M'sian student with 4.0 CGPA rejected from 3 local unis, but apparently has NTU & NUS offers

A student in Malaysia, who was rejected from three local universities despite having a perfect cumulative grade point average (CGPA), has reportedly been offered admission into both Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and National University of Singapore (NUS), along with a scholarship.

In a Facebook post on Sep. 10, Malaysian Member of Parliament Lee Chean Chung revealed that he has been helping six Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia (STPM) graduates, all of whom have perfect CGPAs, in their appeals to get into their universities of choice.

STPM is the equivalent of a pre-university programme like junior college or polytechnic in Singapore.

It is 18 months long and leads up to A-level equivalent examinations.

One of the students accepted into NTU and NUS

On Sep. 12, Lee took to Facebook again to announce that one of his students had been accepted into Singapore universities instead.

"An STPM 4.0 student that I was helping, who is from Petaling Jaya (PJ), did not get into his first three choices of local universities but got into NTU, which was his dream, and also received a scholarship," Lee stated.

In a Facebook reel posted later the same day, Lee revealed that the same student had also been offered admission into NUS.

"His first choice was a finance course at Universiti Malaya, his second choice was an accounting course at the same university and his third choice was an artificial intelligence (AI) course at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM)," Lee stated.

He revealed that the student was offered his fourth choice, but at the same time received admission offers from NTU and NUS, along with an ASEAN scholarship. He did not reveal which university offered the scholarship.

Mothership understands that both NUS and NTU have ASEAN undergraduate scholarships.

He said that the student eventually decided to stop his appeal into local universities.

Lee ended the video by saying that he is continuing to help the other five STPM graduates in their appeals and hopes that he will be able to help them.

Many STPM graduates in similar situation

In another Facebook post on Sep. 10, Lee revealed that after the university admissions list was released on Sep. 5, the Petaling Jaya Parliamentary Office received 80 appeals, 51 of which were from STPM graduates.

Shockingly, one graduate, who had a CGPA of 3.92, was not admitted into any university.

Another four students who had CGPAs of above 3.0 were also not offered admission into any universities.

Another STPM graduate previously shared situation on Facebook

Another STPM graduate, Edward Wong, also took to Facebook on Sep. 7 to share that he had been rejected from six local universities' accounting courses.

Wong had also attained a CGPA of 4.0, a 9.9 out of 10 for his co-curricular activities (CCA), as well as a 99.90 per cent merit score, yet he was eventually placed in a management course at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM).

"I was placed in Management at USM, my fifth choice, a course that is neither my passion, nor my dream, nor the result of my two years of struggle," Wong stated.

Wong's case has since drawn attention from political and student groups, sparking calls for reforms in university admissions.

However, some have pointed out that Wong's subject combination might have been the reason why he was not accepted into his courses of choice.

Top photos via Canva, NTU, NUS