Originally Posted by Unregistered

By "fresh grad" you mean no prior work experience I assume, rather than relevant work experience but graduated recently.

Regardless of the Ministry in question, the salary range depends almost entirely on your university and academic performance. Absolute top-tier universities like Harvard, MIT, Oxford, etc., will command the highest starting pay (3.8k to- 4k). Local universities like NUS and NTU come in second (3.5k to 3.8k). Reasonably high-ranking foreign universities like the University of Tokyo will come in third (3.2k to 3.5k). Fourth place are middle-ranking foreign universities like the University of Queensland (2.5k to 3.2k). Fifth place is everyone else, including private universities like SIM (2.1k to 2.5k).

Things like volunteering and CCAs are only taken into account for actually getting you the interview and later the job. It does not affect your pay.