I know. But for the REP, its entry standard has been AAA/A for the 90th and 10th percentile for as long as I know since they started offering the course.

My DS is interestEd in NTU’s Renaissance Engineering Programme.


The admission for the 9th and 10th percentile is AAA/A.

He got As for all his subjects, except for a B for his GP.

During one talk by NTU recently that my DS attended, one professor there said students who were admitted into REP all scored the perfect 90 Rank Points.

Is this the case? If my DS don’t have 90 Rank Points, does this means he has no chance?

This is HCI’s results:


The Class of 2017 has achieved excellent results once again and we are very proud of them.

1. 6 out of 10 scored 3 H2 Distinctions and above.

2. Even with the revised GCE A-Level syllabus, 13 subjects have recorded an improved performance from last year. These include H2 China Studies in Chinese, H2 Economics, H2 Geography, H2 History, H2 Mathematics, and H2 Physics.

3. Besides their sterling academic results, the Class of 2017 has also excelled holistically.

300 students, more than a quarter of the cohort, have been conferred the Hwa Chong Diploma with Distinction
This cohort tirelessly and selflessly contributed back to the community, serving an average 112 hours in community service;

They have continued Hwa Chong’s tradition of excellence with 52 World Championship Titles (2006-2018);
They also took home 55 Top 3 titles at the Interschool Sports Championships in 2017 and; 9 Certificates of Distinction for Performing Arts at the 2017 Singapore Youth Festival.

4. To date, 14 Hwa Chong students have been offered provisional Public Service Commission Scholarships. Three provisional Singapore Armed Forces Scholarships have also been offered to Hwa Chong students.

5. Even before the release of the GCE A-Level results, 14 students have been admitted to Peking, Fudan and Tsinghua University for bicultural excellence.

6. This year, a record number of 56 Hwa Chong students have received offers to Cambridge and Oxford University.

7. Close to 600 offers have also been made to Hwa Chong students from top US and UK universities such as Harvard University, Carnegie Mellon University, New York University, University of California Berkeley, University of Michigan, Imperial College London, London School of Economics, and University College London.

jtoh:

tiredmama:

No it isn't. UAS will take into account the 4H2, GP and PW. So total if all As is 90.

Then you add in the MTL on top of this 6 subject UAS, take the new total out of 100 and multiply that by 90.

So in your case,

6 subject UAS is 20x3 + 8.75 + 10 + 8.75 = 87.5

Add MTL to this: 87.5 + 10 = 97.5/100 x 90 = 87.75


I see. Ok thanks a lot ! this helps in my understanding ! so, in this case, MTL score is used as it helped to move the score up marginally. Does this concept apply consistently across all courses or only specific courses ?
Thanks again !

Yes, it's automatically calculated across all uni courses. If your MTL score doesn't improve your UAS, it won't be added.

Thanks much jtoh!

Appreciate is someone can help clarify on the calculation.


My son scored A2 for Higher Mother Tongue at his GCE O Levels.

Hence, he didn’t take it in JC.

When calculating the University Admission Point (UAP), can he use his HMT score achieved at O Level?

Thank you.

Appreciate is someone can help clarify on the calculation.


My son scored A2 for Higher Mother Tongue at his GCE O Levels.

Hence, he didn’t take it in JC.

When calculating the University Admission Point (UAP), can he use his HMT score achieved at O Level?

Thank you.

Hi Jenny Pow,


I agree with winth and Queenstown PCF seemed quite structured. I did try enquire last time but did not enrol my children there because they don’t have Before/After School Care…or they don’t have any vacancy left…cannot not remember already.

My children are still at CH and the branch director is not so friendly as we are not afraid to bring out any of their shortcomings to them…

Sometimes, parents are too "busy" or "close one eye" on what is happening. But if don’t ensure that our children are well taken care off, then who will? So far, my children are OK but as I said, we still need to constantly speak to them and find out what they have been doing. This way, we can find out alot of unexpected info.

Hi mickeyhmh,


Pearl river and Weber are made in China and Samick in Indonesia, if I am not wrong.

There have been alot of "controversies" about these made-in-Asia pianos. But from my own research, I think they are OK at a particular price-point. Of course, they cannot be compared to Yamaha or Kawai, which cost substantially more for a similar size piano. But for someone, like myself, who do not want to spend too much as we don’t not know how long our kids’ interest will sustain, it could be a trade-off.

Alot of pianos are made in China nowadays due to production cost, obviously. There are also famous brands like Steinway Essex range of pianos being made in China. So, I will not label all China pianos as bad.

Maybe, one of the brands you will want to consider is Hailun, a Chinese brand made in China. Although it has a relatively shrot history of buidling pianos under its own name, it seems to be one of the up-and-coming brands. If you go to the "Piano World" forum and do a search for "Hailun", you could get quite alot of info and most of them seem to be quite impressed by the brand.

For myself, I bought a Wendl & Lung Universal 122, also made in China by Hailun. However, this brand is fully Austrian-owned with a long history. It has also received many favourable feedbacks from my research and I am pretty happy with it so far.

Both Hailun and Wendl & Lung are sold by Piano Master in Geyland East. By the way, I am in no way promoting any of these brands. I am just one of those consumers that was totally confused by the wide amount of brand available in the market and who do not play the piano. This make it especially difficult to decide what to buy for our kids when we decided to get one.

Hi luvmum,


I think CalMat has put things in perspective as to why your kid’s ex-teacher left.

But from my experience, there are "alot" of things going on "behind-the-scene". Everything is not as "rosy" as what we see or thought. I am one of those parents that go visit my kid almost daily during lunch-time and I can see many lapses and unprofessional conduct, whether pertaining to the children’s well-being or enrichment classes or administration. This has gone to a point that I am viewed as an "unwelcome" figure.

Unfortunately, alot of childcare centres are like that and how many can we change?..sigh!!

Anyway, we should remain vigilant and speak to our kids daily. This can throw up alot of "surprises" although the kids are "generally" well taken care of. We should also not be afraid to bring up any shortcomings to the person-in-charge as this will put them on their toes and ensure proper service quality are administered.

Hi checkered,


I have checked out Siempi at Funan Centre once. They have group lessons for young kids. They also have different grade of teachers. Some of them are called Master piano teachers (or something like that). They are supposed to be more qualified and experienced and that also means you have to pay more. So, maybe you want to check with them if you want to enroll your kid.

Once, I asked to be allowed in the room to see how their group lesson was conducted. Beside learning simple notes reading using games, the kids were also taught how to play simple pieces of music. Parents were also with the kids during lessons to help guide them.

From my observation, it seemed quite OK and may be a good start for young children. Some of the kids could play the piano quite well while others were not so good. I had the opportunity to ask one of the parent about one of the better kid and she told me she practised with him at home often.

As for Yamaha, I don’t have any experience with them. But my wife’s niece and nephew were enrolled with Yamaha since they were about 4-5 years old. Now they are 9 and 7 years old and they seem to have progressed quite well although the older one seems to have lost some interest as he pursued his other school activities such as badminton. Just recently, they have stopped their lessons at Yamaha as after a certain stage, they are advised to find another piano teacher outside to supplement what they learned at Yamaha as the once-a-week lesson is no more adequate for them to progress at a certain required level.

At Yamaha, they can also recommend piano teachers to conduct additional lessons at their home. Hope this helps.