The latest COE Bidding Results are out. With the exception of the motorcycle category, all other categories recorded their highest prices in recent years.
To buy a small car, you now have to pay $28,389 for that “Certificate of Entitlement”. (I heard an NUS degree costs less. 🙂 )
Car dealers have also promptly adjusted their car prices upwards, some by more than $10k.
Previously, I said one should make at least $7,650 in order to prudently own a car. Maybe now it should be even more.
If you are a car owner, do you (and your spouse) make more than $7,650/mth?
168 Comments
the dog thinks he’s smarter than president and psc scholars.
fact: we have president & psc scholars at local unis
fact: we have many other top students at local unis who rejected scholarships to go overseas
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20100329-207353.html
fact: we have ministers, AOs, judges, CEOs from local unis. our medical and legal sectors are controlled by them.
i dare those who say that local unis are not good to go public with it. give us your name here and i’ll give you mine. i’ve never heard of anyone saying that local grads are not good in the open; all like to hide behind the anonymity of the internet. it’s not hard to figure out why. other than having nothing to substantiate their claims, they themselves can’t say that they are better than those ministers, judges, CEOs & scholars etc mentioned above.
i think amusing is just a stubborn old fool. nothing seems to get into his puny brain. well if even real life examples of aussie grads doing better in life than top local grads are not good enough to change his mindset then i guess we will just let him rot and live in his own imaginery world LOL
local: i think we are not really arguing whether local grads are good enough or not but rather whether they are really definitely better than grads from other countries like aussie unis etc. i have tons of examples to prove that aussie grads are doing equally fine or even better than some top local grads so i have no idea why some of you guys are still so adamant that top local grads will definitely do better and achieve more in life. i am not arguing that aussie grads are better. all i am saying is that top local grads do not mean smarter and better, especially in the working society where you will be tested in alot more other aspects.
when you run out of proper arguments you start being personal and calling names. pathetic.
all i did was state FACTS that Oh Pls in his fantasy world cannot accept.
FACT: top student do not consider aussie universities. they are the dumping ground for singaporean students. want me to show u this FACT again? Here: http://www.pscscholarships.gov.sg/SCHOLARS_SPEAK/SCHOLARS.htm
did i say anything about doing well in life? huh? HUH?! can’t understand proper arguments can u?
newspapers are full of reports of property agents and hawkers doing well in life. i’m not talking about them. all i’m stating is the FACT that aussie universities are the dumping grounds for singaporeans.
Amusing: 🙂 Your msgs are showing how frustrated and worked up you are. I suggest you go read up from the beginning of this discussion. Try to understand what was discussed first and see who was the one who digressed from the initial argument. The people who posted the first few msgs were discussing how a degree from a certain uni can value-add in life and that means how well that person will be able to do and achieve in life. Not so much in which degree from which uni is better and hard to get in etc. Moreover, the end-game is still what your degree is able to achieve for you. If a “lousy” (like what you termed it) aussie degree can help me earn more money than a “prestigious” local degree then i will go for the aussie degree anytime. 🙂 Yawn, what a loser you are. Dont even know that you were out of point and still arguing on with your FACTS. LOL
Till a little while back, 2nd lowers from overseas were not even accepted for being called to the bar while those from NUS were. If not for the shortage of lawyers it would still be that way. Pretty much shows you what the BLE and courts think of overseas degrees outside the select few from the UK (a 2nd lower from Oxbridge is definitely worthy of qualification imo)
Proof is in the pudding, as amused would say!
Its amusing this aaron. he has the thick skin to badmouth far superior universities like LSE and UCL or even ‘just’ King’s, yet the proof of pudding is in the eating. there are way too many lawyers from the farmer universities who went on to said universities for LLM (some pathetic short one year’s masters program that counts for squat) in order to claim that they are overseas grads. LOL. Why is that so? Why do they need to do this? Why i wonder, do they go there for post grad so short it counts for squat, in these supposed “lesser” universities after their “supreme” experience in NUS? LOL
if the argument is that they go because they want to do post-grad, if their NUS is so “prestigious” or recognised, why not do their LLM there? Is it not offered there? LOL
And afterall as the higher up one goes, the easier it is to get yourself into the same school due to far fewer applicants. Did they fail to get into these schools the first time round?
Not just for law. Why is it that countless, out of the 14,000 local grads every year, try desperately to do a master’s program overseas to lie to their friends and colleagues that they’re overseas trained? Why do so many of them claim to be an alum of overseas universities on fb when they were there for some inconsequential 3 month exchange programme? Why do these people go on in forums claiming to have “lived overseas”? Lol
Hahaha Oh really?
Is Qwerty claiming to everyone here that NUS law students are not enrolled in the course called..errm.. NUS 4 yr LLB? hahaha
http://law.nus.edu.sg/prospective/undergrad/4yrllb.htm
Degree and Class of Honours
Students who complete the programme are awarded the LL.B. (Honours) degree. With effect from 1997, only graduates holding at least a Second Lower degree are permitted to qualify for legal practice in Singapore.
I wonder you are really already in that farmer law school because you don’t know even the most basic stuff and made such a huge gaffe, you are obviously an aspirant, probably still in Jurong JC (which has sent several students to NUS law) or in ITE.
And thanks to you, I wouldn’t have done a search on that crappy law school otherwise to discover that a horrendous B in GP gets you in.
Oh Pls: i don’t have time to waste with you anymore. because my time is precious, unlike yours. i didn’t read the above messages cos what i said was directed at YOU. get over the FACT that u came from a DUMPSTER aussie uni. and maybe you can stop deluding yourself that those from dumpster aussie unis earn more. once from a dumpster, always trash.
Local: that is why so many people in Singapore say that local grads are detached from reality and live under a small rock. You don’t seem to know what’s happening even in your own country and its systems, current affairs, that no one should dream of local grads understanding world affairs.
Read this and weep. http://forum.channelnewsasia.com/viewtopic.php?t=331039&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
That guy who got the OCBC local bursary is of and equal to the calibre of a nobody in the civil service. Obviously you know nothing about what you’re trying to talk about. Better stick to promoting your local universities and blowing your own trumpet, you’re in such foreign territory.
Please lah! Do you know how many scholarships are offered? Scholarships are like cars, houses, bags and jeans. Some people afford bentleys, others beemers, others ferraris and some others like you, can only get yourself a chery QQ. All can be called cars. Scholarships come in different ranks and grades.
The whole of Singapore, including taxi drivers and pork sellers, knows that the top brains are sent overseas by the government and only a microscopic number of President’s Scholars (only 1 called Tan Li Feng) went to NUS medicine willingly compared to close to 280 in history of president’s scholars who are SAFOS, SPFOS and OMS (and these are all overseas scholarships and are the top tier of scholarships in Singapore).
How you can be deluded about this (or just ignorant) confirms to Singapore that local grads live under a rock. As if its not bad enough to be stuck in a well.
Before 2006, there were no scholarships tenable for overseas study for medicine due to the costs of doing medicine. So president’s scholars who want to do med were forced to go to NUS.
google cache
Quote Public Service Commission under 2006 Highlights
“2006 also saw a new policy to allow President’s Scholars who wish to pursue a Medical degree at an overseas university the opportunity to do so on full scholarship terms.”
The policy has been changed and what makes the story juicier is that even before the change in policy, there were at least two (if not more) medical bound President’s Scholars who chose to take the scholarship in name only, turned down govt’s offer to pay for a free local medicine education and made their parents send them to Cambridge. One called Anne Tan Kendrick in 1982 and another called Audry Lee Shan Yin in 2005.
http://www.sma.org.sg/sma_news/3608/anne_tan.pdf
speech by President S R Nathan
So embarrassing.
The ignorance is amazingly shocking. And the delusions, overwhelming. Parents, save up every penny so your kids don’t suffer this fate.
No Use: u really reflect your nickname. everyone in the industry knows that ucl, lse, king’s whatnot are all inferior to nus law. if u don’t know anything, don’t say anything.
why do nus law grads go overseas for llm? cos it’s to get exposure to another jurisdiction, u retard. why study the same things all over again for an nus llm? shows how ignorant u are! just keep your mouth shut.
what is most damning is the fact that top grads from nus law DO NOT go to ucl, lse & king’s. they don’t even consider such places for llm. nothing less than oxbridge will do. ucl, lse & king’s accepts the mediocre nus law students. this is common knowledge.
and how stupid can you be. go tell universities that their master’s is worth less than their bachelor’s, why don’t u?
so No Use, shut up cos you’re truly NO USE. some pathetic brat who buys an overseas degree. any idiot can do it. you’re probably a paralegal who’s being trampled all over by nus law grads now. haha. draw your measly salary while they get their millions u retard!
Oh Really? Haha: Read the post again. Read it very carefully, and very slowly. Go take some English lessons, read the law website..then come back.
The rule on overseas 2nd lowers was changed in 2009. Before that, there was a 3 year requirement as a paralegal for those that did not qualify. The only person making a fool of himself here is you.
“Oh really? Haha” your reply to qwerty just shows how much of a moron you are. i don’t even know if that counts as a reply cos it’s completely out of point.
but nevermind. i’ll reply to u anyway. u say several from jjc are in NUS LAW. well at least they had the 4As to get in. you know how many DOZENS get into UCL, LSE etc by getting STRAIGHT Bs!!! and you know how many NUS law rejects head over to UCL/LSE/kings each year?!! it’s incredible.
worse are those who have such horrendous A-lvl results that they can’t even get into uni. then they go for a “matriculation year” over in the UK and what do you know, the next year they are in UCL/LSE. truly RUBBISH.
by the time all these comments end i definitely cannot afford that car liao…
black cat, white cat, whichever that can capture the mouse is a good cat!
morons just don’t get it. hahahahaha
amusing: you are really a sore loser Haha. No time and precious time? yet you are the one blabbering with the most nonsense and mags here? By the way, you posted msgs in this thread before me so how could you have started your msgs by directing at me? Get your facts right first before finding an excuse dude. What a joke. Your msgs really show what low EQ you have. I hope the rest of our local grads have higher EQ if not singapore will be in deep Shit. No idea why you get so worked up. People here are just discussing and comparing facts and there are no right or wrong but yet you keep insisting that only you or those who have agreed with you are correct. Grow up dude. If you refuse to accept that you are well beaten by an aussie grad in terms of salary, I can always meet up with you and show you my pay check. I am 32 and earned 180k last year. Not a lot of money but I believe better than MOST local grads of my age. Not happy? You can leave your hp or email here and I can get in touch with you to meet up. Show me that you are a man and have the guts. Don’t just keep blabbering and ranting like a girl. 🙂
I guess there is no point in debating further with amusing. This stubborn fool is truly in his own world. Lol. I suspect that he might still be studying and that is why he is not even aware of the real world.
Oh Pls is going on with his pointless rants again. well he does not say anything so i guess he finally accepts that aussie unis are DUMPING GROUNDS for singaporeans.
low EQ? at least i don’t have BOTH LOW EQ AND IQ like u retard. you were the one who started getting personal when all i did was stating the FACTS and u couldn’t live with it. go read back and tell me if that’s not true. and when i started directing messages at u all u can say was that i was out of point. U DON’T EVEN GET THE POINT. so shut up. 180k at 32? I was getting that even BEFORE i hit 30 u idiot. how about u put down your email and number here so i can show u my car and apartment? stop whinging like a pussy. just confirmed my point that you are trash.
Amusing: you really argue like a kid (at least i dont have BOTH LOW EQ AND IQ) LOL. the more you say the more i am convinced that you are just a undergrad. no wonder you are defending your local uni so passionately or should i say foolishly. Well if you really aspire to earn 180k before 30, it is definitely achievable even for someone with the same level of EQ as you. But i would suggest that you invest more of your time in your studies than bullshitting in this forum. 🙂 just take it that you are correct in everything you said and i am the dumb one if that makes you happy. LOL (honestly, you are really making my toes laugh and i am not being sarcastic). i must admit that you are truely an entertainer like ronaldo in the other thread. all the best in your dreams and aspirations!
honestly i’m tired. it’s ridiculous that 2 guys in their thirties are quarreling on an online discussion forum. i accept the blame.
my argument from the start was that no top student would want to go to an aussie uni. i backed up my remarks with this: http://www.pscscholarships.gov.sg/SCHOLARS_SPEAK/SCHOLARS.htm. from out of nowhere “oh pls” starts calling me a ‘fool’ with a ‘puny brain’. he went on about how he is doing better than some local uni grads. granted. but my argument was never about that. can you see the difference?
believe it or not, i did earn 180k before i was 30. of course, saying that it was completely derived from my degree would be incorrect. what can i say? i’m born lucky.
it would be the last you hear from me. i defend that my alma mata is still a choice over aussie unis. you have your opinion, i have mine.
definitely not scholar or AO. insurance/property agent? sell fried noodles at father’s stall? lol
“save yourselves” at post 61 above, take a look at this link Amusing provided us:
http://www.pscscholarships.gov.sg/SCHOLARS_SPEAK/SCHOLARS.htm
i see at least 3 president scholars in the past 8 years going to NUS. not to mention the countless other psc scholarship holders going to our local universities. this shows that our local unis still remain schools of choice amongst our top graduates.
of course, some scholarships are more ‘prestigious’ than others. but none more so than the president’s scholarship, clearly. 3 in past 8 years isn’t insignificant i would say.
i remain open to the dare. give me your name in saying that local unis are no good. because i never had someone tell me that face-to-face before. they always hide behind the anonymity of the internet. i would give mine in return. we can put this to the media. go ahead tell some of our ministers, judges, top doctors & lawyers how they graduated from a ‘lousy’ school.
i wonder by putting down some scholarship holders, whether u were good enough to get a scholarship yourself.
i’m actually glad that Amusing made a point to defend our local universities, although not over the point he made about aussie unis. they may not be popular, but they are not ‘lousy’. meowmeow, that’s a cheap shot. are you earning more than Amusing? and are you a scholar or AO? if not, keep yourself in check.
Local, can you list the three president’s scholars who went to NUS? Like someone else clearly said earlier, but i suppose local grads are unable to understand primary school level Eng, there was a policy against students who do med. They had to study in Singapore if they were offered and wanted to accept a scholarship from the Singapore gov.
This includes the prestigious President’s Scholars. The URL has been given to you but actually this is widely publicised info and even non elite students know this. PSC noticed that many of these elite scholars were upset about this, and changed the policy in 2006. From that year, ONLY President’s Scholars can study medicine in the UK under the Overseas Merit Scholarship (the 3rd most prestigious scholarship in SG after the President’s Scholarship and the SAF/SPF Overseas Scholarship). No other govt scholar can. There is a private scholarship from a charity foundation Loke Cheng Kim that also sends medicine scholars to the UK.
The exception made to medicine in the history of PSC is because of the high costs of doing medicine in the UK. Medicine is more expensive than other disciplines. However the Govt realised the importance of keeping the scholars happy, and giving the top brains what they deserve.
From this forum, its clear that local grads have no comprehension skills at all, and are simply unable to understand simple Eng words, let alone concepts.
So maybe you’ll like to plough through your list and present the 3 names other than Tan Li Feng who willingly chose to go to the lousy local medical school as a President’s Scholar after the embargo was lifted in 2006.
bystander: obviously u are no impartial “bystander”. take a good look at the list. tan li feng went to nus in 2006. kaan hung leng went in 2007.
winston chee went in 2003, before the ’embargo’ was lifted, but do you think he is stupid enough to go to your so-called ‘lousy’ local university? he obviously had plenty of choices, even if he wanted to practice medicine, but chose NUS because he felt it was the best choice for him. clearly, he felt he did not have to go overseas to ‘buy’ a degree. it wasn’t worth the money.
i second local. if you dare name yourself, i’ll give my name together with yours to the media and we will have a proper debate of whether local grads are as bad as you claim they are. stop hiding behind the keyboard.
local grads have nothing to prove. top scorers enter our local universities, including president and psc scholars. these are people who have scored 4As and above and could have gone to any university in the world (and don’t tell me they can’t because it is clear 4As could get you to oxbridge if you ever had friends who went in).
local universities have also produced members in the highest echelons of singapore society. ministers, judges, top doctors and lawyers, as local had stated above.
attracting good students and producing top graduates, i can see why people like bystander cannot find proper arguments except empty assertions of how local grads ‘cannot understand english’.
Local: meowmeow’s comments are cheap shot? If that is cheap then i guess your comments + Amusing comments are dirt cheap 🙂
Btw, like someone else said before, even the taxi drivers and janitors know that top brains are sent overseas by the govt or their parents. Even the scholarship rejects know which are the top scholarships in SG and their tiers. The top tier of scholarships is the SAFOS, SPFOS and OMS. They are by the PSC, and no one can be a president’s scholar without being one of these three. President’s scholars who pursue medicine before 06 were given the LMS because of the embargo. This changed in 2006, medicine PS became PS cum OMS. On any typical year even before 2006, there were only at most 1 med bound PS out of about 4-5 PS a year. The rest of course go overseas, because Singapore’s top scholarships are only overseas ones.
You’re fighting a battle that was a lost cause even before you began but you were too much under a rock and too detached from the world to know.
Qwerty has, like other local grads, severe problems following an argument. It was Qwerty who lied and got exposed, later desperately tried to cover up her mess hhaha let’s see.
qwerty Says: March 30th, 2010 at 5:12 pm
“Till a little while back, 2nd lowers from overseas were not even accepted for being called to the bar while those from NUS were.”
SO, post 59 by “Hahaha Oh really?”, ON NUS’s law undergrad school, the NUS 4 YR LLB (hello are u a retard or what?) exposed her sorry lie.
Quote Hahaha Oh really?
“Is Qwerty claiming to everyone here that NUS law students are not enrolled in the course called..errm.. NUS 4 yr LLB? hahaha
Degree and Class of Honours (note from bystander: Pls refer to #59 up there for the link)
Quote NUS undergrad LLB website “Students who complete the programme are awarded the LL.B. (Honours) degree. With effect from 1997, only graduates holding at least a Second Lower degree are permitted to qualify for legal practice in Singapore.”
Hahahha. Then later she desperately tried to cover tracks by talking kok.
I’m not a lawyer, neither did I study locally (God, no! Yucks) or in Australia.
But what’s clear is that some local grad farmer (local grads are called Farmers in many quarters) tried to lie to the forum about NUS law grads with 2nd lower were called to the bar but those from overseas were not. And got majorly pwned and owned. hahaha.
i like the way this discussion is going because it only shows how those who did not graduate from our local universities behave.
they have said nothing of substance other than calling names. and taking the opinion of taxi drivers and janitors. excellent.
areublind, well said. local grads have nothing to prove. local universities attract top scorers each year. the psc scholars website shows a number. in reality there are even more.
how many of our ministers are from our local universities? sm goh,prof jayakumar, dr ng eng hen, dr balakrishnan, mr shanmugam. i guess what bystander is saying is that they are ‘farmers’.
and how many judges are from our local universities? nearly all. are they all ‘farmers’ too?
and these are only the publicly available information. many more local graduates are at the top of singapore society.
go ahead and rant on all you like, because by calling names you cannot obfuscate the undeniable truth that local universities attract top students and produce top graduates.
“John Says:
March 30th, 2010 at 9:31 am
John said “Amusing: please do not be over-reliant on the PSC list as a yardstick. Many Local(Open) or SGS(Local) Awardees (Hons 1st incl.) hardly make it to the Admin Service (the quintessence, fyi). Many of them do not even hit 5-figure salaries (or cross the superscale) until the age of 40 (or even later).”
John, you hit the nail on the head. Local grads are bringing up the low tier farmers “pseudo scholars” in PSC, to insist hope against hope that local unis also have “scholars”, and hence top brains. Yet you’ve painted this fact that the public knows, that these low tier people are in the dozens and were not the top scholars and they’re the ones who do not become AOs.
The fact is that those people are not even considered scholars by the Government or the Public. And the outcome and their performance prove it further.
The fact that John and the rest of the forum have been trying to tell you is that:
Scholarships come in different ranks, values and grades. The pseudo cheap study awards (and they come in very high QUANTITY too. Selectivity is shit) are the low tier awards and lousy, easy-to-get rubbish. The people to end up with those are rejects. The crappy people, pseudo scholars are channeled downwards. This applies to not only PSC and stat boards, but even in private companies like SPH and SIA that give out scholarships.
That loser who claimed he’s an “SAF scholar” would have just been another farmer in the sea of thousands of SAF regular officers, who all have some form of SAF sponsorship. So they’re all SAF scholars? Quite a joke right? Anyway anyone who’s been through NS knows that only SAFOS are SAF scholars.
His example is actually proof positive that a local study awardee whose best competency is the OCBC bursary for the poor with no prestige to the local U, is equal to the calibre of a nobody in the civil service. (From my NS days, I do remember where the ATA holders stand in the scheme of things. And no, they’re way off the league to exist in this argument if not for local grads who are so thick-skinned and deluded..or is it ignorant?)
In the private sector, I’ll hire an Australian grad from a top Aussie university over a local grad any day.
And they’ve always outperformed local grads in job interviews and at work by miles and leaps.
The number of “CEOs, judges, blah blah” from local universities is actually a below-standard performance because of the much huger percentage local grads form in the workforce. Local grads unable to understand conceptual arguments like this. They’re the ones who think all scholarships, and thus “scholars” are the same, when those that sent rank and file to local universities aren’t even regarded as scholars. They can only think on a single plane.
These are the same people who think that they’re overseas trained after a 6 month stint overseas or a short post-grad rubbish no one in the real world cares about.
areublind, why don’t you go and ask Winston Choo whether he willingly went to the inferior local med school when it would have been free for him? Instead of presuming on his behalf to push your agenda here, do present the three president’s scholars you claim existed that went to NUS med after 2006. Because they would have been true willing parties!
Its good you showed us the list here. Can you see the proportion of Presidents scholars who went local over the ones overseas? http://www.pscscholarships.gov.sg/SCHOLARS_SPEAK/SCHOLARS.htm
We tried to tell you time and again that the top brains are sent overseas. And what the top tier scholarships are. And no they’re not the low rung SGS (local) or Local MS (open) people.
My final words to deluded local grads is they should come out from under a rock and see more of the universe, because Singapore is very small and frankly, truly insignificant in the scheme of things. Things you’ve not experienced and don’t know about.
oh yes the dare is still on. i would love for all this to blow up in the press and find out who are those who feel our local graduates are not good. i doubt we’ll find people of good calibre amongst them.
bystander: your points are so valid and reflective of the real world. Too bad some “local” grads here are just too deluded and refused to face the reality of life. Bet they must be cursing and swearing when they see an aussie grad earning more than them or getting the job that they have always wanted. I think you can save your effort because these people just wont accept the reality. Just let them continue to deceive themselves that they are the superior ones when the rest are laughing at how dumb they are from the top.
bystander speaks as if he is better than most of the psc scholars. you can see how stretched his arguments have become. first he attacks local grads. then he attacks psc scholars because he cannot deny that they go to local universities. he finds that he cannot deny that 3 president scholars have headed to local universities in the past 8 years as well. next he will have to attack those ministers and judges which i have listed above and graduated from local universities.
Oh Pls i started by thinking that you were rather objective in your arguments. now i realize that you are just another bigot. of course you’ll always have some aussie, uk, us and chinese grads earning more than some local grads. it would be ridiculous if there weren’t. but there are countless other local grads who earn much more than these overseas grads as well. can you deny this?
bystander: the foolishness of one who knows too little, and talks too much. Poor english too.
Oh Pls: For a guy that think Kings, LSE and UCL are good unis for law, pls la. Anyone with half a brain can pick up a UCAS form and go there, k?
And like I told you, what top? Who is at the top of the legal sector? Where are our judges, managing partners and ministers from? There are almost no aussie grads there.
local: yes i dont deny that. that is why in my earlier messages, i was saying that aussie grads/uni doesnt mean inferior to local grads/uni. But it is you guys who insist and keep putting local grads/uni above the rest, which i think is putting off alot of people here.
qwerty: if you are just talking about the legal sector then maybe you are right but that would be too narrow a scope to compare who is better. like i have always said, i dont think local means better or aussie means better. it is subjective and depends on individual/industry etc. the point that i am proving is not to say local sucks but rather local doesnt mean better. get what i mean? to be honest, i seriously feel that bystander has more valid points than you do. At least he is able to pinpoint arguments and state relevant rebutts rather than your very generic comments like “the foolishness of one who knows too little, and talks too much. Poor english too.” which doesnt reflect very well on yourself.
Frankly, both scholars’ university choices and A-level entry requirements says little about quality of the university graduates each university produces. Objectively, without any additional information, I will trust A-level results entry requirements more than scholars’ choices. Chances are if you only have straight As students in your university, these students will tend to keep up their excellent academic results. But of course, we know about the reputations of some of these universities and should well suspect that they are the choices of scholars from other countries, which then make their cohorts a stronger population than the population of local universities.
Basically, I believe the academic quality of a university’s graduates is strongly correlated to the academic quality of its intake.
I also believe that a 4-year face-to-face learning university graduates (both local or foreign) are stronger than a reduced time, minimal face-to-face learning university graduates.
Personal anecdotes, while potentially inspiring, also adds little to such discussions. If we have a large enough sample over many generations, we may be able to find a dubious university graduate managing over a group consisting of overseas scholars and local elites.
tried hard not to step in…but its sad to see this divide amongst our young singaporeans.
whether u had graduated from a Local Uni or a Foreign one, you are still a Singaporean in the eyes of the foreigners. Infighting is the last thing, we all ought to be doing.
In the real world, the piece of paper opens only doors, how high u can climb depends on the individual capabilities and circumstances.
And true enough, our Top notch Scholars are usually sent to Foreign Instituitions. That is a fact, but that does not neccessary infer anything over the standards of Local n Foreign Programmes.
adiemuso: yes, well said. that is exactly what i have been saying to Amusing and the rest in previous messages. 🙂 That is why i see no reason for a local grad to feel superior to others.
“Top notch Scholars are usually sent to Foreign Instituitions”
it’s true and the reason is obvious. life is not fair. just accept it. it’s the same with elite schools vs neighbourhood schools, business class flight seats vs economy class, class A hospital ward vs class C, car owners vs bus takers, condo dwellers vs hdb renters, rich dad vs poor dad, etc etc.
just ask the local scholarship holders, how many of them honestly would mind taking up an overseas scholarship if given the chance. i dare say almost all wouldn’t mind, except for the few with special reasons (family, bf, gf, ideology, “strategic difference”, etc).
fortunately in singapore, besides the rich getting lots of opportunities at a good life, the bright and diligent students regardless of background also get a good chance (though smaller chance, but still a good chance nonetheless).
Oh Pls: Well said. I second that (post #86) absolutely. When I pick newbies into my department, I seldom look at where they’re graduates of. It’s the same case when I promote them. Only my ex-civil service boss & the personnel division/wing does that.
#1 HYPSM (harvard, yale, penn, stanford and MIT), Oxbridge, Chicago
#2 Good UK, US universities of solid reputation (georgetown, northwestern, carnegie mellon, NYU, Berkeley, Umich, very long list)
#3 Other Good US universities that’s slightly less famous (UVA, Indiana, UT, BC, USC, UCLA, very long list) and Top Australian universities eg ANU, Melbourne
#4 Local U
#5 Distance learning
Dave, what are you talking about? You’re not only stating the obvious. You’re understating it. Have you been through the top 5 JCs? All the people who end up with the local awards (which comes with a 4 yr bond puh lease) are rejects of (real) ie overseas scholarships. Otherwise they are people who did not qualify at all.
A large number of people with only 4As and no special papers were instantly booted out of the running for scholarships. They took on local study awards and went on to serve their bond as nobody-peons in the civil service rather than go to med school (4A only is the norm for med school).
Some frankly admit that they tried and were rejected, some did not apply because they didn’t meet the criteria, and others are still claiming till today they only stayed behind and accepted a local award cos the bond is 2 yrs shorter LOL.
One person I know who still clings onto his connection sadly as an RI and RJ alum fell in the last category mentioned here. He quit his teaching job and is now desperately applying to Canadian and low rung UK universities (King’s) for his 1 year Master’s.
He prob also wants to call himself an overseas grad.
i’m glad to see the commotion dying down. been following this thread with interest and it’s been no different from others i’ve seen around the internet, which is why i kept away from posting.
i shall give myself away from the start. i’m an NUS student, and proud of it. i’m graduating this year and i’ll be getting a starting salary of 100k p.a., and i’m delighted with it. i’m sure some others will be saying how ‘pathetic’ this is soon, but i don’t really care.
they often say how top scorers don’t go to NUS. but it is clear that we have dozens of psc scholars in our midst, not to mention president scholars in the medical school. in my experience there are a large group of students who have scored 4As and above at my faculty. i don’t think you can argue with much conviction that NUS has not attracted top talent.
if we’re talking about who NUS has produced, posts above have listed ministers (goh chok tong, jayakumar, ng eng hen, balakrishnan, shanmugam). and judges (including the chief justice). these people are not just CEOs of SMEs. they are the people who actually run this country.
i confess that i hate it when labels such as ‘farmer’ and ‘frogs in the well’ are thrown around to describe us. they are just malicious. they cannot be reasonably substantiated.
this shall be my first and last post. thanks for reading anyway.
local, why don’t you quit whining and pull out the three president’s scholars who went to NUS after the embargo was lifted? So many people here challenged you to do so but until now, you can’t. So embarrassing.
Earlier Tan Li Feng was named as 1 of them by Cantab Papamama who willingly chose to go. Someone else found . Winston Choo didnt go there on his own accord ok? The links have been pasted and proof about the policy before 2006 oppressing the president’s scholars who wished to do med adduced. I don’t know why you’re still in deep denial although so many people try to wake you up. Its such a sorry sight.
The fact as many people have said, is that the top tier scholarships are three and they are all overseas ones. Why don’t you go and count how many PS are there in the last 10 years that went to a local university??
Kevin, you’re talking utter rubbish and sound like a retard. No one is saying “A level grades over Scholars’ Choice” (???>). Its not scholars’ “Choice”. Its demand and supply and about how good they are. Its not their choice. You think scholars get to choose wherever they wish to go without making the criteria of their dream school? You think all scholars go to Harvard? In fact they are assessed beyond A level grades and any decent scholarship in demand by the top students in SG encompass way beyond perfect scores in the A levels, it also includes CCA, harrowing interviews with at least a panel of 10, community work and leadership performance in OCS for guys. So its not a toss between looking at A level grades and “scholars’ choice”. You mean you believe in your delusions that local toads have better grades than the top students with perfect CVs, the people who get the PSC scholarships? You sound like a total nutjob who doesn’t know what you’re talking about. No matter you went to NUS as I know from another thread.
“i don’t think you can argue with much conviction that NUS has not attracted top talent.”
er… do you mean top talent IN singapore? what about top talent from around the WORLD? the top whiz kids around the world from india to russia ALL want to study in the top universities in USA if they get the chance. they have not even heard of NUS, and never will.
while NUS _may_ have a good reputation locally, the best of the best like Harvard, MIT and Stanford are internationally renowned. no doubt about it.
Tan Li Feng (2006)
Kaan Hung Leng (2007)
Winston Chin (2003)
let’s take it Winston Chin did not go ‘willingly’. that’s 2 president scholars in the past 3 years.
someone pointed out above that Winston Chin obviously had a choice between studying at NUS, or spending a few hundred thousand getting a medical degree elsewhere. if he really felt that a medical degree elsewhere is worth more than the few hundred thousand that he had to fork out, he would have gone for it. it is obvious that he did not feel that way.
u have local grads here defending their school, listing president scholars and top graduates. what arguments have the others made other than bald assertions?
dave, i don’t think we disagree that the schools u listed are very good. we are just proving here is that local universities are good as well. the fact that local universities are an attractive proposition to our president & psc scholars, and produced our ministers and judges says a lot.
many public universities in japan, korea, taiwan, hk etc probably would not attract talent from around the world as well. this does not make them any less good. they play the primary role of providing tertiary education to the local populace, which is what our local universities do.
some scholars may not want to go overseas because they worry about the cost of breaking the bond (not that they plan to break the bond, but that they’re planning for the scenario and they don’t have a silver spoon).
local, ok i agree with your last statement.
and i hope to see the day when the offsprings of our own PM, President and cabinet ministers attend local unis by choice. it’ll be even better if they proudly reject Harvard and attend NUS.
(no sarcasm intended.)