Does your teen want to apply to a Singapore university after the A-Level results?

Although many teens have started to take charge of their own lives, they can still feel lost when thinking about options for the future. If your teen has been confiding in you, or is asking for your advice, how can you help? 

The first step is to arm yourself with information, so that you can help your teen to approach decision making in a systematic way, with questions like:

• What are you really interested in studying, and why?
• Can you meet the cut-off scores for the degree courses that you’re interested in? (In local universities, this is known as the “indicative grade profile” or IGP.)

Other options to discuss are whether or not your teen would like to take some time off studies (known as a ‘gap year’) to get involved in volunteer projects, or secure internships for a taste of life in the working world. These experiences can be life-changing, as youths can pick up essential life skills such as learning how to work in teams in real-world situations. It’s also a chance to reflect on their career interests, before they commit to a degree.

Read on to find out what else you and your teen should know!

Comparing Singapore’s Universities

There are currently six universities in Singapore where locals can receive a government-subsidised education, and they are:

• Nanyang Technological University (NTU)
• National University of Singapore (NUS)
• Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT)
• Singapore Management University (SMU)
• Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS)
• Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD)

In terms of the quality of education, NUS and NTU are well-placed in global university rankings lists like QS and Times. You can read our guide to understand more about university rankings, but in a nutshell, the QS ranking relies heavily on reputation surveys, such as what employers think about a university, while the Times ranking places more emphasis on research reputation. 

There is a third university ranking system known as the Shanghai ranking, which takes into consideration how many alumni and faculty members have won awards such as Nobel prizes. It’s for this reason that our Singapore universities are placed much lower on this list.

How useful are these rankings? Well, they indicate how well-known our local universities are in the international arena—at present, NUS, NTU, and SMU would have more ‘name recognition value.’ However, building up a university’s reputation takes time so it’s not exactly a fair comparison, as some of our local universities like SUTD and SIT were only established in 2009, compared to NUS, which has been around for over a century.

Instead of fixating too much on ranking systems, we encourage parents and teens to also look up web resources such as Digital Senior, where there’s plenty of ‘insider’ information on how to differentiate our local universities. 

How to Shortlist Universities and Courses

Here’s the most practical way to go about this: look at your teen’s A-Level results as well as your family’s budget. This should already narrow down the spread of options to a manageable few!

If your teen is still unsure of how to proceed, our local SkillsFuture website has plenty of resources to help students uncover their career interests and passions.

You could also book a few sessions for your teen to chat with a career coach or education consultant, as they have the expertise to listen carefully, as well as ask the right questions to give your teen some food for thought. Alternatively, teens can take personality tests such as the Myers-Briggs or Enneagram tests, which might help to boost self-awareness. 

While you should provide support where needed, it’s your teen’s responsibility to take charge of his/her education. Resist the urge to give too much input, and when having discussions with your teen, focus on the experience that your teen would like to have in school, with questions like:

• What were the subjects that you liked in JC, and would you like to continue on that path?
• What new subjects would you like to take?
• What sorts of lecturers would you be excited to learn from?
• Would you prefer a course where there’s a good mix of local and international students?
• What extracurricular activities would you like to join in university?
• What sort of school culture are you looking for?

As for whether job prospects should be a top priority in course selection, that’s something for you and your teen to talk about. For an idea of employment rates and median salaries, your teen can look up yearly Graduate Employment Surveys, which are sometimes jointly conducted between universities.

What to Know About University Fees & Scholarships

It’s good for both you and your teen to know how much a Singapore university education will cost, but when it comes to seeking financial assistance and securing scholarships, the responsibility should fall on your teen to explore the options. Have an honest chat with your teen to share how much you have set aside for his/her university education, and if there is a shortfall, you can work together to think about how the extra funds can be secured. 

A useful resource is the MoneySmart guide to local university fees in 2022, but note that the estimates exclude more expensive courses like medicine. If your teen has a solid academic and co-curricular record, he/she can look up scholarships for Singapore undergraduates on the BrightSparks database — there are over 300 scholarships listed.

Don’t Miss These University Open House Events in 2023

For easy reference, we’ve put together the table below, with links to key information for each of Singapore’s six local universities. Now that on-campus open house events are on again, do encourage your teen to make a trip down before putting in an application!