Elitist?

OK, I'll much rather not having to blog about this for I fear stirring more controversies. It's certainly not the first time that we have been criticised as elitist, and I'm certain it's not going to be the last. However, the latest one in Kian Ming's post also raise quite a few other issues which certainly deserved a response, for I believing it will otherwise, certainly be detrimental to those whom we seek to assist.

The anonymous commentor (assuming its a 'he') argued that if he were to "tell all Malaysian STPM holders with straight As or GPA 4.0 to apply for admission to Oxford, more than 99% will be disappointed."

He's certainly wrong in this case.

I don't have the latest statistics at hand, but I wouldn't assume the data would have changed that much. In 2004, there were 12,235 applicants to Oxford University, 25.9% was accepted. Even with popular courses with Malaysians such as Law and Economics & Management, the acceptance rate was 19.1% and 13.8%, certainly a far cry from the alleged 1%. Science courses had significantly higher acceptance rates.

Similarly, in Cambridge where 14,682 applied that year, 22.4% were accepted. For Law and Economics, the acceptance rates were 15.1% and 14.7% respectively. Why should our best STPM students fare that much worse than the 'A' Level students in the United Kingdom?

In my case, the results for my 'A' Levels was certainly far from straight As. But that did not stop me from applying and getting in. Hence, why should our top students not bother applying to the top global universities?

If you'd like to argue that I had a decent dose of luck to get in, I'll not disagree either. But that is the very reason why Malaysian students should apply. If one doesn't even bother applying, one can't even "get lucky"!

This is very misconception about the top global universities which the bloggers here have been trying to debunk. It is not to say that all top Malaysian students should go to say, Oxbridge or Ivys. If you love Accountancy for example, you might be better off in London School of Economics (LSE) (it's not offered at Oxbridge) or if you prefer Agriculture, you might want to evaluate Nottingham or Reading. But certainly, if you think you'd like to study at Oxbridge, then certainly don't let their supposed reputation deter you from applying.


With that out of the way, there's only one other point to highlight. The commentor argued that he "will not be surprised if it is true that Tony and King Ming have been harboring discrimination against universities, which are less than their norm."

First, I dare say this on behalf of Kian Ming as well, we have no such prejudice. I've personally hired graduates from ranging from Oxford and LSE to Monash and Melbourne to UM, USM, UKM, UPM, MMU and UTM, and as far as I'm concerned, I have no issues with them at all.

So, why do we tend to focus a little more on the top schools? Very simply because we have been there and we would certainly like to help more Malaysians get there. We are realistic enough to know that we cannot help every single student in Malaysia (we try through the discourse on educational policies in Malaysia). Besides us, we certainly need others (including the Government) to play their parts and roles as well.

Tiara, for example, does a good job at trying to promote alternative education. If you have something useful to add to our readers, we'll be more than happy to publish it here (as we have done before). For us, we really just want to share our knowledge and experience (for what's its worth), to others who might find them useful. ;)