Easy to obtain Scholarships?
A lot students who scored well in the SPM seem to think that scholarships are easy to obtain. I had one student reject a scholarship from APU assuming that he would get scholarships easily. According to his aunties, Singapore universities are offering scholarships easily to Malaysian students even providing hostel and cost of living. If this was true, I am sure many of our students would not be filing for appeals and would be running over to Singapore.
In 2012, the MCA received 892 appeals from students who failed to secure a place in matriculation. Among the appeals, four were from straight A+ students. Currently, only 10 per cent out of about 20,000 matriculation places are reserved for non-bumiputeras.
According to a report in the Star newspaper on May 14, 2009, A number of SPM top scorers have discovered yet again that a string of A’s are no guarantee to a scholarship from the Public Service Department. A nationwide analysis of 2008’s SPM results, three students scored 16 1A’s, two scored 15 1A’s, six 14 1A’s, 41 of them scored 13 1A’s while 229 scored 12 1A’s. According to a report, the department had interviewed 8,363 out of the 15,084 candidates who had applied for scholarships.
There are some private universities who had gone out to interview students for their scholarships in October and November of 2012 and had offered students supposedly scholarships and yet still have to pay RM15,000 for the fees. Students must think carefully about some of these “scholarships” as they are marketing tactics used by these private universities to attract students to their campus. In the end, the expensive fees and glamourous environment, you are paying for the lake as well, nothing is free.
Choose your scholarships wisely, and visit the campuses however if one is offered, do consider it carefully as scholarships are not easy to come by.
