~sigh~
how ignorant
there is something wrong with the attitudes we are imparting to our children

- a fellow Singaporean PhD student on IM

I see that in the few years since I’ve graduated, things at my alma mater have gotten ever more mad.

And yet, some things haven’t changed.

Like this:

Once these Raffles Junior College students, the creme de la creme from Singapore’s most pedigreed secondary schools, receive their result slips, their worries break into relief, grins and high-fives.

But a handful dissolve into tears, as if their perfect world has crashed. In between sobbing, most admit that, all things considered, their results are good - sullied perhaps by one B or C. But they fear that the results are not good enough to secure the most coveted scholarships.

Scholarships are not to the only way forward.

I’ve already beaten this dead horse too many times; go search the Meritocracy archives. If only teachers would tell their students about the Incomplete Guide to Financial Aid for Singaporeans!

And this sidebar:

WORKING AT IT

‘I am not the only one. Everyone in my class is doing it as well. I don’t know what I would do if I don’t get a place to study medicine.’

SUSAN, 18, who is working in a free clinic to improve her chances of getting into the National University of Singapore medical faculty

Not to pick on Susan, 18, in particular, but how many of those students would be volunteering at a clinic if it didn’t help their admissions package?

But by far the most disturbing sentence was this one:

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