Is it easier to get into NUS or overseas uni?

[kiasustudent1997]

hello. is it easier to get into highly sought after courses eg. medicine in NUS or is it easier to get a scholarship to reputable overseas unis to study the same course? eg. imperial, oxford, cambridge


also i heard that uk unis only look at your h2 subjects and they dont really care abt your gp grade etc. is that true?

[Jfalk]

1. Regarding the point about UK unis not recognising GP, true. Most of them don’t, and officially look at O level EL results. They focus more on the H2 subjects (and H3 for selected elite courses at Oxbridge e.g. Medicine) as well as any admission tests/teacher recommendations. However, if you’re aiming for the top schools and the top courses where alot of subjectivity is involved in admissions, then getting that B may affect your application somewhat.


2. Only a grand total of two scholarships (with no more than 3 combined slots a year) allow you to pursue overseas medicine. They are PSC President’s scholarship & ASTAR MBBS-PhD scholarship. So yes, it is far, far easier to get into NUS Medicine than to get an overseas scholarship to study medicine. However, if you’re talking about going to UK without a scholarship, then getting into any UK school except for Oxbridge/UCL/Imperial/King’s is likely to be easier than getting into NUS medicine. This is especially so when NUS medicine is expanding its intake to 300 and NTU medicine is opening up places for another 150 - it should be far easier to get into medicine in the coming years, although still competitive.

3. if you’re talking about law, similarly in the UK only Oxbridge/UCL/LSE are harder to get into than NUS law. It is far easier to get a scholarship to study law in the UK though compared to medicine; most scholarships allow you to do so (although you are not allowed to practice when serving out your bond which is sort of a "waste" of your degree). the only relevant scholarship would be the PSC scholarship and quite a number (10+ per year) study law in UK under PSC each year, again almost exclusively in Oxbridge/UCL/LSE.

However, even if you go UK to do law, top firms there (and singapore firms/govt too) do also welcome students from solid "upper middle-tier" schools such as Nottingham, Bristol, or Manchester.