information. Your first analyst years in a BB are definitely worse than anything that a law firm can throw at you. First, know the distinction between IBD and a S&T. As an IB analyst, you write pitchbooks, do valuations, get coffee, etc, doing all the kinds of grunt work just as boring as what a law associate does, only under worse time pressures, less sleep, and much more horrible bosses. You’ll spend so much time with excel that you’ll feel sick. No trading screens whatsoever, those are for traders and that’s an entirely different department in a BB altogether.</p>
<p>To make money in law, go to corporate especially M&A. However beware of the influx of lawyers from the addition of SMU and the relaxation of qualifying rules for overseas grads. Nobody knows yet whether the demand for lawyers will match up to the supply. </p>
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<p>Thing is, it’s going to be tough entering IB from an MBA if you didn’t have pre-MBA experience in finance. Law’s definitely not going to make it easier. Insead is also better known for its placement into management consulting than investment banking. There definitely are local grads in IBDs - most of them did internships in the final summer and converted to fulltime offers. There are of course, more foreign than local grads in IBD, but its not impossible if you’re the best, and if you network and do the requisite activities.</p>
<p>If your goal is to work in Singapore, there’s no difference between going to NUS or SMU law. All second-upper grads easily get training contracts.</p>
<p>Screwitlah, With all due respect to someone with 1,700 posts, I think you are trying to put me down because I sound like a know-it-all. However, I do have first hand knowledge interning at a European bank for the last 2 months. I’ll post a little here to convince you and it may help some other Singaporeans.</p>
<p>First of all, BB Investment Banks in Singapore are not just sales & trading and corporate finance/equity capital markets (what you refer to as IBD). They also have fixed income, forex, rates and even esoteric departments like distressed debt as well as other divisions like asset management and private wealth. Interns and graduates are recruited centrally to all these departments/divisions.</p>
<p>While its true that interning within equity research or IBD can be pretty difficult, how else do you learn if you don’t work on excel spreadsheets, write pitchbooks and do valuations? Working all night on a spreadsheets for a pitchbook on a deal can be “fun” for the right person. There is certain camaraderie and intensity in working on it and having it succeed. In fact, given the high attrition rate among interns and graduates, if you don’t have “fun”, you are probably not cut out for it.</p>
<p>Other interns and graduates in asset management and private wealth report it to be a high normal job. The forex, rates and fixed income desks also seem to be less intense because the clients - central banks in the region and fixed income instutional investors - are not as demanding. Forex, rates and FI seem to also make the most money (according to the MD during a recent Town Hall). Once, when I was carrying some stuff down to the carpark for one of the directors, he told me that the lambos and ferraris are owned by the forex and rates traders. That’s where I would like to be some day.</p>
<p>As far as recruitment, they have a global graduate recruitment program (the chaps are called “graduates”) which is run from New York and London. The program also handles the summer interns. NUS & SMU are not in the list of institutions that they recruit from. Apprently they tried it a few years ago with poor results. Not to say that there are not a fair number of Singaporeans graduates around, but they went to top schools, not NUS/SMU. In Singapore, only Insead is on the list and they actually recruit on the Insead campus a few times a year. There are more finance MBAs, but there are all sorts so its probably not correct to say that you need finance. In the Graduate program, the only difference between MBAs and Undergrads is base pay. They do the same work. Some of the graduates from Ivies studied history, English etc, but they are really smart. The graduates are eventually sent abroad for a few months for training, but most say its a junket and they had a good time. Hard to tell because they are competitive amongst each other.</p>
<p>There are NUS/SMU grads around, but they snuck in either as desk assistants or research assistants and then worked their way up. The few interns that are around usually have some lobang like me. One of the other intern’s father is CEO of a firm which is an IB client. Another local intern is really really pretty. If you are not from Ivy, you need a lobang or be really good looking.</p>
<p>Lastly, as for law being easier than banking, the judge i talked to say his first five years, he didn’t see the light of day. But your mileage may vary as some local law firms are easier to work in than others.</p>