Why I chose JC over poly, and how I got into NUS with poor A Level results

This is some random rambling cos I'm pretty bored right now.

It's not a secret that my A Level results kinda suck. I made no attempt to hide it from anyone and in fact, I find mild satisfaction in seeing the wtf faces when I told them I got straight Cs, Ds and E. Not to worry though, I was surprised too. And no, my CCA records were rubbish as well, so no special non-academic entry either.

A little background: I was from a typical "neighbourhood JC" and took the standard PCME combination (with a little twist). My JC life was as normal as it can be. I was never a star performer academically and was at best, average. When deciding between JC or poly, my parents made it very clear they wanted me in JC and hence ended up there. I have always suspected that I might have thrived better in poly and maybe even gotten a scholarship if I'm there... But it comes at a high risk of not even entering university at all. It's an open secret the university's quotas are skewed towards JC students. One of my secondary school teacher regularly reinforced that the sure path to uni is always through JC, not Poly. Oh well... 

My personal view is that the policy to restrict the number of university quotas is something that may be unpopular, but it has to be done. Imagine if everyone in Singapore is a local university graduate, it will probably lower the value of a NUS degree, since anyone and everyone can get in. It's just like any currency, where having too much will deflate its value. 

Anyways, on results day, I was rushing home from camp as BMT commanders only allowed us to book out a few hours before. I was secretly hoping to receive a "good news" call from the school to prepare to appear on stage. You see, being in a super-neighbourhood JC will mean that getting Bs and one or two As entitles you to be on stage. That's how trashy we are. That also means if you don't appear on stage, you are pretty much screwed with Cs and Ds, which turned out to be true for me 😖.

Beggars can't be choosers and my results pretty much limited me to Engineering and hence I applied for that. (I was never into those languages, FASS stuff).

Surprisingly, NTU responded relatively quickly with an offer to EEE but NUS took its own sweet time and rejected me after months of waiting. My appeal into NUS also failed. I wasn't really surprised given that I was pretty far from the cut off points.

But nevertheless, I still wanted a spot in NUS because of several pragmatic reasons:

- NUS's branding is more atas than NTU 

- NUS has a superior S/U policy

- I don't plan on staying in halls, so NUS is definitely is more conveniently located than NTU (Pulau NTU?) 

- I heard horror stories of the unpredictable crowd and bus schedules for the shuttle buses between NTU and Joo Koon train station. I can't stand crowds.

I tried my luck applying for NUS again the following year. I submitted my application in camp and it was done hastily. I was quite sure I was gonna be rejected again and hence put a token effort in the application. I left sections like personal statement/reflection/non-academic achievements blank. These were the very sections that were supposed to help rejects like me to boost our portfolio beyond academics, but I did not bother that much since I already had a place in NTU. Basically, I was just trying my luck. I gave NUS my lousy results, the $10 fee and nothing else.

As usual, I did not hear anything from NUS until April when I received a phone call from the ECE department for an interview scheduled for the following day. The interview was conducted at the ECE General Office.

When it was my turn, the two profs inside were indeed annoyed I did not take the application forms seriously. One of them randomly took out a couple of printed applications forms and placed mine side by side. Like a scene from crimewatch, they were pretty frank that they were not impressed and asked why everyone had written something for their personal statements and I did not. Not armed with any excuses, I apologised and told them that I had the impression it wasn't mandatory.

Next, I was told by them that my A-Level results suck as if I'm not aware of it. They shared their concern if I can cope with the rigour of the degree course (but the odd thing was that NTU did not share the same concern). Honestly, it felt more like an interrogation than an interview and I did not feel good inside the room. My interview lasted less than 5 min compared to others who I observed were inside for quite some time.

The only bright side to this story was that after more than two months, I finally got accepted. I was probably at the bottom of the waiting list and was lucky that others switched courses allowing me to take their place. Had I regretted choosing NUS so far? I don't think so. But I will always be grateful to NTU for accepting me initially.