Gateway to the Ivy League --- Prestigious Singapore School Sends Droves

to Top Colleges; Just $15 a Month in Fees

By Cris Prystay and Elizabeth Bernstein

1,110 words

6 May 2004

The Wall Street Journal

B1

English

(Copyright (c) 2004, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

TEH SU CHING began gunning for the Ivy League when she was just 11 years

old. To get there, the young Singaporean beefed up her grades to win admission

to a feeder school for Singapore's Raffles Junior College, the government

school that landed her older brother in the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology and other graduates in a host of top universities abroad.

A few weeks ago, Ms. Teh, now 19, was accepted by Yale. "I screamed when I

found

out," she says. Then she went down to Raffles and gave her teachers flowers

and

bottles of wine.

The school has plenty of reason to celebrate. Over 40% of the 820 students who

graduated in December have been accepted by top U.S. universities. About

half of that group will attend elite, Ivy League schools. Cornell University

alone accepted 90 of Ms. Teh's classmates; Duke University accepted another

24. Dozens of others this year have been accepted by Britain's Oxford and

Cambridge.

Raffles charges students just $15 a month in fees, but it's no ordinary

institution. A product of Singapore's highly competitive approach to

education, designed to fuel the national economy, Raffles is the peak of a

government-controlled pyramid-style school structure that unabashedly pushes

the cream to the top.

Starting with a "primary-school leaving exam" that helps determine what

secondary school a child gets into, Singapore's system includes four years of

basic secondary school followed by an exam that determines what junior

college one attends for two years of preuniversity schooling. By the time they

graduate, Raffles students have an extra year of schooling compared with

U.S. teens.

Another key to Raffles' extraordinary college-placement success: Money

is no object. To groom leaders for its agencies and the companies under its

control, the government underwrites the college education of hundreds of top

Singaporean junior-college graduates. Students seeking such aid must sign a

contract, or a bond, to come back and work for a government agency or

corporation for

six years. More than half of the Raffles grads who are heading to the U.S.

this year are on a government bond, the school says.

"It makes it a little easier for us to accept them," acknowledges Mike

Goldberger, director of admission at Brown University, which has a limited

financial-aid budget for international students.

Raffles Junior College, established in 1982, has its roots in Raffles

Institution, a secondary school for boys established in 1823 by Sir Stamford

Raffles, the colonial Briton who founded the city-state of Singapore. Raffles

Institution, which still exists, built its reputation as a bastion of

meritocracy, accepting gifted children from all socioeconomic classes

and producing dozens of leaders over the years -- among them, Lee Kuan Yew,

the patriarch of modern Singapore.

Today's Raffles is an Ivy League machine. A recent Wall Street Journal

survey of high schools that feed elite U.S. colleges focused on U.S.

schools and

thus didn't include Raffles. Adding international schools, that list shows

that Raffles sent more students to 10 elite colleges than any other

international school and topped such prestigious U.S. secondary schools as

Choate

Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Conn., and Harvard-Westlake, in North Hollywood,

Calif.

"It's very satisfying," says Winston James Hodge, the school's principal and a

Singaporean like most of the faculty.

To attract top talent to its island economy, Singapore also offers

scholarships

to bright teens from across Asia. Anand Bhaskar, 18 years old, is one of

100 foreign students at the school. Most are from China, Malaysia and India

and attended Raffles on full scholarship. Cornell not only offered Mr.

Bhaskar, the only child of a financial consultant and a bank officer in

Pune, India,

a spot this year, but a partial scholarship, too. "I'm pretty excited," he

says.

Cornell is pretty happy about the match, too. "What most of us want is a

diverse

community, a broad base of international students," says Wendy Schaerer,

senior

associate director, undergraduate admissions, at Cornell. "We also look at how

well they perform here. The students we enroll from Raffles have done

very well."

Very, very well. Mr. Bhaskar, for example, offers much more than the

1550 he scored (out of a possible 1600) on his SATs, or the straight A's he

earned on his final exams. An active member of the math and computer clubs, he

also danced in shows put on by the Indian cultural club at Raffles and

tutored children at a day-care center in his free time.

Likewise, Ms. Teh edited a school magazine, played softball for the Raffles

team, and performed street music for charity during school holidays.

At Raffles, as at most schools in Singapore, math and science are

stressed. Just 8% of Raffles students major in humanities, and almost all

of them still

take advanced math courses as one of their four subjects.

To make sure students are more than just math machines, the school

encourages them to join at least three clubs or teams, ranging from water

polo to

the economic and current affairs society, and do charity work. Last year, a

group of students raised money and went to Cambodia to help refurbish a

drop-in center for street kids.

University applications are taken extra-seriously. There are five teachers who

serve as applications advisers, two for U.S. universities, two for schools in

the United Kingdom and one for Australian schools. Between July and October,

there is at least one talk each week by Ivy League alumni or an admissions

officer from a U.S. school.

Those talks motivated Ervin Yeo, 20, now a freshman at Yale studying ethics,

politics and economics. "When you hear all these success stories and hear

about

the students before you who go on to Princeton and Harvard, you feel you

can be part of this," says Mr. Yeo, who is the first in his immediate

family to

go to college.

The government is backing Mr. Yeo, whose mother works in a supermarket and

father in an electronics shop. He was given a scholarship by the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs, which also allowed him to defer mandatory two-year army

service until he finishes college.

Mr. Yeo, who played rugby at Raffles and now does so at Yale, says the

transition has been easy. "You're used to being the cream of the crop in

Singapore," he says, "and it's just the same thing at the Ivies."

Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 00:46:28 +0800
Subject: [youngrepublic] sekolahshipping
Reply-To: youngrepublic@yahoogroups.com

if you haven't seen it already, the Wall Street Journal had a recent article

on Raffles JC:

like, wow. it sounds like an ivy-league machine. but somehow, i'm a bit

repulsed by the way singapore's been painted.

then i come across this post on a college-admissions forum:

and i'm like, is this for real? and it turns out that it is...

...i wonder, is there a daniel lim on this group?

-dennis

And seriously, we can't really object if we ourselves believe in "meritocracy", the rule of the best people, giving to each what they deserve etc. In terms of any quantifiable standard of personal achievement, RJC and Daniel Lim are pretty much going to get top marks. The system made it that way, by setting up targets in the various areas for the schools and their students to aim for. Every target is like a red flag being waved in front of a bull, telling people to go for the kill and "overfulfill" the plan in the most grossly excessive manner possible.

Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 18:27:23 +0000
Subject: Re: [youngrepublic] sekolahshipping
Reply-To: youngrepublic@yahoogroups.com

Thanks Lisheng for so thoroughly and saliently pointing out the links

between our system and the ill-fated Stakhanovite movement. I'd just

like to argue though that fundamentally the Singaporean system is

different in that it is more free-market than a command economy (of

education or otherwise), and this in turn means that its trends of

development will be significantly different.

Singapore's cornerstone principle is meritocracy as made possible by

equality of opportunity. In that sense each person can earn what he

chooses and is able to, rather than being given what he deserves,

which has the subtle connotation of a central or command-stye society.

It is 'the rule of the best people' because they are the leadership in

the public and private sectors, but this is checked by the system of

democracy (though I suspect reading Public Law next year may give me

new insights on that; but pending further education...) Therefore I

would disagree that society is geared towards the production of

special individuals. Our society answers only to the goal of economic

prosperity. This means that the route to the top should be marked out

clearly so that those who can get there do so fast, and this is

exactly the red-flag situation Lisheng painted. But this also means

that the rest of the population must not be wasted, hence the efforts

to retrain less-skilled middle-aged workers, the established

alternative paths provided by polytechnics and ITEs, and the more

recent and tentative lauding of entrepreneurship and unlikely success

stories (eg Elim Chew of 77th Street).

The hyper-evolved and efficient production line of super individuals

is therefore a part rather than the whole of Singapore society. I

think that calling maids, tuition centres,

piano/violin/ballet/swimming teachers, special education programmes

like the GEP or the MOE (third) Language Centre etc the "supporting

cast" is a misnomer and if I dare, an insult. Domestic help serves to

liberate the female workforce to the detriment of the potential super

individual in the family, since the child is more likely to be raised

by someone less educated and focused on his success/well-being than

his own parent. Tuition centres I would consider particularly

enterprising because they offer something largely unnecessary to the

super individual, who is not likely to need the academic

reinforcement. Tuition therefore fills in the gaps inevitably left by

under-staffed schools, and generally rides on parents' kiasuism. As

for the fine arts and sports, surely they can only be a good thing

because they are worthwhile pursuits in themselves and help round out

super individual hopefuls. Besides I have my own doubts as to the

regard Singapore's ever-pragmatic employers have for such

accomplishments. More important than the dubious contributions such

"supporting" professions make to the creation of super individuals is

the argument that these professions are and should be recognised as

full-fledged vocations which are again simply examples of society's

diverse occupations. For example you wouldn't say doctors exist to

ensure the optimal health and survival of super individuals -- and no

other profession should be subjected to such a narrow, exclusive view.

The "wayang" concern you raised is interesting (was that...

Goodhart's Law?). On top of resulting in tragic consequences, working

purely to meet (and like you said, over-fulfill) the prescribed

targets undermines the system and results in a so-called elite of

Pinnochios. On the one hand I believe in a human check (purely

hypothetically, a Harvard interviewer might reject a prime paper

candidate because of his character flaws or stuntedness), on the

other, the reality might be that the system is perfectly happy with

such Pinnochios because they deliver economic results (and the system

wouldn't care whether they could survive outside the system) therefore

students don't ask themselves this crucial "What am I without my CV"

question because employers/scholarship providers are indifferent to

the answer.

Liang Ying

Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 00:52:53 +0100
Subject: Re: [youngrepublic] Digest Number 66
Reply-To: youngrepublic@yahoogroups.com

I do think something has gone wrong when the person is looking to meet

criteria for the sake of it. But that feature is not unique to Singapore or

to Daniel Lim. CV padding happens everywhere, even once you reach

university. It's ugly, I admit, but not unique to Singapore. I think the

education system takes a lot of flak for everything that goes wrong with

Singaporean students: when they do badly, but ironically, even when they do

well - as if there must be something wrong with you if you do well.

Look at the CVs of many of the students who go to Ivy Leagues and Oxbridge

universities, whether from Singapore, America or anywhere else. Daniel

Lim's CV wouldn't stand out. Look at the whole college admissions industry

that has sprouted advising students on the model personal statements,

perfect combination of ECs and SAT prep. The admissions process is like a

lottery - and every little bit counts - don't blame Daniel, blame Harvard.

It is a feature of ambitious, meritocratic societies all over the world that

competition is intense and those who want to reach the top are

single-mindedly driven and make sacrifices. It is not pretty, very American

and many of us wouldn't choose such a life - but it breeds a dynamism and

competition that drives progress. The alternative is socialist mediocrity

or dominance of the privileged aristocracy. (Here I find Lisheng's analogy

of an excessively meritocratic Singaporean system with Stalinism peculiar)

He is a driven 18-year old who wants to go to an Ivy League univerisity and

achieve things in life - he isn't the wisest neither does he have the best

perspective on life. But he is all of 18 years! At least he has ambition

and, it appears, some talent - (if what he claims is true) planning a large

event and working with the public is by no means something that you can

learn out of a book. He's not perfect, but does the unambitious regular JC

student have a better perspective on life than he does? I know lots who

have no ambition, no idea what they are going to do with their lives, many

others who are more mature and wiser than he is. But he isn't any more

narrow-minded than other 18 year olds.

There are many things wrong with Singapore and its education system, getting

people to Ivy Leagues isn't one of them. It is a good thing - it may have

to be sacrificed for other goals like equality and "well-roundedness" but

that is not to deny its value.

Feng

Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 21:04:26 -0400
Subject: [youngrepublic] The Harvard Crimson: Summer Fun at Admissions Camp
Reply-To: youngrepublic@yahoogroups.com

Shi Ming has sent you this article from The Harvard Crimson Online:

Hello!

A story appeared in the college newspaper today that echoed what Fengyuan was talking about. This time, instead of CV padding, parents send kids to attend "get-into-your-dream-university" camps costing about US $2000-3000 per person. As the director of the summer camp pointed out, "Colleges don't accept people, they accept applications." This underlying paradigm explains why people are willing to spend ridiculous amounts of time doing activities they don't like, for the sake of CV padding, and spend ridiculous amounts of money on summer camps like these, for the sake of a 'stronger' application.

Summer Fun at Admissions Camp

By HERSH SAGREIYA

Published on Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Come summertime, many teenagers typically lounge on the beach, catching some rays. The more enterprising among them might volunteer at the local community shelter, research in a lab, take a course on Shakespeare or train to be world-class athletes. But for some of those with an eye on a top college, these options simply don't cut it. Instead, they-or their parents-feel it's necessary to attend one of three different college application camps that give students "the edge." The new fad for highly-motivated, college-bound teens is to spend part of their summer vacation learning how to beat the competition at purportedly low-key college application camps that offer SAT preparation, mock interviews, essay polishing and admissions strategies. Welcome to the world of Camp Get-Into-Harvard.

Some of the savvy companies behind these college application camps are Brighton, Musiker Teen Tours and Academic Study Associates. The cost of their programs is exorbitant, ranging from $2295 for nine days for Brighton to $2899 for thirteen days for Musiker. But you'd better bet you get your money's worth-at least when it comes to hours spent in the classroom. The website for Academic Study Associates insists that a typical day includes no less than three hours of the Princeton Review's Beat the SAT, two hours of essay writing and an hour-and-a-half of one-on-one counseling and admissions workshops. All three programs claim that these activities will give students a substantial-if not necessary-advantage over their peers in the college admissions process. In a March 7 press release, Brighton's executive director David Allen nicely sums up their message: "Colleges don't accept people, they accept applications."

Spending immense sums on getting into college is hardly the newest fashion; in fact, the college admissions industry has been sprawling for several years. Countless SAT prep classes, essay-editing services and college consulting companies offer costly programs. For instance, IvySuccess provides a "Complete Strategy" service for the bargain price of $18,000, all but urging parents to get a second mortgage on their home to ensure their child gets into the right school. To be sure, the market for more affordable products such as the popular SAT review books is very reasonable considering the realities of the college admissions process. But IvySuccess and college admissions camps go over the top by construing college admissions success as a feat accomplished by "experts" rather than by the students themselves. As IvySuccess emphatically puts it on its website, "Getting into the right college is a matter of INSIDE KNOWLEDGE, EARLY PLANNING, and STRATEGIC POSITIONING." Aren't they forgetting something? Character, talent, drive perchance?

College admissions camps are the worst development yet in an already alarming trend. If these programs actually live up to their grandiose claims-admittedly a rather generous assumption-they put applicants who cannot afford their astronomical costs at a disadvantage in the admissions game. They also ratchet up the tremendous pressures students already face when applying to colleges. The Musiker program insists on its website that "the school you attend will help determine your future-your career, your lifetime friends, even where you'll live and work after college"-a low-key message indeed. College admissions camps simply exploit the fears of anxious parents and overachieving students to line their pockets. They portray the college admissions process as a ridiculous, high-stakes game whose solutions only they can provide-and for a preposterous fee.

<i>Hersh Sagreiya '07, a Crimson editorial editor, lives in Wigglesworth Hall.</i>

Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 13:24:06 +0100
Subject: Re: [youngrepublic] Digest Number 67
Reply-To: youngrepublic@yahoogroups.com

Apologies, Lisheng, for misrepresenting you.... your complaint, it seems, is

that meritocracy breeds a new-aristocratic elite which results in a form of

inequality and a resentment and hatred from those who are worst off in

society. Hope I haven't misrepped you again here....

There is an important difference between a priviledged class that is

privileged by birth and a privileged "meritorious" class that is there

through its own talents and effort and because they in some way "deserved"

it. Now there are good reasons to think that meritocracy breeds its own

problems, but there is something fundementally more just about a system with

social mobility and equal opportunities, where you can influence where you

end up in the system by working hard and making not unreasonable sacrifices.

I'm not saying everybody in Singapore has equal opportunities, Singapore is

far from that ideal, but that ideal is a worthy one. Aristocracies had

their position by the luck of the family they were born into, not because

the individuals were talented or could contribute to society. If it becomes

the case that the children of the talented dominate not because they are

talented, but because their dads and mums were talented, then we have a

serious problem (and I do think that is a potential problem). If Singapore

is like that then it is aristocratic, but if the reason for some people

doing better is their own talent and not their parents', then to use the

word "aristocratic", in my opinion, is inappropriate.

There is a stronger anti-meritocracy argument that says that even with a

perfect ideal of equality of opportunity, there is STILL something wrong

with inequality of outcome which will result. Different people put in

different levels of effort and are good at different things, and so will end

up with different status and wealth. The problem is the inevitable

dominance of the talented, rich and upper-class over the less talented who

will feel resentful. If you take this position in the extreme, then you

have to say that people shouldn't deserve more because they work harder or

are better at something because they will make the poor feel looked down

upon. I have some sympathy for this argument (which the Singapore

government would reject as inefficient socialist nonsense), but there is a

trade-off here between our ideal of equality and our ideal of what is just

and fair (people being rewarded for their good work). Both extremes are

obviously undesirable. I simply want to highlight the inevitable trade-off

here between two very intuitively compelling ideals. Economists will

realise that when we can only do better by trading-off other things, then we

are doing at least some things right.

Feng

Date: Sat, 15 May 2004 13:00:44 +0000
Subject: RE: [youngrepublic] sekolahshipping
Reply-To: youngrepublic@yahoogroups.com

can't get to the page. you need an a/c?

Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 01:41:37 +0800
Subject: RE: [youngrepublic] sekolahshipping
Reply-To: youngrepublic@yahoogroups.com

For the benefit of everyone who doesn't subscribe to the WSJ =)

Wah, the article really makes RJC sound like some kind of superkid

producing factory- under the supervision of the Education department of

Singapore Government Inc. And it does makes it sound like this Ivy/Oxbridge

(and medical school?) drive has been planned down all the way since primary

school!

Disturbing stuff!

(FYI, there were errors in the report which the WSJ did admit to- the % of

pple admitted to US in RJ is 20% not 40%)

Date: Sat, 15 May 2004 19:37:34 +0000
Subject: RE: [youngrepublic] sekolahshipping
Reply-To: youngrepublic@yahoogroups.com

is it me or do the people interviewed sound snooty? this isn't really like

them since i know su ching (and her brother) and ervin. somehow feels like

the quotes are taken a little out of context.

:/

Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 01:29:01 +0000
Subject: Re: [youngrepublic] sekolahshipping
Reply-To: youngrepublic@yahoogroups.com

Just a few thoughts:

Well, Liang Ying, sad as it is, Singapore doesn't really qualify as a

democracy. I'm not being facetious here, nor am I blaming any person or the

govt for this, but as a statement of positive fact, one has to admit that

S'pore is not a democracy.

Most theorists would agree that the minimum criteria to consider a system

democratic in the modern sense is that there are regular competitive

elections. Where S'pore fails is in the 'competitive' area. For the last (I

think) four GEs, the opposition failed to field enough candidates to even

form a govt. Hence the ruling PAP was returned to power *on nomination day*.

In that case, the elections, at least for the past decade or so, were

clearly uncompetitive. Hence, as a positive observation, S'pore cannot be

considered a democracy, since no real choice was offered to the electorate.

In any case, I think Parliament is largely a rubber-stamp and policy is

formulated largely by cabinet in consultation with civil servants. In fact,

civil servants, as well as other assorted powerful bureaucrats (e.g. those

in Temasek, EDB, and other GLCs) have, I suspect, an enormous influence over

public policy. Civil servants are not elected, of course, but neither are

they elected in any other country (except maybe California? not too sure

about that one.) The catch here is that the composition of the ranks of top

civil servants is very much determined by a sort of incestuous govt clique.

The vast majority of top civil servants were OMS/SAFOS/Colombo Plan/etc

scholars, who were selected by the PSC, itself mainly composed of retired

civil servants (and certainly not young civil servants but ppl who have been

in the civil service for a good number of years, thus being likely 'products

of the system'.)

Hence, this ruling elite really is a cabal of 'special individuals'. Entry

to the ruling elite requires that one moulds one's life into a certain 'PSC

model'. In this way, I think it is justified to present some comparison with

Stalinism. In addition, as the WSJ noted, prior to uni, it would be strongly

recommended for prospective scholarship applicants to go to RJC (or HC or VJ

or wherever) and even before that to 'beef up one's grades' to go to an RJC

'feeder school' (in the case of Suching RGS).

The reason why RJC does so well in uni admissions blah blah is not because

of some s'pore style education magic but simply because the education system

here is so hierarchical and pyramidal. Almost ALL academically talented kids

go to RJ (or HC or VJ) and therefore RJ does well academically. That's all

there is to it.

What disturbed me about the article is the way it showed up RJC to be some

sort of middle class haven, where bright-eyed suburban kids get good grades,

accumulate community service hours, and do all sorts of middle class things

like play softball (we're talking about S'pore here) and edit school

lifestyle magazines like R(A). Of course, there's absolutely nothing wrong

with that at all, except that it shouldn't be taken as a sign of superior

achievement. In the current climate of CV inflation, I think it is ever more

imperative that glamour should not be mistaken for achievement. Someone who

sets up a Boon Lay youth club is not necessarily better than someone who

spent his/her hours in the library or playing amateur football or who spent

time cultivating friendships (smth Aristotle valued v highly indeed). And,

as any fan of Gilmore Girls would know, ambition is highly socially

conditioned. So while ambition is a good thing, I think we must realise that

our conception of ambition and the 'proper' directions in which it should be

channelled are v much socially conditioned.

Caleb

Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 12:18:54 +0800
Subject: Re: [youngrepublic] sekolahshipping
Reply-To: youngrepublic@yahoogroups.com

>

>

>The reason why RJC does so well in uni admissions blah blah is not because

>of some s'pore style education magic but simply because the education system

>here is so hierarchical and pyramidal. Almost ALL academically talented kids

>go to RJ (or HC or VJ) and therefore RJ does well academically. That's all

>there is to it.

Which then begs the question- why is RJC (and HC and VJ for that matter) so

successful? Is it because they have particularly outstanding programmes

which help to develop the potential of Rafflesians? Or is it because all

the bright people go to RJC (and before that places like RI, RGS, Chinese

High etc) because traditionally that's where all the people like themselves

go to- thereby perpetuating the cycle of university-and-scholarship envy

and hence the competition for impressive CVs? I would suspect that this

would happen at any place where you clump a bunch of very bright people

together- a similar pattern would emerge if say the government forced all

the six pointers who want to take triple science into the NUS High School

for maths and science...

Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 05:12:45 +0000
Subject: Re: [youngrepublic] sekolahshipping
Reply-To: youngrepublic@yahoogroups.com

The question emerges as to WHY people do so many activities. Is it to dress

up their CVs or because they truly enjoy what they do?

To give a perspective from where I am in uni... there are people who try to

accomplish many things - sports, clubs, maintain a perfect GPA, etc.

(http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=502387) for an opinion on this.

But there are also people who do a few, or even a lot of things, and do them

well because they enjoy what they're doing, because the motivation to do

them comes from something deep within their soul. Of course, one should also

try new things, but one should discern between passing fancies and real

passion.

Sorry if I sound elitist. But over here there are lots of people whose

interests lie in academic fields like theoretical physics and they'd want to

devote their whole life to research and so on. There isn't really any

competition - just people who enjoy what they're doing and are bloody good

at it. And hopefully no one disagrees with me in saying that MIT is a "place

where you clump a bunch of very bright people together".

(A rebuttal to what I said can be found at

That aside, in Singapore, there's one more factor to push towards many

activies - the CCA points system and the perceived weight which it carries

with scholarship boards and admissions departments. Many students will do

whatever it takes to get them a place in a "respectable" college, and a

beautiful CV is the most direct route.

I wish I could articulate my thought better. Apologies for that.

Boon Leong

Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 08:56:58 +0000
Subject: Re: [youngrepublic] sekolahshipping
Reply-To: youngrepublic@yahoogroups.com

I know this is just being bitchy, but

"Is it because they have particularly outstanding programmes which help to

develop the potential of Rafflesians?"

is a rather naive question I think. We all know the answer to that one.

Ahem.

Caleb

Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 11:11:04 +0000
Subject: Re: [youngrepublic] sekolahshipping
Reply-To: youngrepublic@yahoogroups.com

HEAR HEAR.

I would say it's 90% the students, the really talented, intelligent and most

importantly AMBITIOUS students.

the other 10% comes from the teachers and programmes that help tweak our

application processes, the reputation of the school so the students it does

recommend are taken more seriously, and the envt of competition.

Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 20:27:38 +0800
Subject: Re: [youngrepublic] sekolahshipping
Reply-To: youngrepublic@yahoogroups.com

I wouldn't disagree that there are many "talented, intelligent and [...]

AMBITIOUS students" in the top JCs. However, I think it's fairer to give a

little more credit to the top college environment one gets in places like HC

(or the like). For one thing, the teachers actually bother to go the extra

mile to help students outside class time, answer the smart alec questions

and raise the bar to push their students. Also, top JCs tend to have more

abundant funds and more efficient admin, which translates into a

better-stocked library, piles of study notes or research material. I believe

that these things do give a significant amount of "oomph" to propel the

students to the 'stars'.

On the other hand, the so-called lesser colleges have a pretty sucky

environment. Scholarship boards don't border to advertise themselves there

because whoever ends up there's probably 'trash', unworthy to dream of the

likes of Cambridge. I've infiltrated quite a few of their libraries and

honestly, they pale in comparison to the amount of quality research material

found in top JC libraries. Top JCs also tend to have better-qualified

teachers; MOE scholars and Master/PhD holders are usually sent to the better

JCs as well. The teachers also don't push themselves as hard because there

is less student pressure, less parental pressure, and less prestige to

uphold. There is then a higher propensity for sub-standard teaching. These

factors result in a less conducive environment for students to excel.

On the article posted by Jie Kai, the one with Ervin (I never knew of his

humble background. He really does the heartlander very proud!), I'm just

slightly bothered by the image it portrays of top meritocracy. I've always

thought that meritocracy was a good thing. But lately I've wondered about

what constitues meritocracy. I think the Singaporean understanding of it

goes somewhere along the lines of "If you work harder, you'll get more

merit" -- which is quite alot of BS, if you've been in RJ. I guess I'm too

idealistic because not everyone's made the same way. Some are smart, some

are not -- but both are equally acceptable. Somehow, though, meritocracy

runs the danger of measuring people according to what they can or have

achieved, rather than who they are as persons and what they could achieve.

As a social code, meritocracy must be applied with reservations. When I

become a teacher one day, hopefully not in a top JC, I wonder if the day

will come when I have to tell an average-but-hardworking student, "Sorry, I

couldn't choose you for the team. It's a meritocracy here. You're just not

smart enough."

Regards,

Mark

Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 21:23:21 +0800
Subject: Re: [youngrepublic] sekolahshipping
Reply-To: youngrepublic@yahoogroups.com

At 11:11 AM 5/16/04 +0000, you wrote:

>HEAR HEAR.

>

>I would say it's 90% the students, the really talented, intelligent and most

>importantly AMBITIOUS students.

It's heartening to see a future teacher give so little credit to herself

for the success of her future students. Kudos to Xueling =)

Sadly, this message hasn't really gotten through. Whole industries have

sprung up to prey on the anxieties of parents for their children- the

tuition agencies, the "motivational" camps, the purveyors of chicken

essence and various other nutritional supplements (herbal or otherwise),

property developers who shamelessly market the proximity of their projects

to prestigious schools and so on. In fact there now stands a condominium

project called The Rafflesia, located opposite (surprise!) the Bishan RI

campus; never mind that the Rafflesia is ironically also the name for an

enormous stinking parasitic flower. (I don't know, maybe children who live

in a project named after Raffles and a stinking flower will grow up to be

wonderful 'chao muggers'...)

Then again I don't think we should so casually pooh-pooh the effect that a

"top school" environment has on the success rate of its students. Going to

a top school _does_ open a lot of doors and opportunities; it makes the

implausible less out of reach. Which always helps encourage the 18 year

olds who go there.

Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 20:07:39 +0000
Subject: Re: [youngrepublic] sekolahshipping
Reply-To: youngrepublic@yahoogroups.com

This reminds me of Machiavelli (forgive me, my Political Theory paper is in

2 weeks).

According to Machiavelli, success is determined 50% by virtu and 50% by

Fortuna. Fortuna presents us with opportunities and shapes our lives

arbitrarily/unexpectedly, but whether we succeed also depends on our

personal capabilities - how well we can read the winds of change, how well

we prepare for the future, how well we anticipate and resolve potential

problems, how well we manipulate opportunities to suit our requirements.

A truly virtuous person would be able to shape any circumstances into

favourable ones, but for the rest of us, we're still dependent on Fortuna.

Similarly, our success in schools depend partly on our environment and

partly on ourselves. Everyone admits that RJ is conducive to studying. Even

a slacker like me was frightened by the intense competition to start

studying a little earlier. We make jibes about our teachers, but most of

them (Mr. Reeves, Mr Mac, Mr Evans, Rolly... even Ms Chia despite being so

fierce :P) were good teachers. I'm not so sure about the resources (RJ

toilets will always haunt me along with the grumpy librarians) because I

haven't had much chance for comparison.

But most important is how the envt in RJ gives you a sense of how much you

can achieve. When I graduated from SN, I thought getting into NUS would be

damn good already. I never would have thought that 3 years from then, I'd be

sitting in a tiny dorm room in the middle of Central London pecking away at

a laptop while studying Govt and Econs. RJ gives you the belief that you can

really strive for the best AND get it. The teachers support you by

encouraging you (remember Mr. R and constant emphasis that we were the best

class he ever had? even if he wasn't really right in the end? :P) and

they're experienced in getting students to where they want to go.

Yet, I still maintain that this envt would have been useless if students

didn't seek to maximise their opportunities. From my brief brief brief

experience teaching, it's practically useless to keep encouraging (with the

carrot and the stick) students and supporting them unless they want to do

well too. There's only so much threats and punishments can do if the student

isn't ambitious or interested. Even if everyone was given the chance to

study at RJ, not everyone would do as well as the current Rafflesians.

For example, me. For every person like most of you, there's a person like me

who attended school maybe 80% of the time and was an 'honourary' member of a

society - Mr. Sowden didn't even know I was a member of Debate! So you can

bring a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink (cliched, yes).

So what's my point? That RJ produces scary monsters partially because of the

institutions and envt, but mainly because of the ambitions and drive of

those students. For every scary monster who scores 4As and gets into a

world-renowned university, there's an 'average' student who scores 4Bs (or

even a handful of Cs and Ds) and are happy with NUS.

(BUT I'm not really sure this is because of ambition or just natural talent.

:/ I know people who studied really hard and didn't get the marks they

deserved; I also know people who slacked their way through JC and did get

the marks they deserved)