How to Get Your Paper Published

I attended a seminar on how to get your papers published in journals by Richard Taylor early in December last year. Here are my notes.

Richard Taylor. University of York, UK.

“How to get your paper published”

-Think of a good idea. Read the literature; know what people have done, so you know what you can do that is novel. Find what is needed

-Consult your colleagues
-Carry out your research

Decide on the journal

-Type of paper
-Content
-Impact of research
-Most papers are rejected because they are sent to the wrong journal (work done in a mature field should be sent to specialized journals)
-Impact factor of journal

Check the instructions to authors

Different for each journal

- Reference and experimental styles

- Page/reference limits
- Characterization of new compounds
- Supplementary info

Editors are trivial and pedantic

Advice on writing style: G.M. Whitesides, Adv. Mater. 2004, 16, 1375

Check guidelines for authors

-Consult earlier papers in that journal for style
-Check novelty – give due reference
-Avoid overblown claims and jargon (and abbreviations)
-Avoid "It has long been known that" (i.e. I don’t know the reference)
-Avoid "Correct to an order of magnitude" (means it’s wrong)
-Write a succinct cover letter outlining main advances/novelty. “I am writing a paper on __ by ___ for publication. We believe that this paper should be published because ____”
-Provide names and addresses/emails of referees. Similar areas, big-names, from country of journal, etc
-Ask editor if you need to follow the template
-Leave lots of time for the template; do everything on word and put it on a template at the end
-Get your reference number ready when calling the editor
-After editing with the referee’s comments, highlight changes, write down changes

What if your submission is rejected

1. Read the referees’ reports very carefully. Are there any factual errors?
2. Do you disagree with the decision? If yes, go to another journal
3. If you disagree – write a polite but persuasive letter to the editor explaining your point of view (and listing factual errors) – and ask for the decision to be reviewed

[This was not part of the lecture] If all else fails, refer to http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=581

OSAP (ISSYP)

Together with Nicholas Chen and Joel Yap, I went for the International Summer School for Young Physicists (ISSYP) in 2008 under MOE's Overseas Attachment Programme (OSAP). It's possible to apply for ISSYP directly, but it's easier to get in through OSAP.

You will have to fill up a set of forms. I don't know if they have changed since then, and though I have the essay with me (I think there were others too, but it seems I have lost them), I can't find the question. I think it's something about which specific area we're interested in and why. So here's what I wrote

Physics – Cosmology. Ever since I was a kid, I was fascinated by the universe. I often wondered whether the universe had a beginning, how it begun if it had one, whether it would last forever, and above all, will it ever end. Many years later, I chanced upon “A Brief History of Time” (S.Hawking) in the library. I was surprised to learn that science could be used to find rigorous answers to such ancient and apparently metaphysical questions. I was enthralled. From that moment, I decided to devote my life to finding these answers through Physics. Since then, I have been reading up on Physics in general, and cosmology in particular, in my free time. “The Elegant Universe” and its sequel “The Fabric of the Cosmos” (B.Greene) completely blew my mind! The strangeness of quantum mechanics, the subjectivity of time, a universe with eleven dimensions - what wild and amazing concepts. Now, I am a die-hard fanatic.

Having hailed from a neighborhood school, OSAP was my first application for something big. I had a rather dismal portfolio and knew next to nothing about such stuff. I don't think I would have passed the interview if not for the guidance from Zhao Ye and Lizheng, two people who went for ISSYP the year before.

There were two round of interview for OSAP. The first lasted for 5 min, and the second 15 min. Here are some of the interview questions which I remember.

-What science articles have you read lately?

-Why choose ISSYP?

-Would you mind if we put you in your second choice? (RSI in my case)

-Explain quantum mechanics to a layman

-Why do you not want to participate in the Local Science Attachment Program (LSAP) should your application to OSAP be rejected? (There is an option to be considered for LSAP should we not be selected for OSAP. It is said to be suicide to not opt for this, but I was only interested in theoretical physics back then, so I explained to them that since theoretical physics really isn't thaaaat prominent in Singapore, I would not want to be attached to a local institute should my application to OSAP fail. On an unrelated note, a month or so later, I was convinced to take up an experimental physics project at IMRE, and I soon fell in love with it)

-Tell me how cosmology and religion are related (I can't remember the exact phrasing, but they did ask something like this, and they were all looking very cheeky)

As Lizheng pointed out, (paraphrased) try to link your answers back to some baseline statement. This will enable the interviewers to remember you more easily, especially for the first round, where time is short and applicants are many.

Here's the report (most of it, at least. Some of the stuff are removed from the version in this post) I wrote for MOE after we got back. It summarizes the two weeks we spent in Canada. Not so much on what we did, but rather, what I thought about the whole thing.

A Report on the ISSYP
By
Chen Hongjie
National Junior College

Introduction

The International Summer School for Young Physicists, 2008, gathered grade 11 Physics enthusiasts, half of them from Canada and the other half from the rest of the world, to Ontario, Canada. Throughout the course of the program, students stayed at a hostel at the University of Waterloo. These students went down to the nearby Perimeter Institute for lessons in advanced physics during the average day, and did tutorials in the lounge back at the hostel at night. Sometimes, there were fieldtrips made to local tourist attractions such as the CN Tower.


Opening Ceremony

We arrived late; hence we did not attend any formal opening ceremony. However, we heard it was pretty casual, with people trickling in on the first day and having a barbeque dinner at the end of it. On the second day, there were some ice-breaking games during which we got to know everyone and where they were from. There was also this drum banging activity, which served to make us all vibrate as one, quite literally. These activities are closer to what I consider an opening ceremony to be, but still, it was very relaxed and did not carry the weight one would expect a ceremony to. It was all very pleasing, as though we were visiting some old friend’s house.


Lectures

Learning special relativity and quantum mechanics were what occupied most of the lecture time. These lectures were given mainly by Dr Richard Epp, a researcher at the Perimeter Institute. He relied largely on the 18 blackboards in the lecture theatre instead of powerpoint slides. I found his usage of the chalk-and-talk method very refreshing and engaging. I think this is a point worth noting.

My teachers back in Singapore may be great, but I feel their lessons lack generally lack the vigor and engagement of Dr Epp’s. I think this is because teaching from powerpoint slides makes lectures cold and impersonal. In a sense, part of the teaching has already been taken over by the slides, which give the feeling that the lectures are pre-determined and rigid. This is because it is difficult to make any significant changes to slides during a lecture; it is hardly better than reading from a book and making slight improvisations.

On the other hand, a chalkboard (or a whiteboard, for that matter) allows the lecturer to run the lesson in a way which best suits his current batch of students. In the hands of a good lecturer like Dr Epp, every lesson seemed custom made for us – everything was relevant and engaging, without extraneous information or missing links. Dr Epp taught and improvised along the way, adding or removing details as he saw fit every now and then, leading to a lessons which were dynamic and yet not messy.

After coming back to school, I noticed the conspicuous lack of blackboards (or whiteboards) in the lecture theatre. Although new high-tech multimedia tools may be good for things like flash animations, I think we should not forget the value of older methods of teaching, especially when they are generally more adequate for day to day lecturing.

Throughout the ISSYP, we had a series of keynote lectures given by various researchers. They gave us a wide view of the current frontiers in research, primarily in theoretical physics and also partially in experimental physics. The level of difficulty and amount of mathematics involved in every lecture was quite varied. To be candid, I found some of those which hardly touched mathematics at all too much like the popular science books I used to read by the dozen. Although they may bring across the gist of certain concepts well, the lack of mathematics robs the physics of its rigor and subtlety. I concede that the full mathematics of most of these theories would be beyond us, but at least mathematical formulations of the simpler concepts would have been helpful. Naturally, I found the keynote lectures which incorporated decent levels of mathematics more deep and exciting.


Trips and Activities

We visited the Niagara Falls, Clifton Hill, a shopping mall which name I forgot, the CN Tower, the Ontario Science Centre, and the Institute of Quantum Computing (IQC).

The Niagara Falls was pretty majestic; it was quite entertaining to ride a boat (called the Maid of the Mist) which sailed close to the foot of the Niagara Falls. We all got quite wet, despite the raincoats. It was quite pleasing to see such a grand natural wonder, especially since the contrast between it and ordinary city life is rather stark.

Clifton Hill was a decadent shopping, eating, and amusement park district. Unlike most amusement parks, where one pays an entry fee and gets access to all the attractions, Clifton Hill had individual attractions (like haunted houses) presumably owned by different business entities, hence there was no strict ‘compound’, and we had to pay for the attractions individually. However, I spent most of my time there shopping for souvenirs, hence I did not try any of the rides.

The shopping mall was quite ordinary, that is, quite similar to that of Singapore. I guess this is quite expected in this globalized era, everything everywhere is getting more and more similar, and malls tend to exemplify this trend. However, that mall was only two stories tall and occupied a large area, unlike Singaporean malls, which are generally taller and have less area per floor. It is interesting to see how the availability of land affects architecture (there is much land in Canada, unlike Singapore).

The CN tower was, for a long period of time, the tallest man made structure. It was once used to broadcast television signals, but it is now more of a tourist attraction than anything else. It was quite fascinating. After all, how often does one chance across such a giant concrete stick?
The Ontario Science Centre is much like the one we have in Singapore. The only difference is that Singapore’s feels more physics-like while Ontario’s feels more biology-like. This could be due to the shape of the structures which make up Singapore’s science centre and the numerous plants growing all around Ontario’s. Growing all these plants around and on the building is supposed to reduce power consumption; I found it quite a fascinating idea, how simple (comparatively) natural methods can be so effective. On a less buoyant note, I was rather disappointed by the exhibitions. Perhaps this is my fault – I frequented the Singapore Science Centre as a child, becoming rather familiar with the exhibits, which were more or less the same as those in Ontario.

The Institute of Quantum Computing left a deep impression on me. It was a place buzzing with activity, filled with an air of higher learning. Everything seemed to move like clockwork, yet it was not impersonal, I felt quite at home there. The researchers were exceedingly friendly; one of them even took some time to give me advice on my research project back in Singapore which I was working on.


Mentorship

I was attached to Ghazal, a researcher working on cosmology. It was quite an exhilarating experience. Although I did come across some of the concepts in popular science books, working on the physics and mathematics from the foundations up was an intellectually challenging and utterly satisfying task. There was a certain sense of accomplishment when I (under Ghazal’s guidance) showed how the universe was expanding and what affected this expansion. All the variables seemed so much more meaningful; we have become closer friends, so to speak. I am more certain than ever that a career in theoretical physics is what I want to pursue.


Impressions of Canada and PI

Perimeter Institute was a wonderful place. Besides having mind boggling architecture and delicious food, it had an erudite air, an epicenter of learning. There were blackboards all over the place, not just in the walkways but in the café as well. They were installed so that physicists may scribble down ideas the moment they get them; hence no valuable insights would be lost. It may not be state of the art technology, but it served its purpose well, the blackboards I saw were scrawled full of equations. I hope to be able to one day understand them. That aside, the dedication to uncovering the secrets of nature was not just admirable but intoxicating. Everyone in that building seemed to have an unsullied childlike sense of wonder and curiosity, a place I would like to go to everyday.

Canada is a decent place, relaxed and calm. The air and wildlife at the University of Waterloo was exceedingly refreshing; stress seemed completely out of place.

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Nuuuh, looking back, my writing was horrible. And the application process for OSAP may have changed since then, so some of what I wrote may be out of date.

SSEF

Yo everyone, I've been reading this blog for some time now, and under Lay Kuan's influence, I've decided to contribute too. My first post here will be about the Singapore Science and Engineering Fair (SSEF), since it's one of the main highlights of my last year in school. A very memorable experience, got to meet many other research enthusiasts (like Chui Yi, although I didn't know her name back then) and spent quite a long while fidgeting and turning green at my booth (since I was the last group to get gold in my year, so I had to wait for pretty long and despair more and more as other groups were winning).

SSEF is, very roughly speaking, some sort of Olympiad for research. It's far more nebulous, and hence it has been criticised as not really reflective of the quality of the participants' research. This is due to the difficulty in assessing one's project. Much depends on whether the judge specialises in a certain field, whether your presentation is coherent, and whether you seem to be a trustworthy person (yes, they have this tendency to think someone else did the work for you). Nonetheless, these problems are the similar to those faced by researchers, so it's good to learn how to deal with them now. Besides, SSEF is great fun.

There are two parts to SSEF: doing good research (by extension, getting good results), and delivering it properly. This post will concentrate more on the latter.


Report

When writing the report, write the conclusions first. Of course, it's much easier to write in chronological order (writing what you did earlier first, followed by what you did later), but this is not suitable because of the SSEF page limit constraints. This is especially so if you did good research, which means you'll be overflowing with data. Some say you should just write everything down first and trim it down to size, but I found this method too difficult, too time consuming, and too painful (yes. It's like 'argh, I just had to delete a paragraph I spent an hour writing! nooo!').

Instead, I suggest you start with a focused conclusion showing what's your project's contribution to science. This will help to set the flow for the paper, and you will be less likely to include extraneous details into your report. I suggest writing three paragraphs, the first about results which were expected, the third about unexpected results, and the second somewhere in between. It's good to end off with a memorable and impactful statement about the practical application of your unexpected results (very important if you keep getting the 'what are the practical applications of your work?' from your friends/teachers/voices in your head). If you find that your report is still too long, edit the conclusions and try again.

An often overlooked thingy about writing reports (and posters, for that matter) is convention. Follow your own convention. By that I mean always have your title on the same place for all your excel graphs, use the same colour for the same sample when it appears in different graphs, use the same font for axis titles (and so on). Minutiae, I know, but this problem always pops up, especially if you happen to be as careless as I am. Or if it's a group project.


Poster

The backboard (or whatever you call it) the Science Center provides is big enough to fit a poster with dimensions greater than A0. Some people who are really desperate for space do that, but I think it's really awkward to have a non-A0 poster, the non-standard size makes me feel uneasy. More so if everyone nearby is doing A0 (they tend to do that). Any deviations from a single nice A0 poster should be done markedly, so much so that it looks intentionally different, rather than 'oops, I ran out of space and I can' t be bothered to edit it properly'. And at some poster shops, it can be 2 to 3 times more expensive than good ol' A0. The poster should be laminated matt (not glossy, you can't see the words with the light shining on the poster due to reflection). Poster Connection at Sunshine Plaza used to print rather cheaply (and pretty good quality too), but I heard it's more expensive of late.

As with the report, write the conclusions first. It should give you a general idea of how the poster should go. Regarding the exact flow of the poster, it's good to plop all your diagrams, pictures, and schematics on powerpoint first and arrange them such that they make sense. After which, add figure captions and some explanatory text and you have a poster. Like the report (and unlike powerpoint slides), posters are parallel axes of information, so don't repeat diagrams. It's fine to point to other parts of the poster when the need arises.

I recommend putting as many diagrams as possible and as little text as possible. By the time you present at SSEF, you should know your project well enough to say what you need to say to explain your stuff sufficiently well. On the other hand, it's rather clumsy to whip out a pencil and start drawing on the spot. Moreover, it's rather disconcerting when the judge seems to be reading the poster rather than listening to you.

One exception to this rule is to put brief definitions of certain jargon just after your introduction. If the audience can't remember a term you introduced earlier (this happens rather often), he/she can read it from the poster without interrupting you and feeling like an idiot. On top of all these, someone with background in your field should be able to look through your poster and have some idea what you're doing without you making the presentation. Not that the judges will do that and walk off, but well, it's good style.

Once you have a draft which bears some semblance to a poster, print it out on an A4 paper. The font should be big enough that it can be read even when shrunk down to A4. Practice presenting to friends and teachers, regardless of whether they are in your area or not. It is highly likely that you will get judges who are not specialists, so learn how to recognise the various signs of confusion and find methods of explaining your stuff without compromising the beauty of your project. For some projects, it may be useful to build a model to complement the poster presentation. I built one to show a 3D coordinate transformation which I calculated. Much easier to present. Besides, models are memorable.


The Day Itself

Make friends with the people around you (and give them your number). This is a must if yours is a solo project. The judges can come any time from 8am to 5pm, and it's rather difficult to stay at your booth all the time. Sticking a piece of paper which says 'Away, please call ' on your booth (or having it as a ppt slide on your computer, for that matter) doesn't give a particularly good impression. Ask your boothmate to call if you a judge comes. In my case, my first judge came around 3plus, and I was sitting on the floor sleeping (some HCI guys stole my chair. And my boothmate's chair). My boothmate woke me up, very thankfully.

There's no fixed style of judging. So far, I've heard of three.

1) The usual present first, Q&A later, with no time limit.
2) Give a quick summary (my juniors were asked to present in 3min), and then Q&A.
3) The judge comes and just asks questions (my first judge did that).

So be prepared. Also, some naughty judges may request a specific person in a team project to answer a certain question or present a certain part, so do practice everyone's part. One of my juniors even had to present while her teammate was not there (judge demanded it so).

During my year (2009), there were only 3 judges per project. From 2010 onwards, there's 4 to 6 judges per project. It's rather tiring, so think twice before submitting more than one project to SSEF.

Some of the less specific questions which were posed to me

-What was the hardest part of your project?

-How much help did you receive from your mentor?

-What is Faraday's Law of Electromagnetic Induction? (I really got this question)

-How do you convert milliradians to degrees? (This one too, no kidding)

-Are you Singaporean? (Whaaaat?)

Miscellaneous

It's quite nerve wrecking when they're giving out the prizes, so try not to stand in the middle of the crowd or you may get asphxyated. In any case, SSEF is not just about winning, but about getting to know your project and the projects of others in general better. Easier said than done, of course.

If you win any award (and signed up for A*TS during registration), they will call you back for another round. They will select 8 from that round to enter the final round, where the chief judge is some nobel laureate. The final round was especially nerve-wrecking, though that is a story for another day. I will most likely write a short post on A*TS soon.



(Will be updating this post when I remember more)

Independent Research

Research is something that confuses many people; parents, new NUSHS students (I shall hence call you all freshmen) and even existing NUSHS students. I shan't endeavour to define research, but let us take a look at research in NUS High and the opportunities it provides.

I'll like to start with the history of research in NUS High School. Details are sketchy, in 2005 some forms of research did exist and it was called IPW (Independent Project Work)[Thanks to Royston for providing the information]. The projects available at that time were not very in-depth due to the lack of equipment available; e.g. proper DNA extraction was not possible. Projects then latched mainly on external resources or were simple, investigative projects.

Sometime later in 2006 the programme would come to be known as Independent Research or IR for short. More students began taking up research projects since the Batch of 2005 was in their fourth year and the move to the new campus along Clementi Avenue 1 provided enhanced lab facilities. In 2007 the programme was formalized and a curriculum (of sorts) was drawn up. It was called AXIS. In that year the first Research Congress was held to showcase students' research work. From 2008 to 2009, the programme was renamed as Da Vinci after the famous polymath and all Year 5/6 students partake in research projects, (Advanced Research Projects, or ARPs) either with external organizations, or with internal mentors.

That being said, what's in it for everyone? Firstly, an ARP is a graduation requirement, meaning that you will either have to take a project in Year 5 or Year 6 and obtain a satisfactory grade. The nature of the project can vary - Some people opt to do high level research such as Quantum Mechanics, Femtochemistry or Proteomics with external organizations. This list is certainly not exhaustive. Others opt to do research in current, familiar areas such as alternative energy or just applying concepts learnt in NUS High School. Note that the burden for the former category is significantly higher, but as with all things, you will reap rewards proportional to the amount of effort put in.

Research from Year 1 to Year 4 is a bit tricky. You will recall I mentioned that in 2005 a number of research projects existed (even for Year 1s - I did one), but as of now the Year 1 to 3 programme is such that a series of workshops and courses are conducted to familiarize students with the requirements for research. These include things like problem solving and research methodology, and you will use these things subconsciously, if not consciously, when you begin your research projects. Some Year 4s do opt to begin their own research, but due to the limited number of projects it may not always be possible (More on this later!). My tip here for Year 4s or prospective Year 4s is that if you do so and your project excels, it may be wise to contemplate converting your project to an ARP. Inquire with relevant people for the procedures.

Ok, so now we know how research is like, but what's the big deal? Research speaks you on your CV as much as any other credential. It is hard to represent time spent by receiving an award for "Good Progress", but citing your research and any awards it might have received instantly says that you have put in significant effort and speaks volumes about your analytical skills. Some scholarships and awards will ask you to demonstrate that you have the necessary aptitude in Science, and research is a good way to put it across to them. Secondly, there are many opportunities for you to shine in research. Projects can be sent to conferences or fairs, or better still, published. For the uninitiated, conferences are events where you put up a poster or deliver a speech regarding your project. As such, these conferences are normally very specific. Invited papers to international conferences, should you be honoured, are very prestigious. Fairs, such as the Singapore Science and Engineering Fair (SSEF), or the Singapore Youth Science Fair (SYSF), offer good awards. In particular, winning a gold at the SSEF is considered to be one of the highlights of JC Science life. Singapore's representatives to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) are selected from SSEF Gold medalists.

I will dedicate a separate section to publishing and beyond. There is no exact Science to this, but there's a general rule of thumb that publishing and applying for a patent are extremely good accolades if you are able to reach that stage. Professors normally will encourage you to write a paper if your research is promising. For that matter, think for a moment how many people under the age of 18 will have actually published papers in international journals. A patent is much more complicated - It states that you have actually invented something, and you own the rights to that invention.

Getting research to that level however, requires a good amount of time invested in it. Research, like all subjects, requires practice. It is normal that the first research project you do will be a little lack-luster, and rightfully so, because you are not familiar with the ropes and the nature of the industry. Once you get used to the rhythm of research, you will be able to progress much quickly. As a rule of thumb, if you are lucky enough to get a good research mentor, stay with him and learn as much as you can. So long you work hard, you should be able to join a higher level project with the same mentor when you start your research again.

A number of organizations like A*Star (do a search or look up the College Councillors) open research projects to independent students. In other words, you can apply on your own. I personally recommend that you do not do so until you are about 15 years old, i.e. Year 3, because the rigour of industrial research attachments are even higher than that of scholastic environments. People there do research for profit and occasionally race against time to beat competitors to the market. It is however, valuable experience and such projects often have potential. Always remember that the key to research is to work at the cutting-edge. No one wants to know if you found out how many times a day sheep baa, but everyone will want to know if you managed to turn sheep manure into Methanol xD.

NUS Science Faculty Open House.

"NUS Faculty of Science would like to invite you to join us for our Science Open House 2009 on Sat, 23 May 2009. This is a great opportunity for you to find out more about our holistic Science education at our talks. You will also be able to talk to our professors and alumni about the NUS Science education all in one location!

Our Open House event will commence at 9.30am, at the foyer outside Lim Seng Tjoe Lecture Theatre (LT27). Come down and learn about the diverse and exciting programmes the Faculty of Science has to offer at our Science talks.

You may also wish to refer to our Open House website for more information as well as the programme schedule (click under Continue tab and scroll down to the middle): http://www.science.nus.edu.sg/openhouse/"

For those who have yet to RSVP to us for this event, please confirm your attendance at this URL: https://neon.science.nus.edu.sg/intranet/public/openhouse/

Do go if you want to know more about NUS Science Faculty! (Dont worry it's not just for prospective students it's for everyone)

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