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Applying to Universities

Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2014 1:14 pm
by rollover
Application to Universities are done separately. Are prospective students applying to all the Universities?

My niece is keen in Accountancy course. So it is probably only NUS, NTU, SMU and Unisim for her.

Re: University application

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 11:51 pm
by Teacher Aaron
rollover wrote:Application to Universities are done separately. Are prospective students applying to all the Universities?

My niece is keen in Accountancy course. So it is probably only NUS, NTU, SMU and Unisim for her.
No harm having a couple of spare parachutes. The most is you reject the place, and then it goes to someone else.

Re: University application

Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2014 11:16 am
by CarrotTree
For accountancy course , which is Uni is good ? - NUS, SMU or NTU. Heard NTU is the best , is it true and its tough ?

For someone not so technical , will doing Accountancy or Bus Admin better ?

Appreciate advice on this

Re: University application

Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2014 11:28 am
by MMM
CarrotTree wrote:For accountancy course , which is Uni is good ? - NUS, SMU or NTU. Heard NTU is the best , is it true and its tough ?

For someone not so technical , will doing Accountancy or Bus Admin better ?

Appreciate advice on this
NTU historically produces alot of accountants who are currently leading the accounting teams today. But in recent years, we also saw many good SMU graduates.

Frankly, if the results is good enough, accountancy is definitely a better bet. They need not become accountants when they graduate. There are people who join banking or progress to other areas too. Having accounting knowledge will help one to have financial sense in them which is critical for business people as well.

Re: University application

Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2014 12:18 pm
by Teacher Aaron
CarrotTree wrote:For accountancy course , which is Uni is good ? - NUS, SMU or NTU. Heard NTU is the best , is it true and its tough ?

For someone not so technical , will doing Accountancy or Bus Admin better ?

Appreciate advice on this
Business Administration is pretty general. You learn about management theories, human resource management, some basic accounting and finance, logistics etc. In essence, Business Administration degrees equip graduates with an overview of how businesses function in general.

Accountancy is more specialised, so you learn in-depth about the financial parts of a business. Accountants are usually paid quite well, but the trade-off you will have to slog really hard (12 hour workdays are quite the norm for my friends who are in the field).

In terms of studies, Business Administration is usually more skewed towards theory and evaluation of case studies than practice, so in a sense, if you are good at writing papers and presenting yourself, go for Business Administration.

Accountancy can get rather technical, and having taken accountancy courses myself, my view is that it's not for everybody. It's kind of like durian: either you love it or you hate it. It is best to do some research to find out about the field of accounting if you have no prior experience.

As for schools, accountancy firms prefer to hire from NTU because most of the senior accountants in Singapore came from NTU as, for a long time, they were the only university offering accounting, and these people generally prefer to hire graduates from NTU. In terms of quality of education, I think NUS, NTU and SMU in general are all very competent universities, so the differences in quality of education are probably very marginal.

Re: University application

Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 2:10 pm
by rollover
CarrotTree wrote:For accountancy course , which is Uni is good ? - NUS, SMU or NTU. Heard NTU is the best , is it true and its tough ?

For someone not so technical , will doing Accountancy or Bus Admin better ?

Appreciate advice on this
The Accountancy programme from Nanyang Business School was originally from NUS. They moved to NTU in the late 80s/early 90s to balance the gender ratio in NTU. The rigour and the recognition by employers and accreditation bodies is definitely there since it has been running for so many years. By the way, this is a 3-year programme leading to a Bachelor degree in Accountancy. Students who did well will graduate with Honours in the 3 years. Top students who wish to stretch themselves further can also try the double degree programme in Accountancy and Business which has a longer duration. Based on the Indiactive Grade Profile, I believed this is the most competitive amongst the 3. The intake is not small though, NTU took in nearly 600 for the Accountancy programme.

The NUS Accountancy programme is newer than NTU's. It is a Bachelor of Business (Accountancy) and takes more than 3 years to graduate. The intake is about 220.

The SMU Accoutancy programme is also relatively new and takes more than 3 years to complete. The intake is about 280.

For Accountancy programme, you have to like dealing with figures more so than a Business degree. The Accountancy degree is a Professional degree whereas the Business degree is a General Degree.

Re: University application

Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 1:01 am
by concerned mom
Hi i am writing under this topic as the platform prompts that I do not have enough KP$ to start a new thread.
Wondering if anyone's undergrad children enrolled for summer programme in Korea and whether still proceeding? Although MOE has cancelled school trips, these do not cover uni programmes and the unis have so far not taken any stance or given any direction on this. A tough call as DS/DD work very hard on the application and mapping of credits and withdrawing would have knock on effects on the remaining semesters.

Re: University application

Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2015 9:46 am
by rollover
Accountancy takes in very good students and is difficult to get Uni Scholarships since it is so competitive.

Are there any external Scholarships for Accountancy students?

Re: University application

Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2015 11:42 am
by alng
rollover wrote:Accountancy takes in very good students and is difficult to get Uni Scholarships since it is so competitive.

Are there any external Scholarships for Accountancy students?
Yes, KPMG is one example. However, I think these external scholarships are as competitive as the uni scholarships.

http://www.kpmg.com/SG/en/careers/Stude ... fault.aspx

Re: University application

Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2016 3:48 pm
by CarrotTree
Hi,
Understand that local universities like SMU/NTU have invited 2015 A level students to apply prior to release of the A level results in March 2016. Interviews for admission are also done before the release of the " A" level result in March 2016.
Will the prospective applicants get to know whether they are successful before March 2016 and if acceptable by the students, can the applicant change their mind should they decide to switch university or course ?
What if the final A level result do not meet the admission criteria of the uni course? Is this similar to the DSA system for secondary school? :thankyou: