Recommendations for US universities part 1

Recommendations? Another important part of your application, but not written by you.

First I will draw a distinct line between the UK and US recommendations. UK universities typically only require a recommendation through UCAS whereas US universities might request multiple recommendations. The recommendations by US universities are divided into two distinct types: counselor's and teacher's. Today I will explain the US recommendations or recs for short.

 

He is a mathematical genius.
Recommendation letter of John Nash

Recs: What do they do?

Recs provide an insight into your life as seen by an outsider. As the Chinese idiom says, 当局者迷，旁观者清 (Chinese idiom - the observer has the clearest view), when you are busy trying to portray yourself handsomely, having an outsider vouching your character is a refreshing sight to the admission officers. Hence, recs are important as the other aspects of your holistic applications.

More importantly, recs are your second (or third, or fourth..) essay, but written by other people. When you answer your essay prompts, you might not have enough space to talk about the other aspects of your life. If you can communicate properly with your teachers on the aspects that he/she has to cover, voila! You have another voice for your character!

The first rule of rec: Never write anything bad

Let's just pretend that you are trying to recommend your friend for a job, what do you do?

Of course, you will sing praises of their friends' work ethics while avoiding any of his/her flaws - "he/she is a meticulous secretary!", "he/she never misses a deadline!". As grandiose as these statements sounds, you will also need to hit the mark. Would you recommend someone's athletic prowess (He can really hit the ball!) to a future employer? I guess not.

But in the case of college application recs, things get more muddled. What does an institution seeks? A case of intellectual  vitality? A dose of never-giving-up? A pinch of versatility? A dash of talent? What does the college really want?

The answer is somewhere between the fine lines. Your teacher should write something that answers the question (with some guidelines) but they should also write what they want to write. The only time the recommendation would be a disservice to your application would be when your teacher writes something negative. In that case, the teacher would undo everything good that he/she has mentioned in the past. Imagine the admission officer reading your stellar application and finding the teacher describing you as a smart but lazy bum. There goes your application down the drain.

Irrelevance is okay, but never anything negative.

The second rule of rec: Counselor =/= Teacher

Allow me to explain.

College recs do not have rigid requirements but they should provide context and value. Generally context is for the counselor's recommendation while value is more for the teacher's recommendation.

There was considerable debate during my application year on what constitutes a counselor and what constitutes a teacher in the US recommendation letters. Do not take counselor to be the school counselor! The system we have here in Malaysia is totally different from that in the US, where the counselor is supposed to know all the students personally and help paint a picture of the student for college application. So unless you really know your counselor and your counselor knows you well enough that you should nominate him to write your recommendations.

Your counselor should write some sort of a preliminary background check for your college. He/she should explain your family background and how does that establish your motivations in school. Hence, the counselor should know you and your family pretty well and able to explain your situation to the admission officers.You should choose the teacher who knows you best as a counselor. Thus, if you ever have any sob story to tell but afraid of ruining your essay, then you should tell your counselor to mention it in his/her rec.  

Teachers, on the other hand are free to write whatever they please, that means if he/she is your basketball coach, then he/she could write about your ball game or your unique outlook on physics problem, whatever it is, it should be personal and adds value (I mean, that is the whole point of recommendation right?). There is another neat trick to letting your teachers writing your rec which is part of your admission strategy, you can actually assign the teachers to write certain things about you.

The third rule of rec: Help your teacher to recommend yourself

When you are applying to university, you must have some sort of application strategy. A simple idea would be "I'll apply to A first, if I got accepted into A, then I won't apply to B etc...". In the US application, you will definitely need to pre-plan your time, your energy and also your recommendations!

Why is a person entitled to three recommendations? This is because the admission officers want to gather as much information about you as possible. Hence, it would make sense to ask teachers which you have different interactions in class. For example, you should ask the Chemistry teacher whom you reverently ask questions in class as well as the Physics teacher that you always hang around with to write recommendations for you. Chances are, they would have different views of you in class. And the more diverse the views the better! Imagine if they all describe the same thing, then you might as well write the recs yourself!

Some teachers might approach you on how to write the rec, this is when you should tell the teacher what you would like them to write about. However, if the teacher ask you to plain write it yourself, try your best to persuade them to write it themselves, unless you really have no choice in this matter, which leads us to the fourth point.

The fourth rule of rec: The teachers will write whatever they like

A funny anecdote. My friend, after attending USAPPS 2015, was eager to apply his newfound strategy of recs. When he asked the chemistry teacher to not mention his grades because he has already mentioned it in other parts of the application. The teacher just replied: "Very good, then I would mention again to strengthen your application." This clearly illustrates the fourth rule

Irregardless of what you have said to the teacher, the teacher will still write what he/she would want to write. So do not be disheartened when the teacher still remain adamant to write certain things. They have their own viewpoint after years or months of interaction with you. This is a part and parcel of your application that you can't control the recs. You can have control over a lot of things, but not everything.

Anyways, recs are supposed to be a candid picture of yourself, for there are truly no right or wrong to recs (excluding the case that the teachers write something bad about you). The point is do not take it too hard or push your teachers to your limit. As I have said before, irrelevance is okay, but not anything negative.

However, you must always encourage your recommenders to write honestly about you - what were you like in class? How do you interact with your friends? Only a candid picture of yourself will merge perfectly with your essay (Imagine if you talk about how quirky you are only to have the image ruined by a teacher who can't stop talking about your grades). Tell your teachers to describe you as a human being, not as a model student.

Hopefully with these guidelines, you will be able to understand the use of recs and inform your teachers. May the recs pave your way to admission.

SUTD and the Imperial interview

The view outside my hostel!

The story of SUTD

How did I stumble upon SUTD was a funny story, it all began with Collegeboard, the SAT administrator. Back when I registered for the SAT, I clicked on a feature to let colleges and universities mail me with any offers and advertisement they had, and SUTD had sent me a mail with a big hook - apply for free!

I know that this wasn't a great factor but it did interested me. After paying fees to apply to 12 universities worldwide, it was refreshing to see a university that didn't ask you to pay something to attempt to enter. Although I haven't heard of this university before but there was nothing to lose in applying to SUTD. In fact, it was great practice in case I need to apply to other universities as well. With that thinking in mind, I completed the application and awaited the other offers.

Around March, SUTD gave me an interview invitation. I remember being interviewed by Prof. Ate and Prof. Jer Ming. They asked me everything that I wrote in the essay, including my chess club leadership, my Leo Club leadership and what I did in my brief stint in robotics club. They seemed to emphasize the last point because SUTD was after all, a tech school. I thought the interview went pretty well as compared to my Cambridge interview. I remember not rehearsing anything for the interview and just being myself. I didn't think much of SUTD then.

Imperial College Interview

In February, I received an interview invitation from Imperial College London (IC). It was to be my first Skype interview but not my last one. I was interviewed by Dr. Connor Myant for IC's newly minted design engineering program. At that time, the Public Service (JPA) department's scholarship was converted into a local scholarship and I was very demotivated. At that point I was thinking what was the point to take the interview anyway. Even if I get accepted, I may not get enough finances to go. I was pretty cynical at that time.

Even with that frame in mind, I still prepared for my interview. I asked for time off from my manager Arun (I was working in Singapore) and prepared my calculator and writing tools. The interview however was not what I expected (I had Cambridge style interview in my mind). Being an interviewer for the design course, Dr. Myant instead asked me to talk about my favourite gadgets and their intelligent design. Then he asked me to design a chair. This was totally different than the Cambridge interview as I felt like I was having a nice long chat with the professor about the products that I liked and their features. There were some mathematical questions of course, but they were not as intense as the Cambridge questions. At the end of it, I even managed to ask Dr. Myant about the possibilities of a scholarship. He said a bit embarrassingly that chances were low.

The Offers

In March/April the results were out. I got offers from both Imperial and SUTD but SUTD offered me much more. They offered me a scholarship together with an exchange program to UCB. I was as elated as I was worried. If I have never heard of SUTD before, chances are will employers out there would never heard of it as well. Will the course even be rigorous? I have been dreaming to study abroad for so long, but I was longing more for countries across oceans, not just across the Causeway. Will SUTD be a good fit? Is it well recognised?

I realized that my problems were SUTD is due to the lack of information on my part. Just looking at the online brochures does not teach me much about SUTD so I visited the campus. After all, I was working in Singapore. I also contacted a Malaysian senior who is studying there and had a nice long chat with him. Through him and my own eyes, I found SUTD to be a very nice place. In place of the traditional science labs, SUTD has fabrication labs for you to manufacture your own products. The library lets you use Kindle to access e-books and the whole campus gives you a modern vibe. The industry has recognized SUTD well as its first batch of graduates (in 2015) were reported to have the highest starting salary. The partnership with MIT ensures that the coursework would be interesting and tough. And as a plus it has the course that I wanted - product design.

Most importantly, if I accepted SUTD's offer, I would have something which is much more valuable - a peace of mind. After applying to 14 universities and not finding a viable path, I was getting exhausted and frustrated. I felt that my life was just a never ending application to colleges. With little support from my parents (in terms of application advice) and mentors, I had been doing this ala lone ranger mode and it was tiring me out. Accepting the offer would mean that I will finally end this uncertainty once and for all and I will have the peace of mind that has enticed me for so long.

There were a few things that I need to consider before saying yes, and that were the possibilities of better options. With SUTD's offer deadline in May, I need to accept it before I even knew the results of my NUS/NTU offers or the replies from the various corporations which I have asked for scholarship. After carefully analyzing the situation and doing some deep soul searching, I reasoned that no offer would be better than this - even scholarship offers to good universities overseas would bond me to their company for long periods. As a result, I have come to the conclusion that SUTD would be the best choice after all.

About my reluctance in accepting the offer, realisation struck that I have not diminished my dream but rather I have attained it. Given the circumstances, it was one of the best outcome that I could have instead of languishing in some place I don't like. It was kind of like "reach for the stars, if you can't do it, you can at least grab the moon" concept. And as young kid from Raub to have achieved this stage of life all by himself, all I can say is that the kid is somehow proud of himself.

At the end of the day, don't give up on your dreams. You might find it to be very hard, but the struggles will eventually make you a better person. Who knows? You might even find yourself amongst the stars some day

"reach for the stars, if you can't do it, you can at least grab the moon."

Applying to Stanford

For a long time, I was obsessed with Stanford.

SLJUMB - AKA Stanford Marching Band
#WANT

I wished that I could go, but of course, that is if I could only up and go. The acceptance rate to Stanford were equally famous. As of 2016, Stanford university released statistics that they only accepted 4.7 % of their applicants this year, which meant the majority of applicants were denied a place to study in Stanford.

In spite of the odds, I was one of the two in my college who dared to apply early, me to Stanford and Anzo to Princeton. Anzo's logic is infallible. "Princeton has the highest admission rate amongst all the Ivies."

Applying early means both of us has to work extra hard to finish the application before the Nov 1 deadline. Everyday we would both shuttle back and forth between the class and the staff room, to meet with the eccentric Thinking Skills teacher Mr. Leonard and our mentors. Things were not going well at the same time - we had just one more month to prepare for the A2 examinations and the Cambridge interview. Most of my friends were already into cramming mode if they did not apply to Cambridge. While they were busy revising their past-year papers, me and Anzo were busy revising our application essay. We remained steely in our conviction.

Why have I sold my soul to Stanford? Its hard to tell. Partly because I feel that I am not that versatile and sociable enough to enter the likes of the Harvard; and on the other hand, I do not feel that I'm "techy" enough for MIT. So in search of middle ground I found Stanford, With the allure of seeing startups with my own eyes there and the beckoning warm Californian weather, I could not help but to fall in love with Stanford.

For a time, I even had this Stanford tree on my desk

However, the Stanford application remains one of the most hellish ever. With 3 short essays, 8 short questions and 1 description of extracurricular activity - you can bet that it will sap your energy and spirit. Most people would already be scared by the amount of application work which would fulfill the questions' original goal as deterrents. Most people are aware of the 3 Stanford essays but not the 8 short questions as it was never publicized. Then again, most of the Ivies also required you to answer some sort of short questions. The three essays are widely analyzed all over the internet and I find admission hero's analysis to be most useful.

I even visited the blog of Stanford class of 2016 to sense the elation of the admitted students, attended a talk by Stanford's admission officer where I was given the tree and talked to Stanford students at the USApps Workshop 2015. Yes, I was going Stanford-crazy at that time. Although I knew that the chances of getting into Stanford were pretty slim, I believed that things will work my way if I try hard enough - like the happy endings I've always seen in books.

But life is no fairytale.

I remembered that day, I was waiting for the result which will be released at around 4p.m. GMT+8. After refreshing the page for countless times in the company of anxious parents, I was greeted with the rejection letter. I was heartbroken but the blow was not that hard because I sort of expected this outcome. Although early application boosted the admission chances by a bit (to 7%), it is still a very long shot. 

I could still remember my mentor Mr. Lee's reply vividly. He simply told me, "being rejected by Stanford does not make you a bad student" and that cheered me up. I'm really grateful for him. After a few days when I told him about my application, he told over dinner about the history of Stanford which he had scoured over the internet. It was a big surprise for me as I never thought that he would put in so much effort into writing my recommendation. Afterwards, I would write a long Facebook post to thank the teachers.

Although I was rejected, the huge support from my mentor and friends made this a meaningful journey till the end. But I'm still not giving up, see you Stanford in grad school!

Writing the US application essay - value

In one of my previous post, I talked about value in writing the US application essay, but what does value means apart from being a buzzword?

Value in the context of writing the US application essay really means anything that gives meaning to your essay. The US application essay really is this valuable space for you to talk about yourself so do not squander it by using blank fillers. Every word counts! Normal fillers such as "It is in my opinion blah blah blah..." can be easily spotted but value-less fillers are harder to find. Lets look at this as an example:

This was the message I understood when I was selected for National Service, but National Service was a genuine Rashomon. Nobody knew what would happen, but everybody agreed that it was bad news.

This sentence was in the fourth draft of my Commonapp essay and in hindsight not a very good inclusion. On the surface, this sentence looks OK. I was explaining about the mysterious concept of National Service in Malaysia but then what happened was after that I went on to talk about the other facets of National Service. This move was totally a disservice to the explanation earlier. The earlier sentence was not used properly and became useless. It became value-less.

You might ask: So I can't explain anything now?

I like to think of the essay as harmonious music. One dissonant note and it would spoil the whole effect of the essay, so imagine you were playing the piano. Would you go an press an unnecessary key randomly? Sometimes it will spoil the music but most of the time it would just do nothing. It is not logical to waste your word limit on such empty sentences.

When I was editing the school magazine in form 5 of my secondary school, my teacher kept telling us about the concept of “取舍” or "taking and abandoning". One of the basics of editing essays is to always write long and cut short (which I used in my UCAS Personal Statement) but how do you know which to cut? That is the skill and art my friend, and once you have learned how to identify the valuable sentences, you would be able to retain the treasures and throw the trash.

Let Lumo answer your question:  Cut out the explanations that are not very relevant. You have to write only what matters. Those that have value.

Another weird property about value is that it can swing the other way. Take this opening as an example:

I once dreamt of becoming Malaysia’s first astronaut, but Dr. Sheikh Muszaphar beat me to it.

I sympathize with astronauts - intrepid explorers of the vast universe. Of 7 billion people in the world, how many are astronauts? 

I once wanted to touch the moon and live without gravity, but who else shares these feeling? 

Who would understand me?

Cue Sunway College.

These took up 62 words of 500 out of my UC essay, but I think that it was words well spent. Although it does not explain anything concrete, it conjured a feeling of alienation with imageries of space. These add value not in the concrete sense of aiding the narration but rather creating a majestic feeling. Also it functions as a hook to get people interested. At any time, you should write sentences like this, instead of plain-old-Jane sentences. Sometimes sacrificing a bit of content to create some mood in your essay is perfectly acceptable. You are not supposed to tell the story, you are supposed to describe it.

Again using the piano analogy: How do you play music if you don't have the scores? Use your intuition. Let your sense guide you. How do you feel at the time of the event? What was the mood hanging in the air? Pepper your essay with some of these feelings - vague or regardless.

At the end of the day, value is really a very powerful guideline for you to write your essay. Instead of using some superstitious rules in writing the essay or depending on others' opinions, you now have a solid rock to rely on. Instead of reading it in its generalities or scrutinizing every word, you can now self-censure using the "does it add value?" method. If the answer is a "NO", you should probably find a substitute for it.

If it doesn't work or if you have better methods, just share below!

What's after SPM? - 3 Book Reviews

One of the key problems that I had in my early days of university application is to figure out where to study.

Nowadays, with college advertisements bombarding all of our senses, it is hard to tell whether what the university offers is a good deal or just good marketing. We frequently see and hear advertisements on the radio, in the newspapers or even near our school compound. I should know because I've seen Taylors College and Inti College banners just outside my secondary school in rural old Raub. The internet is helpful too but the info is seldom centralized, meaning that you would have to digest all the bits and pieces and convert them into useful information. And with the variety of Grade 12 (STPM level) programs you can take, no wonder most students would be paralyzed by fear just trying to decide.

So the question is how do you find out.

As cliched as this seems, the first step to knowing where you want to study is to find out what you want to study.

There are a few easy steps to obtaining the answer. Some people usually have a passion towards a certain subject and gravitate towards it. For example, people who have a heavy leaning towards Maths and Physics will probably choose to study engineering. If you are have a tick in such a category, congrats! You are probably on the right track and can find your college accordingly. If you are unsure of your passion or having a hard time to pick between two subjects, don't worry - you've probably haven't seen all your options yet. One way is to obtain information through fairs and well, books!

Books are called crystals of knowledge and its for a good reason. Usually the books on higher education are curated by authors who have gathered all the information in one place and easily understood. My first approach to anything that I don't understand is to read a book on it, and it has served me well so far. In the early stages of deciding what to study, I found this book to be very useful. Let me introduce the first book I've ever had about further education. The first of the 3 gems that I am going to introduce today.

Subtitle says it is for "geniuses and idiots", but anyone in between
could also read it

I still remember this yellow book being distributed by my Chinese language teacher who was passionate towards further studies. Everybody got one, and everybody was asked to complete the exercises within the book which consisted of writing down basic information of what you like and what you want. However trivial this may seems, it certainly helped me crossed out several options in my list such as the medical professions. This book is good because it acts like a counselor by letting you analyze your own strength and desires, there are rarely any books that do this. In this light, I totally commend FSI (Further Study Interactive) for their effort to come down to rural places like Raub and expose the students there to different education pathways that they can take.

Further Study Bible?

This is the second book - for those who can't read Chinese, this book is titled the 2016 Complete Guide to Higher Education in Malaysia. It is, as its title suggests, a very complete guide to the various private universities and colleges in Malaysia, including its location, student population, courses and scholarships offered. My brother first brought it home after attending a talk in Bentong. Again published by FSI, it is a very comprehensive book and showcases a lot of choices in terms of higher education. However, conspicuously missing from the book are well-known colleges like BAC and Inti, probably because they don't need the publicity anymore. 

With this book, my brother did what I could not have done during my time - to think about his career plans and identify his prime choice efficiently. So I highly suggest you get a copy of this book. Together with the first book, you can basically make an informed choice on your institute, instead of just relying on guesswork or a few auntie's opinion. The internet is often a good source of information too. For figuring out what's after SPM, you can visit unidigest, eduspiral, easyuni, eduadvisor and FSI, all of which offers you the opportunity to compare and contrast the different options to a higher education.

The title says it all

So what's really after SPM? If you still don't know what you want after reading the two books or searching the internet, I suggest giving this book a read. The first two books just give you basic information of the different colleges and universities, but "What's After SPM?" gives you insight into the experiences of the students themselves. Maybe you will be inspired after reading the often unorthodox pathways that the students themselves have chosen, who knows?

There is a funny story on how I obtained this book, which I got during the USAPPS workshop 2015. There were 5 copies of this book to be given away to people who had valid reasons to own this book. The person who gave it away asked me what I was going to do with it and I said that I was going to bring it back to Raub spread it around to my friends. Spread it around I did, I remember lending it to one of my friends and asking him to share around after he had finished reading it. Much later, one of my friends even thanked me personally for the good book! I really wanted to buy more copies of the book to give it away. And that tells you all about how much I value it.

So this are the 3 books that I am reviewing today and I strongly recommend everyone to read it (Hey! Even my mum finds it entertaining). Just give it a go! The time after SPM is truly a crossroad for you to discover your future.