Now, this review (and subsequent ones) cannot be said to have any of the qualities of an excellent review for a couple of basic reasons. One, this review will have none of the personal qualities that might be expected from a reviewer studying at the university. Two, this review has zero original statistics on the university.

Nevertheless, I will be trying to do one of these compilation-type reviews (well, cut and paste does seem somewhat synonymous) which will aggregate information from available statistics on the web, as well as bring in student (and educators as well, perhaps) opinions from forums or news online. All information in this review is based on public information available as of today’s date: 1st January, 2005.

This series of reviews will begin with… the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Basic Introduction:

Name: National University of Singapore (NUS)
Country Located: Singapore
Year Founded: 1905

World Ranking:

• No. 22 (according to the Times Good University Guide’s 2005 Top 100 Universities)
• No. 101-152 (according to Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s 2005 Top 500 World Universities)

Asian Ranking:

• No. 9-17 (according to Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s 2004 Top 100 Asia Pacific Universities)
• No. 5 (according to Asiaweek.com’s Asia’s Best Universities 2000)

National Ranking:

• No. 1 in Singapore (according to Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s 2005 Top 500 World Universities)

Now, on to the more subjective stuff.

NUS is the premier (and oldest) university in Singapore. It is in fact the only Singaporean multi-disciplinary university that can compete at the world level. In most cases however, NUS is the first choice school for Singaporeans for the social sciences (especially law and economics) as well as medicine.

The university is also home to the University Scholars Programme, which according to NUS, is “…a premier undergraduate programme at National University of Singapore (NUS) designed to develop the intellectual, leadership, and personal potential of promising students.” It provides a more broad-based curriculum to its member students, with a variety of student opportunities available such as local and overseas study trips, student exchange programmes, internships, symposiums and workshops. However, it is made available only to students with top academic results or those with “…special interest and exceptional talent, background or achievement, regardless of academic record.”

Like in all Singaporean universities, the Ministry of Education Tuition Grant applies for students both local and overseas. This is where most of the universities tuition fees are waived, but in return, the student is bonded to work in Singapore for 3 years. Luckily, the choice of company to work with lies entirely with the student. There are also a multitude of other scholarships such as the ASEAN Undergraduate Scholarship for ASEAN residents that extends the tuition grant further to provide a full scholarship (with living allowances as well). The Singapore Airlines - Neptune Orient Lines (SIA-NOL) Undergraduate Scholarship is the mirror of the ASEAN Undergraduate Scholarship for Indian nationals. However, this scholarship comes with an additional 3-year bond (added to the MOE Tuition Grant’s 3-year bond), such that the scholarship holder will have to work in a Singapore company for 6-years in total. There are similar scholarships for Indonesian residents (SembCorp Undergraduate Scholarships) and Hong Kong residents.

In any case, I will have to say that the scholarships are rather generous given the rather expensive tuition fees of NUS, especially to other ASEAN residents (mainly due to the foreign exhange rate). But clearly we know that the scholarships are one of the Singapore government’s many vehicles to drain more brains into Singapore’s greying population (where Singapore’s birth rate is under replacement levels). On another note, research at NUS is one of the strongest in the region (given the brain drain policy as well, of course), with funding and legislation a smaller problem than in most South-East Asian countries.

As it is, I could hardy find any student forums on NUS. The closest I could find on any discussion on the university is Sintercom. So, I can’t comment much on student life. Perhaps if NUS students would kindly help with some comments regarding their university?

Overall, I conclude that NUS is definitely one of the top universities in Singapore, Asia and perhaps the world. With a strict entrance policy, it has managed to lure among the top students in Singapore and perhaps South-East Asia. However, it is sure that the overseas scholarships offered for the very best students in Singapore would have diluted the pool of top students applying to NUS. After all, the similar policies applied by Malaysia (and to a much lesser extent, Thailand) have definitely done the same for those countries (and would thus affect the ASEAN pool of top students entering NUS as well).