<p>I don’t think everything revolves around money, so I’m still gonna go to the US. Its for the experience more than anything, and phantompong is right in saying that the world is huge and we are confined on this island with little idea of what it is really like to live somewhere else. Serving NS has only made me realize, more than ever, how badly I need a change of environment. Life here is getting pretty stale and generally Singaporeans mug too much. I also feel its time I ventured out on my own and if I can stay there to work, all the better My friend, who’s a LKC (Lee Kong Chian) Scholar at SMU, once considered going overseas before he decided to save his parents’ money and study here. Last year, he went on exchange to Cornell and said that even though its an Ivy, the standard of academics there is not on the level of SMU. From this I don’t mean the standard of teaching or the intelligence of the students, but the way the students there study is not like what we find here in SG, be it at SMU, NUS or NTU. Their students work hard and play hard, and at the end of the day, they enjoy themselves tremendously and yet manage to graduate with degrees that far outshine local unis. From this, he felt disillusioned with how SMU students like himself work so much harder and put up with 4 hours of sleep for nights on end, yet get so little recognition when compared with US university grads. He is now telling me to go overseas if I can afford it, as he would have done the same if given a second opportunity.</p>
<p>Anyway for USC I can confirm that you do require the letter of financial proof. You don’t submit it with everything else in your main application, they only prompt you to show them the letter after a month or so, when they’ve looked through your application. I think it more or less tells you that they are seriously considering admitting you, thus the need for proof of financial status. At least that’s what happened to me last year, and I got in eventually.</p>
<p>The bottomline is, money makes the world go round, but there are some things that you can’t put a price on. The once-in-a-lifetime experience of an overseas education is one of them. I mean, everything just seems much more exciting there (as compared to perhaps NUS, which someone mentioned above), from the beautiful architecture to the incredible diversity of students to the great college sports scene! Local unis offer none of that.</p>
<p>ofc things dun just revolve around money. but for people who simply can’t afford the cost of going overseas with out any form of external aids and all that. then money will be a big issue. i am still having a big headache of how to get fundings for my college educations.</p>
<p>indeed us school offers a different perspective of life and a possibly totally different experience. but other than the culture experience and networking, the learning experience is very important to me personally. after all we are going to a university to study.</p>
<p>@ycang: The experience at Harvard, Yale or Cal is definitely worth the price tag (and the life away from home that’s definitely packing a lot of challenges no matter who you are). But I’m not sure i can say the same thing about just any other US college. There are the party schools & the kind where a sizable majority is not concerned about getting an education. </p>
<p>I’ve heard that in the states about 60% of ppl go to college, so it’s not all that selective. In the UK the percentage is abt 20? And in Singapore only 20% of students go to JC so go figure. My stats might not be correct but you get the point.</p>
<p>Not sure on the stats man, though the US has nearly 3000 colleges of all kinds and sizes, and anything generally perceived to be in the top 30 will put you in good stead to succeed. The difference between graduating from a 30th ranked college to a 20th ranked one won’t count for much (heck, it may not even matter!) cause at such levels, your results probably play a bigger part in determining your employability. Of course, the course you study will affect your career as well, so going to a school like NYU which is placed 33rd on USNWR can still reap huge rewards IF you go to Stern, which is easily top-10 in America for Business. And who can turn down the opportunities to meet and network with the future movers and shakers of Wall Street?</p>
<p>I think American society places a greater emphasis on a college education, in that most Americans do get their degree even though many are mediocre ones. Its the way they function, and without a degree you’d be hard-pressed to find a proper job, so its the basic requirement. In the UK there are more students who start work out of secondary school, and with fewer universities it’s always gonna be harder for UK students to get into university on the whole. Since the US has just a little over 300 million people and the UK has a little over 60 mil, it should work out that there should be close to 600 universities in the UK. I doubt there are, and a search on UCAS confirms that there are only 325 institutions of higher education in the UK. Also note that the average enrollment in UK universities isn’t at that of American colleges, where state schools can easily have >25,000 undergrads each and quite a few the largest have in excess of 50,000. This dwarfs most UK unis and even the Uni of Manchester, which has the largest student enrollment of any single-site UK institution, has only 27,000 students.</p>
<p>^ okay u missed my point. What i meant to say was that there are many kinds of college in the US so as to accommodate that many people (~60% population). It’s sort of like a badge almost everyone gets to wear (look @ the american high school curriculum :)), and not all college degrees are equal. Definitely a lot easier to get into college, any kind of college, than NUS, NTU or SMU.</p>
<p>confused_vnese: not for Tisch, Tisch Film is reportedly closer to 10%. If it were CAS I wouldn’t be this nervy. But I wouldn’t really think about going to NYU CAS unless I was eyeing Philo, Math or Econs, or perhaps Metropolitan Studies - there isn’t that much that NYU has a huge advantage over other schools in. Anyway the overall acceptance rate for NYU is around 25% now.</p>
<p>ycang: Are you sure the letter requesting certification of financial guarantee means they’ve already looked through my file? I know Texas doesn’t look at the applicants’ files until everything is in, even the trivial details, and USC isn’t a small school. But if that’s the case I feel better.</p>
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<p>Funny, this is exactly what I told one of my juniors about Singapore’s education system in general. It takes so much out of you, and at the end of it you don’t get any visible, tangible advantage over anyone else, be it in name or actual education or skill sets. Not that it’s not a good education or anything - I’m very grateful for our public education system - but it demands so much and not everyone can thrive in this environment.</p>
<p>physicistic: “After all we are going to university to study”. No doubt. But here’s a thought… from my observations, many SG students learn the study skills they need for uni-level work in JC, especially if they do independent research H3s. They are likely to be able to handle university anywhere. If we’re talking NUS and a third-rate overseas school, obviously we’d all pick NUS. However when we’re talking about NUS and the schools that SG students typically apply to in the US, it’s not the education itself that makes the difference - the standard of education is probably similar. That’s where all the intangibles, like the experience, the different environment, etc. come into play. Or “fit”, if you like.</p>
<p>NUS is #30 on THES last I checked, if it matters.</p>
<p>so in the end ACS international has unofficially accepted me for next year . ( as they are full now)
And unofficial because its too early to accept students for next year and administration matters, but i will do the paperwork in june. </p>
<p>BTW, which of these 3 is the better school , st. Joseph institution international, hwa chong international or ACS international. </p>
<p>i decided to retake my maths and science o lvl papers to boost my score. I will be applying to the two other schools again with my new scores. </p>
<p>I will continue to do more internships. </p>
<p>OOhhh and
I will be visiting LA and NY in september to check out universities… </p>
<p>im planning to look at NYU, Columbia , UCLA …</p>
<p>i’ll take requests of Unis to visit, and I’ll post pictures ,reviews AND VIDEOS! from a Singaporean perspective :D.</p>
<p>@phantompong: it really depends on which schools in particular you are aiming at. at the top schools, the standard of education is really different. and jc level stuff is definitely not enough to cover the course offered there.</p>
<p>@physicsistic: That’s hard for me to say. I applied as a prospective film major to all my US schools, so for me there’s no comparison at all. But I’m not suggesting that JC material is the same as what’s covered in uni because it’s not - but I do think that depending on the subject, I do think that the study skills, research skills, reading/analytical skills, writing skills that are taught and developed in JC are on par with what you can learn in pretty much any university. (My views are from the POV of an arts student.)</p>
<p>Take Lit for example - in uni you definitely cover more ground, but the skills - research, close reading, analysis, writing - are the same, and a JC Lit student would already have developed them to some degree. So in that respect it “doesn’t matter” what university you go to because no matter where you go, you’ll be able to handle the work, and the difference between universities is not so much the “education” per se (unless the education in that field is outstanding relative to NUS e.g. Oxbridge, Edinburgh), but the other aspects of the university that contribute to the educational experience.</p>
<p>Obviously for someone planning to major in the hard sciences, engineering, biz, the considerations are different.</p>
<p>@phantompong: I guess we are experiencing totally different situations. haha. yeah. hard core science is something that JC education is definitely not able to. and sadly i din take any humanities at all. so dun exactly know much about those.</p>
<p>petrina, if it’s alright with you, may I ask why you are only looking at International schools? I don’t know much about these schools, are you able to advance directly to uni from there?</p>
<p>Also, how do you manage to get scholarships at this level? Its pretty uncommon for pre-uni students to intern tho I may be wrong :p</p>
<p>Ok firstly yes i failed my math O levels, which means most MOE schools wont even look at me! </p>
<p>Yes you do advance to Uni from them, and you also get advance credit. </p>
<p>In international schools you do not do A levels,you do the IB course, which has international recognition , including schools like HYPSM… and oxbridge. Doing well in IB means you can go anywhere. ( my cousin was one of the IB perfect scorers he got into oxford …)</p>
<p>plus it less about mugging, and more about applying yourself. ALOT of essaywriting, and your daily work adds to your final score.</p>
<p>I didnt get a scholarship to do internship ( but i did win the edusave scholarships, just be the top 5% in secondary school)</p>
<p>I personally ask for internships from the companies, (such as SPH) , this is where having good connections help. LOL</p>
<p>wow…how did you like fail your maths when you were in the top 5% of the level in your secondary school…its not the case most of the time is it? not trying to be umm, mean though:)</p>
<p>LOL sigh … to put it simply, i just totally didnt study for O lvls, cos i was sick of my school at the time… it was pretty much a slacker school. </p>
<p>hmm…can your tell me if it is really bad if i screwed up my hcl during the O levels? as in i failed it? i was always scoring at least a B4 (most of the times a B3) for hcl and i managed an A2 for prelims if im not wrong, and all of a sudden, the E comes along…i think i was sick then (can’t really remember, but the paper after hcl, i got a B, otherwise, it would have been all A’s)…</p>
<p>hi all. i’m new to this, and am not sure if someone has asked this at some point in the 131 pages of this thread… is anyone flying coming september?</p>
<p>Does starting to self study Psychology AP now to take the exam in May sound doable?
I am worried that I dont get a five, then I would wasting my two hundred bucks away.</p>
<p>You don’t have to get a 5. Remember, US schools are different from local schools where grades are everything that matters. However, I’m not saying that it’s okay to get a 3. But I know for sure that getting a 4 is good enough to impress the admission officers at the US top 10 schools. So, don’t put yourself under unnecessary stress.</p>
My friend, who’s a LKC (Lee Kong Chian) Scholar at SMU, once considered going overseas before he decided to save his parents’ money and study here. Last year, he went on exchange to Cornell and said that even though its an Ivy, the standard of academics there is not on the level of SMU. From this I don’t mean the standard of teaching or the intelligence of the students, but the way the students there study is not like what we find here in SG, be it at SMU, NUS or NTU. Their students work hard and play hard, and at the end of the day, they enjoy themselves tremendously and yet manage to graduate with degrees that far outshine local unis. From this, he felt disillusioned with how SMU students like himself work so much harder and put up with 4 hours of sleep for nights on end, yet get so little recognition when compared with US university grads. He is now telling me to go overseas if I can afford it, as he would have done the same if given a second opportunity.</p>
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