As I waded through the application materials of students (btw, I received 206 applications this round and for round 1, I received 376 applications), these is what I observed that made the difference between a successful application and one that is not.

1. Incomplete study plan

Some students did not fill in their study plan in OPAS which made it difficult to evaluate if they had in fact did their research on the various universities that they have listed as their choices. This comes under the category of incomplete application and hence would mean that the application will be rejected. One of the major reasons that students withdraw from their exchange is that they could not find suitable modules to read at their chosen partner university.

2. Incomplete financial information

In OPAS, there is a section for financial information if students do not have a scholarship. Many students failed to indicate how they intend to finance their exchange; how much money they set aside, what is sponsoring their exchange for example parents, relatives, siblings etc , household income and the number of people in their household. Without this information, it is often impossible to evaluate if students have the means to support themselves while on exchange and this may result in their applications being unsuccessful. The largest reason that students withdraw from their exchange is a financial one.

3. No letter of undertaking to pursue Honours or otherwise invalid letter

There are 2 aspects to this required document. Firstly students failed to submit this document even though they asked to be on exchange in their possible graduating semester. The key here is to ask yourself; if I am doing a B.A., is the semester I intend to head for exchange my last semester? When in doubt, submit one anyway, better be safe than sorry. As an aside, for obvious reason, 8th semester is the graduating semester for BA Honours so that semester is definitely not allowed for exchange.

Secondly, starting from 07 cohort, students must meet a minimum CAP of 3.5 in order to qualify for Honours studies. Therefore before you write such a letter of undertaking, your current CAP must already be 3.5 and above. Otherwise, your letter will not be valid as you are making an undertaking that you cannot honour as you lack the required minimum CAP. This is pretty much a given. I can only work with your current CAP and will not be able to take your future CAP into account.

4. Poor personal statement

A good personal statement is one that explains quite clearly why you want to head for exchange, in concrete ways how you can be a good NUS ambassador; the reasons why you pick the universities that you did and how your experience can benefit your fellow schoolmates and NUS and how you can contribute to FASS after your return. Some statements that I received were paltry 3 lines affairs which I feel were not indicative of any thought or effort on the part of the students.

5. Meeting the deadlines for SEP application

As with standard practice for the last few years, the announcement for SEP application was sent via email to all eligible students ( year 1 to 3). There were bounced back emails which were undeliverable. Therefore we advise students to always keep their inbox free so as not to miss important emails as bounced emails will not be re-sent.

Also, the deadline for the application was stated clearly in the email and students were given a month to complete the application. In order not to miss the deadline, we encourage students not to wait till the last few days to apply so that your application will be properly captured in OPAS. One benefit of submitting early application is that you will still have sufficient time to make changes or ask questions about your application. As we do not work on Saturday or Sunday, if you wait till the last day to make queries, there will be no one around to answer your query or re-enable your previous application in OPAS (that you had submittd for round 1) as some students found out to their detriment.  

Please note that the deadline stated in the email is definitive and will supercede any other information offered at an earlier date. In the future, the opening of SEP application will also be posted on this blog as with the last application cycle.

6. Reading and following instructions

Much of of what I had stated before is a direct consequence of not reading or following instructions that were given to students. As an example, for year 1 students applying in round 2, I had clearly stated that if you have yet to declare a major in CORS or GAPS, to please write to your desired major departments to let them know that you are applying for exchange; there were quite a few students who failed to do so and was thus rejected by the Departments. Similarly, I had also asked for complete study plan, letter of undertaking etc; but students still missed them out.

7. Average CAP

This is a little statistic that I have gleaned from the last few rounds of applications.  The proportion of students who applied for exchange with CAP of 3.5 and above ranges from 75 to 78%. This means that there is a large number of students with reasonable good CAP vying for exchange places. It also implies that students with CAPs that are less than the average stands a lower chance of getting a place on exchange. Therefore I want to encourage students to work harder and improve your CAP as much as you can before you apply for exchange.

As you have seen, the Dean’s Office received a massive amount of applications each year for exchange and there are a lot of people at the Departments who spent time on evaluating your applications and then Ms Ruby and I in turn will work on the selection and collection process and colleagues at the Registrar’s Office also put in a lot of effort in finalising the process and then the documents are sent to partner universities where our counterparts work on getting the acceptance documents to you to close the exchange processing loop.

In order not to disappoint students, I have asked students for their missing documents and information even though I had stated clearly that incomplete applications means that they will not be considered. But this is a time-consuming task that I hope to eliminate for future applications.

Therefore, please respect the process and the adminstrative time and effort that goes into the student exchange application and we will appreciate it that you follow instructions properly and to give your application the required effort and attention that it deserves so that you can increase your chances of being successful in your application. 

I hope that this little post will help you in your next SEP application.