Times Higher Education 2010-2011 rankings

As many of you would have already known, this year, Times is linking up with a new data provider--Thomson Reuters-- to present their yearly university rankings. The most publicized change in the ranking methodology is the greater emphasis on research (reputation, volume and income) and a low emphasis on reputation (2009 rankings made use of opinion polls). I personally think that that is what brought CalTech up from 10th last year to 2nd this year, and what brought NUS down, albeit a little bit only i.e. four notches from 30 to 34.

Times Higher Education rankings: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/

The methodology: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/analysis-methodology.html

Criticism of college rankings

Don't get too caught up in college rankings when researching them. Here's why.

List of American Institutions providing Financial Aid for International Undergraduate students

This list of schools was contributed by Manh Huy, NUSH'09.

EDIT: 4 May 2010
If the image is too blurry, the link is here:  http://www.mediafire.com/?mjmytirqaty 

Differences between the American and the UK undergraduate experience

Written by an American Postgraduate student.
http://fliptomato.wordpress.com/2006/12/16/cambridge-for-american-undergraduates/

Talk about HMC

Calling all NUSHS students! I will be giving a talk on Harvey Mudd College, the small tech school that I attend, on 13 Jan 2010.

Here's an outline of my talk:

- Intro to Liberal arts colleges (LACs) and their general characteristics

- How HMC is different from other LACs

>> HMC as a tech school

- How HMC is awesome

>> 5C consortium and breadth of courses

- My personal experiences, including funding and financial aid

I'm sure it will be interesting for those considering studying in the US, especially if you're looking at LACs. Even if you are not sure of your plans yet, just come to learn more. I'm trying to invite a special guest to come~

Please let Mr. Allan know if you're interested in coming. Tentatively, it will be at the college counseling office at 5:30pm, Wednesday 13 January.

Non-bonded scholarship: Korea Government Scholarship

Re-posted from Mr Allan's email:

The Korean Government would like to invite qualified applicants from Singapore who have completed their pre-university education at the various JCs, CI, polytechnics to apply for the Korean Government Scholarship (Undergraduate). The info and application form are attached. We would appreciate your assistance to forward the information to interested parties please. Please note that the deadline for submission is 22/1/2010 (Fri).

Just wanted to encourage interested Year7s and lower-years to consider this scholarship. The Korea government sponsors a year of Korean language study followed by university education in a Korea university. After the first year of language study, students are eligible to apply to all Korean universities. This scholarship provides for airfare, school fees, and living allowance.

Eugenia, NUSHS '08, is currently finishing up her first year of language study at a university near Seoul. Once I learn more from her, I'll update more.

8 reasons to choose Harvey Mudd!

1. Challenging classes that won't kill you.

2. Awesome professors. My professors reply emailed questions really fast, like I emailed at 9pm US time and he replied at 11pm US time. On Sunday.

3. More awesome professors. They are always very willing to talk to you and have a lot of different interests. Two of my Caucasian profs have learned Chinese, one of whom had taught English in Taiwan for a year.

4. Awesome students. Yeah, they're all cool people (:

5. Breadth of courses. HMC is part of a consortium (the 5C's) and it's so. amazingly. easy to register and attend courses at the other 4C's. No nonsense to worry about like 'transfer credit', totally seamless. You can learn Arabic or Ballroom Dance or African-American lit.

6. Small class size / cozy environment. My maths lecture is 60 people; most sections (tutorials) average 15. Right from the first year.

7. Pleasant weather. More pleasant than NorCal (e.g. Stanford or Berkeley) Even though you actually /have/ to wear a jacket sometimes. Haha (:

8. Opportunities. Everyone here wants to help you do cool stuff. I've had like three sessions with the career services office, and I'm a freshman -- they're very available!

EDIT: Bonus!

9. Really awesome talks! Yeah, just remembered. Almost every week during the Fall semester, awesome invited speakers gave talks, including Brian Greene, string theorist, and William Kamkwamba, the Malawian student who built a windmill for his village. And Danica McKellar, actress-cum-mathematician, with whom I participated in a dialogue session -- she's really an inspiring role model: Check out her website: KISSMYMATH.COM. Cool no?

And there's colloquium, where professors or people working in industry come to give talks on their area of expertise. I randomly attended the Computer Science colloquium and Dr Randy Wang, who ''distributes digitally recorded live classes to poor children in slum and rural schools in India''. Mudd paid for the CS dept chair, another student, and me to have dinner with Dr Wang.

The disadvantages of an elite education

Zhao Ye posted this link on Mr Allan's discussion forum: The disadvantages of an elite education

It's an interesting article that debases the traditional Singapore notion of Ivy League best, everything else inferior. Though it's long, I encourage you to read it.

NUS High is very much an elite education and most students here work to getting into the top universities worldwide, whether US or UK. I'm sure many have realised that we NUS High kids treat NUS as a 'safety school' (except for law/medicine), because getting into NUS Science or Engineering is a breeze for most of us, whereas our peers are working as hard as possible just to get in. Are we cultivating an elitist mindset here? Are we working hard just to get good grades everywhere, along with EC achievements, CIP, leadership positions, etc?

We always talk about being passionate in particular fields of math and science, and yet most of us still strive to attain excellence in all fields simply to push up our graduating CAP, which supposedly makes it easier to get into top schools. But perhaps an Ivy League education may not be the best path to take, no matter the prestige of such institutions (and brand-name recognition) here in Singapore. Students, and scholarship organisations for that matter, are already warming up to the idea of liberal arts colleges and good public universities.

How will Singapore view university education from different 'classes' of institutions in future? What do you think?

Choosing colleges in UK Universities

As for how to choose a college. Personally, I chose which college I was applying for with very superficial criteria, including the college colours and the look of its website. Seriously.

Anyway, some "real" criteria you can look for (in no particular order):

1. Ranking on the tables. Actually, since academics are about the same throughout the university, the table rankings don't really show that much. If you look at the graphs of year-on-year rankings you'll see that most colleges fluctuate dramatically. I didn't take this into account when applying for my college (and to my shock and horror I later discovered that the college I'd applied for has been topping the Tompkins Table for a few years in recent times).

2. Entrance statistics. For Cambridge, you can find all statistics on its website. Not sure about Oxford. You can choose a college which has a relatively high proportion of admits, but correspondingly lower proportion of pooled-then-admitted students, or you can pick one with lower admits but higher successful pool rates, or something in the
middle - you get the idea.

3. Size of college. Do you want a large community, a tiny one, or a mid-sized one? Do you want an all-women college?

4. Environment of college. Where in the university town is your college located? Is it along a very busy stretch? Is it very quiet and peaceful? Are you allowed to step on the grass?

5. Interviews of college. This is a pretty important point, and it differs for each course and college. Some colleges will do a simple interview. Others will make you sit the TSA. Yet others will give you reading material beforehand and expect you to discuss it. Go to the college website to see how they interview candidates for their courses.

6. Whether you know any seniors there. Believe it or not, this can be a turning point in your favour. First, you'll know exactly what the interview process is like. Second, you'll have someone to guide you along in a new environment. Third, you'll know what that college requires in terms of academics.

What I mean by this is that Oxbridge courses generally ask for AAA for A-level to be able to confirm your offer. But how it converts to our CAP scale is entirely different. Homerton College in Cambridge asked for a 4.2 overall, 4.2 in English, 4.2 in Math, 4.2 in Chemistry. On a side note, Imperial required a 4.3 in English from someone. The
colleges are allowed to ask for different grades, because admission is entirely at their discretion. Some colleges have a tradition of giving "easy offers" or "matriculation offers" - i.e. EE for A-levels, to take the pressure off their most brilliant candidates, but I doubt they'll give such offers to international students.

7. Housing at the college. Just about all Oxbridge colleges can guarantee four years of undergraduate housing for its students, which is good for you, because other universities (both US and UK) generally only offer 1-2 years. So your accommodation is taken care of. But the rooms vary quite a bit, too. Some are single, some are twin rooms.
Some share common facilities like toilets and kitchens. Some have in- room sinks. Some are en-suite. Then you have the meal plans. Finally, you have the cost of renting the room. Even if you're on scholarship, this has to be taken into account, because most scholarships give you a monthly allowance that includes accommodation costs (about 100 pounds a week).

8. The "feel" of the college. Look at their websites. Order their prospectuses. Most of them have student-produced prospectuses, which will give you an insight into what the students actually do there. Some colleges are really old and have facades that speak of their tradition. Others are newer and more modern. If you have the money, visit the university and talk to the people there.

9. The faculty of the college. If you have academic heroes, see if they're residents of any colleges. If you attend that college, you may well get to speak to them and discuss their work with them, and get inspired.

That's all I can think of now.

Researching Colleges

"Researching" in the colleges that you are interested in is probably something that you have heard all too often, but dont brush aside its importance. I think that "research" is really 1 of the most important steps because you can then gauge if you like the feel of the college and see if you are a right fit for it.

What schools should you research into, what do you look out for and how do you use that research? As with all posts, use the following advice at your own discretion!

1. Any school that is on your shortlist radar should be researched upon.
After you have a list of schools that you have shortlisted, start researching on EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Yes I said EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Why? For a few good reasons, assuming you are applying there:
a) You are paying ~USD$70 or $60 pounds to apply there, that's about $100, which is quite a lot of $$ and I dont think you want to be paying that $$ to a college which you dont know much about. Would you pay $100 for a product which you know nothing about? (okay maybe it doesnt hurt you cos it's not your $$, but think for your parents! Trust me it's a lot, especially when you start working)
b) You will end up in one of those colleges, and you dont even know if you will be happy there. Why take that gamble on your happiness for the next 4 years of your life? (And why waste the $$ on a school which you dont want to go?)
c) If you find that you dont like a college, another college goes into the list to replace it. The more research you do, the higher your odds at being happy at the place you eventually end up in.

Are those compelling enough reasons? If not I will give more.

So now that you are convinced of the need to research...
2. Go to the school website to find out as much as you can. Talk to seniors who are studying there, or the alumni who have already studied there. Ask about the culture, the atmosphere, or whatever just to get a feel of the place. Go to forums to see what people say about the school.

Sidenote: One thing that made me convinced that Stanford was the right place for me was that everyone loves it there. It's hard to find a student who doesnt like being at Stanford, in contrast I have heard a number giving negative reviews about Harvard.

Anyway, even after you hear positive/negative reviews about the place, do a final check to validate your decision to put it/drop it on your list of colleges. You'd be surprised at the cues that the school websites tell you - MIT gives the impression that it's a fun and caring place by its layout and tone of writing, while Caltech gives the impression that it's a more academic place with its strong emphasis on academic areas, etc. Go figure. Research as much as you can until you can be somewhat sure that you dont mind going to that school.

3. Visiting the school campus?
You will notice that on the school's websites, it often tells you to visit the school campuses. It's not a must/norm for Singaporean students because we are international and it doesnt make sense to buy a plane ticket of ~$2000 just to visit schools. There are, however, alternatives:
a) Requesting a yearbook/bulletin from the schools. Most schools have that and will gladly mail it to you for free if you give them your address.
b) Sign up on their mailing list, if they have one.
c) Look at photos from the campus - some people post them up. (Personally though I never bothered too much about it because I felt that all schools have their scenic shots anyway and they all look the same to me)
d) If you are planning a trip to the US or UK, take a day off to visit! For e.g. when I was in London, I got to visit Imperial and UCL in the span of a few hours because you could just take the Tube around and it was very convenient. If you are in the East Coast in the US, that's quite a few schools that you can go to already. :) Check out the googlemaps (http://tinyurl.com/qkd5l3) to see what schools you can go visit in your holidaying destination.
e) Check out college profiles. (see May 12 post for url)

Finding the College That's the Right Fit for You

http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2008/08/21/finding-the-college-thats-the-right-fit-for-you.html?loomia_ow=t32:sb:a41:g26:r18:c0.002655:b20193527&s_cid=loomia:how-to-get-admissions-officers-to-say-yes

You don't need to be a math whiz to solve this one: Who has better odds of gaining acceptance at the college that's the best match, the kid who applies to 25 schools indiscriminately or the one who applies to a carefully whittled-down list of seven?

Choosing a School - Part III

So let's just say you have already decided on your country of study or you feel that it is a non-issue. What next?

Well one way you can do it is to think about your choice of your course of study. You probably already have something in mind already. Science? History? Accounting? Law? etc.

I am not sure if I have mentioned it already but medicine and law cannot be taken at undergraduate level in the US, so people interested in these areas often look to the UK or Australia for an overseas option. NUS doesnt fare too badly in these areas either so that's something you might want to consider too.

Let's just say that Person A likes chemistry and he wants to study in either the US or UK. His 1st priority for university is to get a good education in his field of study. First thing he would want to do is to check out the rankings in usnews.

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/grad

I know it says graduate schools but the undergraduate version isnt free so we will just have to make do.

"The Sciences" is what I am interested in, followed by "top chemistry programs".
http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/grad/che/search

And this is what he gets!
1. Caltech
1. MIT
1. Stanford
1. UC Berkeley
5. Harvard
6. Scripps Research Institute
7. UIUC
7. University of Wisconsin Madison
9. Cornell University
9. Northwestern
and so on.

At this juncture I think it's good to clarify something. Some people ask me how many schools they should apply to. My answer is that it's really up to you, but a good gauge is about 7 or 8 schools in total because each school you pay for costs money! (Okay to be more precise I think I should say you should only pay for the application fees of ~8 schools) In general, the schools that you apply to can be classified into 3 categories: Reach, match or safety.

Reach refers to schools which you feel you have a long shot, but you want to try anyway. These are typically schools with high rankings and are very selective. Match refers to schools that you feel you have a decent shot at, and Safety refers to schools which you are extremely confident of getting into (hence they are your 'safety' schools).

So what person A then did was to go down the rankings and start classifying. Of course, when you do that, you dont want to have 10 reach schools and only 1 match school because reach schools are, well, reaches. You dont want a situation where you dont get into your reach school and your match school rejects you for some reason and you end up having no school to go to.

Okay time to shortlist. Assuming you want to eventually pay for about 8 schools in total, it's a good idea to shortlist about 15 schools at first.

Back to Person A. Since he is from NUS High School and has a very decent cap of say, 4, we can say that NUS and NTU are his safeties. UCAS counts as 1 (since he is really only interested in Cambridge and the rest are just filled up for the heck of it). So we have:

Reach: Cambridge
Match:
Safety: NUS, NTU

Now let's look at the list of US schools and classify them accordingly.

1. Caltech - reach
1. MIT - reach
1. Stanford - reach
1. UC Berkeley - match
5. Harvard - reach
6. Scripps Research Institute - dont think you can apply there
7. UIUC - match
7. University of Wisconsin Madison - match
9. Cornell University - reach/match
9. Northwestern - reach/match

You can see many 'reaches' in the top 10 list, which shouldnt surprise you at all since good schools tend to be more selective. It will be good to eventually apply for about 3 reaches (excluding the UK), 3 matches and 2 safeties so shortlist accordingly for this 1st part, but again it's up to your own discretion. The money is yours!

The list now looks like this (minus Cambridge):

Reach: MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Harvard
Match: UC Berkeley, UIUC, University of Wisconsin Madison, Cornell, Northwestern
Safety: NUS, NTU

Another way to gauge reach/match is by the number of Singaporeans who go there. A good reference is the RJC website (http://www.rjc.edu.sg/USapps/Colleges/rjcrecord.asp) where they tell you the acceptance rate/school. Cornell may be ranked highly on the usnews list, but has a high acceptance rate for Singaporeans and hence I have classified it as "match".

Now to do some research on the schools. Person A likes a vibrant city life and hates to be buried in books the whole day.

The next thing to do is then to go to their various websites to experience its feel and see if you like the culture and the vibes you are getting. Talk to people (http://talk.collegeconfidential.com) to ask about the culture. Person A may decide to rule Stanford out of his list because it's a very self-sufficient place in Palo Alto and hardly a vibrant city life (unless he goes down to San Francisco). He may then decide to rule out Harvard, because he thinks its impossible for him to get in and he doesnt want to waste his money. There, then that leaves room for a few more schools to add to his list and research on! And then it goes on.

Going down the rankings:
11. Columbia University - reach
Perfect to add to list of reach schools. Columbia is in New York, just the kind of place he would like to be in.

Like I said, it all depends on your priorities in universities and the vibes you get from them. If you like to be on the East Coast then Stanford and the UC schools may not be for you. If being around internationals and staying away from Singaporeans is what you like then Cornell may not be good; it's swarming with Singaporeans. Talk to seniors who have studied there for more advice on specific schools. Special programmes in some schools may also be the deciding factor when you choose your schools.

It's hard to advise on how to choose schools as each individual is different, but I hope this has been of help. Do im me if you would like advice that is specific to your needs. :)

>> Choosing a School - Part IV

Choosing a School - Part IV

Now I will talk about local schools. Aside from popular courses like medicine, dentistry or law, local universities are generally easier to get in than overseas universities. Aside from being a lot cheaper, you will also be at home, which is a very good perk for some who eventually decide not to go overseas for further studies.

I will cover only NUS, NTU and SMU as I dont think you will be interested in UniSim and other private universities. I am not an expert on NTU and SMU (I didnt apply) so I wont talk very much about them either. Please do correct me if I have any errors below.

In terms of culture:
NUS, well most of you have been there for research projects or field trips so I think you have had plenty of opportunities to soak in their culture and see if you like it or not. Personally I felt that it seemed more academically inclined than NTU or SMU, but I leave you to make your conclusions.

SMU projects the very 'cool' and 'fun' image, but some seniors from SMU have said that it's becoming more and more 'muggerish' due to the mix of students that they attract. Not sure what to make out of that because I didnt say it and I was never a student there, but again you make your judgments based on the feel you get when you go in etc.

In terms of academics:
If you are interested in doing medicine, NUS is the only local university thus far which has a medicine school. There has been talks lately about opening another one, but I dont think it will materialize within your time and so you got to fight for the 200-300 places in NUS medical school for undergraduate, or go to the Duke-NUS medical school for graduate studies. The NUS medical school is probably what you are looking at if you intend to practice after studying, from what I heard the Duke-NUS medical school trains you to be a researcher instead of a practicing doctor.

If you are interested in law, NUS and SMU have law programmes, however a friend doing law now tells me that NUS's programme is more established. Take it for what you will.

If you want to do sciences, SMU does not offer science, so your only choices are NUS and NTU. NUS science fac should be easy for most of you, ditto for NTU. I wont comment about which one is better because both schools have their strong and weak points, but you probably already know whether you want to go to NUS or NTU. If you dont know just apply to both.

If you want to do business, it seems like that is SMU's forte (accountancy and business)and it seems to be 1 of the more popular courses for NUS as well.

If you want to do arts and social sciences, I have no opinion other than doing psychology at any of our local universities is not as good as going to the US.

>> Choosing a School - Part IV

Choosing a School - Part II

So if I recall correctly the last time I spoke about choosing the country of choice for your study. I realized that I forgot to include a very important factor of consideration: FEES.

I have spoken about UK schools in 1 of my 1st posts, but I think maybe it's good to speak about some schools in detail:

LSE: Famous for economics and social sciences. Amazingly hard to get in (looking at past seniors), please take some economics modules at the very least if you want to get in here because they reject people who dont do econs (well I am assuming you are applying for econs) or any other subject that you are applying for.

In addition, if LSE is your 1st choice, please dont put Oxford/Cambridge in your choices. I have heard that LSE automatically rejects those who have Oxbridge as their 1st choice, though I dont know how true that is.

Imperial College: Famous for the sciences.

So let's talk about fees for now as a continuation of that last post. The following information was from the Cambridge Trusts form:

Fees for the 2009/10 academic year



Overseas students – Band 1 Arts (this includes Mathematics)


Tuition Fee: £9747

College Fee: £3956 (please expect this fee to increase in line with inflation for the 2009/10 academic year)

Anticipated maintenance costs: £8050


Estimated annual cost: £21753




Overseas students – Band 2 Sciences (this includes Geography and Music)


Tuition Fee: £12768

College Fee: £3956 (please expect this fee to increase in line with inflation for the 2009/10 academic year)

Anticipated maintenance costs: £8050


Estimated annual cost: £24774

------------

For US, I think you can expect to prepare about USD$50k / year, you can check out the link at the sidebar (the CNN website) to find out how much you need to pay for your desired school.

Australia is definitely a cheaper option than US or UK.

I will talk about avenues for financial aid and scholarships in later posts.

>> Choosing a School - Part III

Choosing a School - Part I.

So a long time ago I said that I would post up articles on how to make a list of the types of universities that you want to go to and shortlist the universities bit by bit. The first thing that I suggest is to decide your country of study.

This is what you may want to think about when deciding the country, in no order of priority:
1. Culture
2. How it fits with your course of study and type of education you want
3. What you hope to gain out of going there
Now let me elaborate on those 3 points.

1. Culture
Different countries have different culture, and some people have an inclination to certain cultures, especially if you do 3rd language. For instance, if you take German and you really like Germany, there is no reason why Germany shouldnt be a consideration (unless it goes against the other 2 points). Some people like the US culture where everyone is liberal and merry, while some like the UK culture. It's all about personal preference, though some are fairly neutral about this and this is therefore a non-factor in their consideration.

2. Course of study and type of education
I suppose you would have an idea of the course that you would want to study. Think about how it fits in with the country of study. For instance, aspiring doctors rarely choose US as a destination because medicine in US can only be done in graduate school, whereas it can be done in the UK/Australia as an undergraduate degree. At the same time aspiring doctors have to check with the medical authorities to see if they can practise in Singapore if they are educated in a different country.

Same goes for law in the US - it can only be done in grad school. UK therefore is a popular option for aspiring lawyers.

Some countries are also better in certain subjects - dont do psychology anywhere else other than in the US for example.

And the type of education in each country has different styles as well. For instance, the US education is rather liberal - you can do double degrees, triple degrees, etc, you can dabble in japanese classes while doing a major in biology. But in the UK, you can only stick to modules in your course of study. Of course there are upsides and downsides to it, the upside is that in UK you learn things in a more in depth manner and you get more knowledge in your subject content but you dont get the breadth unlike the US.

Clues can also be seen from the admission process, where UK universities tend to focus more on the academic aspect of applicants (hence if you go there it will probably be more academic than the US) while the US looks at the applicant as a whole. Tells you about the kind of students you will be mixing around with as well in school.

3. What you hope to gain
Different people hope to gain different things during their undergraduate years. Some hope to learn about a new culture or go somewhere unconventional, in which case it might be better to steer clear of the Anglo-Saxon schools. Some hope to gain mastery of the subject they are learning, and for some they just want a degree that can get them places (in which case ranking is king). You probably have to weigh all these factors and think about what works for you - you probably have an inclination of what countries you would want or not want to study in already, or at the very least you would have an idea of what you want from your undergraduate education.

Will continue this again another day, got to run for a meeting. Ciao!

>> Choosing a School - Part II

UK Admissions.

Today's post will be about choice of schools. Many people often ask how do you choose your school? My answer is that first, decide on your country of study, then choose your school based on course and culture.

I am not too sure about Australia other than that their school term starts in February and that UniMel and Murdoch are good for vet science, but I will talk about US and UK and what made me decide to go to US.

US:
- Broad based education (allows you to take a double degree)
- Flexibility in choice (dabble in anything you want)
- More holistic education
- Good in psych!

UK:
- Focused education (meaning if you know for e.g. you want to do only 1 degree and nothing else UK would be good)
- More academic oriented - evident from their admission process
- The UK culture has a certain allure to it, for me anyway but of course you have your opinions about it

The reason why it is easy for Singapore students to get into UK universities is because the norm for UK students is to take 3 A levels (and for the good ones get 3 As) but in Singapore it's 4 As for the good ones. However, for our school I guess the requirements are slightly different.

I will first talk about the admission process for UK and US unis before going to why choose 1 uni over others etc.

For UK unis, submission of any application is done through this portal, called UCAS. You can access it at www.ucas.com. Other than your particulars, you are also required to fill in your subject CAPs and any other relevant qualification. That would mean any APs, SAT scores if you want, even your HCl O levels would be helpful. Any employment history can be recorded as well, and then the personal statement and a referee's statement (which you will need - go find a teacher to write this for you). SATs should be filled in as much as possible because a good CR score (> 650) would exempt you from taking the TOEFL / IELTS which some schools require. Yes, you would notice you dont need to include your CCAs.

Of course, you choose the schools you want as well - under 2 schemes. The first scheme is that you only pick one school (and 1 course as well) and you pay less, the 2nd scheme is that you pick 5 schools (and 5 courses as well) and you pay slightly more. So it's either 1 or multiple (max 5). Regardless of which one you choose, only 1 of your choices can contain Cambridge/Oxford. Big universities like Cambridge/Oxford would require you to choose your college as well within the uni.

So my choices were something like this:
1. Cambridge, Natural Sciences, Homerton College
2. Imperial College, Chemistry
3. UCL, Chemistry
4. London School of Economics, Govt and Politics
5. UCL, Natural Sciences (this choice was added really late because I didnt know what I should put to use up my last choice)

Well I only needed 3 choices but since I was paying for 5 I thought I'd try my luck at LSE. If you dont know how to use up your choices yet, you can just fill a few first and fill up the rest of the choices later.

The moment you hit the send button on the UCAS form, the whole application goes to all of your choices simultaneously. Hence there is no way of modifying your personal statement to make it specific to each university you are applying to.

Your personal statement normally contains information about yourself, any achievements you want to highlight, why you want to study in the UK, and (very importantly) why that course. My personal statement was about why I liked chemistry, so little wonder I got rejected from LSE in the end - the 1st university that replied me. :P

Cambridge and Oxford have a supplement that is specific to them. I am not sure about Oxford - I am sure you can check it out - but for Cambridge, the supplement doesnt require any additional information you haven't already filled up other than your SAT score (if you didnt put it in UCAS) and a short essay on Why Cambridge.

Following that, the school may conduct interviews with you to determine your eligibility for them. They will make references to your personal statement and ask you questions about it. At this point I think I will post my profile for UCAS before I talk about my interview:

Qualification 1

Qualification type

SIPHSMSD (Singapore Integrated Programme High School Math and Science Diploma)
Date taken

01-Sep-2008

Examining body

NUS
Subject

Singapore-Integrated Programme-Nat Uni Singap
Module details

Date: 01/09/08 Title: English Grade: 4.34
Date: 01/09/08 Title: Higher Chinese Grade: 4.23
Date: 01/09/08 Title: Major in Biology Grade: 4.18
Date: 01/09/08 Title: Major in Chemistry Grade: 4.5
Date: 01/09/08 Title: Major in Physics Grade: 3.47
Date: 01/09/08 Title: Major in Mathematics Grade: 4.54
Date: 01/09/08 Title: History Grade: 4.17
Date: 01/09/08 Title: Literature Grade: 4.25
Date: 01/09/08 Title: Major with Honors in Chemistry
Date: 01/09/08 Title: Major with Honors in Mathematics Grade: 4.5
Date: 01/09/08 Title: Major with Honors in Biology Grade: 4.5

SAT I: CR 740, M 800, W 720
SAT II: Math Level 2 790, Chemistry 800

APs:
AP Biology, Stats, Calculus BC, Calculus AB, Chemistry, Physics B: 5

O Levels: Higher Chinese A

Personal statement: (I took out some parts that were sensitive and not meant for the public to see)

“I can never stand still. I must explore and experiment. I am never satisfied with my work. I resent the limitations of my own imagination.”–W. Disney. I can perfectly understand how he feels as I am also a person who simply cannot stand still.

I walk with that distinct bounce along the classroom corridors, a goofy smile constantly on my face. I jump, I skip, if I could I would fly to my destination, as time is always of the essence. Have an assignment for me? Don’t rush me, give me a deadline, give me the freedom to do what I want to do, don’t come at my ear giving me constant reminders, and I will give you your product coupled with a touch of my perfectionist streak.

Most of my academic achievements lie in research. I have worked on 2 projects in the field of spiders. The 1st project was a finalist at the Singapore Science and Engineering Fair (SSEF) 2007 and was presented at the International Students Science Fair 2006 and the London International Youth Science Forum 2007. The 2nd project won a silver award in SSEF 2008 and was presented at the Ritsumeikan Students Science Fair 2007. In addition, both projects were presented at the 12th International Society for Behavioral Ecology Congress in Cornell University.

My strongest subject is Chemistry, where I represented the school in the Singapore Chemistry Olympiad and won silver, and was selected for phase I of the national team training. I find chemistry an interesting subject as it is the foundation of all science; everything in the world can thought of as simple compounds, molecules and atoms. It amazes me that these atoms are the building blocks of life, bonded with other blocks in different combinations and concentrations to create different materials that can be used in so many different ways. Given my active nature, together with my friends, we set up a Chemistry Interest Group in our school, aimed at introducing the wonders of chemistry to our juniors through fun experiments such as creating ‘dye’ (which are actually acid-base indicators or complex ion mixtures).

I love organizing camps and teaching kids values such as leadership and teamwork. I have organized camps for organizations such as the Children’s Kidney Centre and other primary schools. My experiences in the school debating team, model UN conferences and leadership positions in school were certainly helpful in my work.

Student leadership is something that I am very passionate about. I have taken up various leadership positions, such as Vice Captain of Canoe Polo, President of Student Council and Vice House Captain, among others. In addition, I was also one of the authors for the book “50 Math and Science Games for Leadership”. Out of school, I am the Head of Volunteer Management and Development in ECO Singapore, an environmental organization that promotes environmental friendliness through youth-initiated projects.

Being the eldest child and the first college entree of my family meant that I am often forced to find my own solutions to any problems that I may encounter in my life. I find this a blessing in disguise as I have the freedom to solve problems in any way I can. This meant lots of surprising discoveries along the way (it is possible to walk on a mixture of cornstarch and water), lots of learning (you can’t trisect an angle with just a compass), and of course, lots of accidents as well (pouring phenolphthalein on my shirt and it turning blue when placed in the wash), but it really isn’t a bad thing, is it?

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As you can see I didnt really talk about why I want to study in the UK, but I had a significant amount of my essay dedicated to my achievements and extracurriculars. I am not too sure if my extracurriculars were taken into consideration, because there was no mention of them during my interview at all.

Cambridge and Oxford require your app to be submitted by September, while the rest by January. It is then redirected to the college and faculty and they will contact you with regards to an offer / interview / whatever else. Offers normally come in 3 forms: Unconditional (you get a place regardless), conditional (fulfil XXX conditions or you arent coming, or rejected (sorry no go).

Imperial was the 1st successful one to respond for mine - sometime in October. It was an unconditional offer.

Then I received an invitation for an interview for Cambridge (most colleges have 1), which was to be held in RI, and the time to take the TSA, which was held on a Saturday at HCJC. Most colleges for Cambridge and Oxford require you to take a Thinking Skills Assessment test. You can try 10 questions of it here: http://www.admissionstests.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/adt/tsacambridge

During my Cambridge interview, I was asked about topics related to my course of study - natural sciences. I was first asked to describe my IR - which I did, both projects - and then told that they want to know if I am able to handle the coursework at Cambridge. So I was given some paper, and asked a few questions - I will quote from 1 of my previous posts about the details:

"After that she got me to estimate how many cells were in a person's body, I didnt really know the answer so she asked me how big was a cell. I didnt know either and she told me 10 microns long. So I said something to the effect of assuming it's a sphere, calculate volume of person via mass/density (assume density is equivalent to water) and divide accordingly.

After that she gave me a few math questions. First was to differentiate x^3 sin x. So I did that with a bit of ease though I was kind of caught unaware. Then it was to integrate x ln x, which I could do as well. And then she got me to graph y = xe^(-x), and I got stuck halfway because I could do y = e^(-x) but I wasnt too sure about y = xe^(-x) but I got the graph half-right so that's better than nothing.

Next she asked me about cornstarch and water and what happens when I mix them together. So we spoke a little about the structure of cornstarch (which I didnt know again but I knew the structure of carbohydrates) and how it changes as you add water. Then spoke about coloured compounds - why do they have colours? So I said conjugation, excitation of electrons make them jump up the orbitals - sigma, pi, n, pi star and sigma star and as they fall back down they release energy that corresponds to a frequency in the visible spectrum. She seemed really impressed at this juncture and asked did you learn this in school and I said yes. So she asked why doesnt everything produce colours then and I thought it was simple, because they might fall along other areas of the EM spectrum? And she seemed very happy after that.

Following that she kind of ran out of time on me but since I was the last person it wasnt so bad. She chatted with me about how she thinks Cambridge is a good fit for me and etc. "

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As you can see it is very academic/subject-oriented, I didnt expect that, but now you can expect that.

A few days after that I received a few emails from UCL with regards to their courses, etc but I think what's exciting you more is the following email:

"I hope this email finds you well. Thank you for your application through UCAS to study Chemistry at University College London.
My apologies for the slight delay in responding to you, as I been finalising our process for overseas applicant to ensure fairness.

As I am sure you are aware, it is our normal policy to interview all candidates. As we cannot do this face-to-face, the "interview" will
be conducted by email and followed-up by telephone if necessary.

On Monday I will be sending you some further information on the course at UCL and more general information, the
same information I give UK-based students on their visit.

I will shortly afterwards send a series of questions for you to respond to. I wish you to do this as if we were having a conversation - I do not
need essays, I need conversational responses (of course if you wish to attached drawn structures as scanned images then feel free).
You should not need to refer to notes or other sources. The aim is to allow us to judge if you are able to think about chemistry in such a
way to allow you realise your full potential here at UCL.

You should be able to complete the questions 20 minutes at most. I may then follow-up with further questions.
Please respond within 7 days of receipt of the email.
Once this process is complete, I will confirm if we will be recommending an offer and the Faculty Admissions Tutor should make an
offer within 5 working days of receipt of my recommendation.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me or call me (I will call you back)."

A few days later, I received an email again from UCL:
"Thank you for your application to study with us in the Chemistry department at UCL.

I hope you found the mailing last week useful - do not hesitate to call or email me if you have any questions. I now wish you to provide answers to the following as part of our admissions process.

Could you write me some brief notes on the topics below. I would appreciate a reply within 7 days if possible.

I have two beakers of water, one at room temperature, the other at 50oC. Do you expect their pH to be the same or different? Why?

What property of constarch an water makes it possible to walk on? How is this possible?
Why did you shirt go blue?"

As you can see - once again, very subject-based. This was my reply:
"With regards to your first question about the pH of water being
similar or different at room temperature and 50 degrees C.

I would definitely expect it to be different. pH = - log [H+] and [H+]
is dependent on the K value of water, typically 1 x 10 ^ (-14).

Since 2 H2O <=> H3O+ and OH-, Kc value of H2O = [H3O+] [OH-]

However, K value is affected by the temperature of the surroundings
because of thermodynamic properties. deltaG of a reaction = deltaH - T
deltaS = - RT ln K. The temperature affects the direction which the
reaction would be more likely to proceed.

Offhand I dont exactly know the deltaH value for this reaction, but
given that temperature affects K -- which in turn affects the amount
of ions dissociated -- thereby affecting the concentration of H+ ions,
the pH of water in different temperatures will obviously differ -
although in this instance it wouldnt differ by a large amount due to
the small difference in temperature.

With regards to the 2nd question: It is interesting that you ask this
question too because it is a question that I get asked a lot many
times (in interviews, demonstrations, etc). A mixture of cornstarch
and water yields oobleck, a non-newtonian fluid which behaves like a
solid when pressure is applied to it and behaves like a liquid when
allowed to flow freely. Other non-newtonian fluids include quicksand
and ketchup whereby they don't follow typical 'newtonian laws'.

Honestly I have wondered about this question many times myself but
despite checks from other reference sources in the past I never really
got an answer to it. My guess is that given that cornstarch is a
polymer in itself, its addition to water actually disrupts the VDW
forces between the water molecules and causes the area within the
water to be 'more crowded' in a particulate sense. It is in the state
of balance between a solid and liquid (i.e. its particles are not
clumped together enough to be considered a solid, yet its particles
are also not spaced out enough to be considered a liquid - in
accordance with the Brownian motion). Hence when pressure is applied
to it, it causes the particles to now be clumped up together enough
for us to consider it a solid, but otherwise it would flow like a
liquid - not as quickly as a typical liquid like water would, but
still behaving like a viscous liquid (I did notice that adding a
cornstarch and water mixture to my vegetables while cooking actually
made the gravy more viscous as well!).

My shirt turning blue - I assume you are asking about the statement in
my UCAS personal statement? Well perhaps blue isnt that accurate, it
actually turned purple. It is again based on equilibrium.
Phenolphthalein is an acid base indicator which is colourless at a
normal pH but turns purple when exposed to an alkali solution.
Phenolphthalein itself is a diprotic acid - let's call it H2In. This
compound is colourless but when exposed to alkali solutions (which
gives off OH- ions that react with this acid), it gives us In2- ions,
which are purple. Hence, the more alkali the solution is, the more
purple my shirt would become.

In this scenario, the alkali solution is really the ammonia from my
detergent. Ammonia, NH3, is a basic solution that goes by the equation
NH3 + H2O <=> NH4+ + OH-, and is the prime reason for causing my shirt
to turn blue."

We exchanged another 2 more emails about the details of certain things, and he replied:
"Excellent responses - precisely why we interview: I want to know what you can find out, and you have that
ability in abundance. I will process your offer on Monday. Let me know if you have any questions."

It turns out that he was the faculty tutor for Natural Sciences as well, so I got an unconditional to both Natural Sciences and Chemistry.

Cambridge's offer came in January. Most offers come in January so Cambridge wasnt late, it was on time... a conditional offer. My condition was a minimum 4.2 CAP overall, 4.2 for English, 4.2 for Math, and 4.2 for Chem - which I fulfilled.

So how do you choose which UK school to go? I say it's easy because if you are only putting 1 choice chances are you already know what you want (typical choices are Cambridge, Oxford, LSE), and if you are putting 5 choices, you pretty much know what school you are willing to fund yourself to and what you arent. Here are the university rankings, according to Times: http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/tol_gug/gooduniversityguide.php.

Between Cambridge and Oxford: Cambridge is better in the sciences, but Oxford better in the Humanities. As a sidenote, if you are keen in going into humanities, consider the course PPE (1 of the hardest course to get in) in Oxford, which stands for Philosophy, Politics and Economics. In terms of culture, Cambridge and Oxford are like little towns of their own and has this old but traditional kind of feel - you really feel like you are surrounded with tradition there. I have been to Oxford before and it's a beautiful place, an open campus within that little town and you can see the Great Hall in Harry Potter there (you got to pay I think, my friend paid and this is what he taped).





I have never been to LSE before, but I have been to Imperial and UCL before. Imperial is in the middle of a busy road and looks a little old (I personally didnt like the vibes that I got from Imperial but you may like it). UCL, wow I love the place. I stayed at Ramsay Hall, which was near Warren Street (the Tube). It's in the middle of the tube line, but it's not too noisy. Imagine the kind of quietness you get from staying at a bungalow in 1 of those private housing areas in Singapore, but yet the NTUC-equivalent (called Sainsbury), food stores, coffee places, etc are just along the streets, opposite you, next to your hostel, everything. Very convenient, and the Tube is just a 5 minute walk. It's an open campus as well, and it's near King Cross Station - you can see platform 9 3/4 there! Let me post a picture of what it looks like:



Most dorms at UCL are singles - you get your own room. My room looked like that, with my own sink.




Not too bad, I felt. The conclusion is that I prefer UCL to Imperial, but it's your choice. Some people also include King's College London in their list of choices, but I didnt feel like including it.

Okay since it's time for dinner I wont continue this post anymore (this is a realllllly long post), but the next time I post I will write about the US admission side.