Cornell vs Cambridge vs SMU

Originally Posted by Unregistered

hello. purchasing a 401k would more or less equal out. not to mention if you have kids, paying for their tuition and prep schools(esp prep schools!!) would carve a big hole out of your 'disposable income'.

social security =/= cpf. one is a social insurance scheme incl. unemployment benefits etc and the other is a state pension plan. if you are trying to inform others you should google more and be more thorough.

I'm an American living in Singapore. There is no such thing as purchasing a 401K. 401K plans are run by your employer and you contribute, while your employer matches to a certain level. Most Americans do not go to prep school. There are very good public schools in most cities.

Social Security has an unemployment insurance aspect, but in its main function, it is very much like Singapore's CPF in that from 62, you get a steady stream of retirement income, which is adjusted to inflation. For 2011, The maximum amount of earnings subject to SS is USD107K. Maximum contributors like me contribute USD4,500 and my company contributes USD6,600. So its lower than CPF, but functions the same way. I've been contributing since I was 21 and if I were 62 today, I would start to get $2,400 a month from the Social Security Administration.

And the other chap is right on taxes. The U.S. is the only country that taxes its citizens (and PRs) on global income, not just what is derived in the U.S. It's the biggest pain for Americans living in low tax countries like Singapore and Hong Kong. Even local banks like DBS are required to report my accounts to the IRS so there is no escaping. IRS do allow me to deduct Singapore taxes from my US tax bill and there is an exemption for the first USD91,500 (not USD80K as posted) of foreign income.

I'm a Cornellian too

Originally Posted by ipodderz

Yes you are right BA MST is a 1 year course. I have offered PPS with a conditional entry into MST providing I meet a certain grade (which I am fairly confident that I will if I work hard). Don't ask me how I got it because I did have to go through quite a bit to get PPS + conditional MST. In fact, I have been supplied this year's handbook, which of course is not available publicly over the internet. The handbook is 13 pages in total. If you like I can upload a few pages at your request. But then again, I don't need to justify anything over the net.

Thanks for clarifying. Politics, Psychology and Sociology is a 3-year course right, so the BA in Management will be 4 years in total. I calculated the cost and its much much higher than your estimate. Including "College Fees", PPS costs 16K pounds per year and Cambridge estimates living expenses are estimated at 8K pounds on the website. Management tuition costs even more at 20K pounds per year. So without living expenses, were talking about $136K and including living expenses about $200K and they rise every year. Good thing the pound has fallen so much versus the S$. I suppose it is still slightly cheaper than Cornell...

Another question, given your interest in Economics, why didn't you try for Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford. PPS sounds a bit too soft for me especially the Sociology part.... might be hard to get a job later without enough economics training.

SMU only costs $30K for a Bachelor of Economics, while Cornell is $300K and Cambridge is $200K. On scholarships, I suppose some of the 6-year bonds are worth $200-300K, but definitely not the local bonds. You must be a scholar or a millionaire to afford a foreign education.

Take what most people say here with a grain of salt. It is you who will be the one to decide. However, I do have to say that the Cornelian-american-singaporean-graduate has raised some fair points which I think you should consider. Let me tell you that working in the UK can be a pain the ass with regards to taxes. You can pay up to 40% if you have city jobs, which I am sure would not be too difficult to get as there are many companies that go there to recruit.

Also, I have heard that it is possible to get a bachelors with management in 3 years rather than the 4 as suggested by the poster above. I know people who people from very different backgrounds who graduated with the degree you mentioned. I am even more surprised that medical students can infact take that course and graduate with a bachelors in management in 3 years (though not in medicine)!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

food for thought:

As far as recruitment, they have a global graduate recruitment program (the chaps are called "graduates") which is run from New York and London. The program also handles the summer interns. NUS & SMU are not in the list of institutions that they recruit from. Apprently they tried it a few years ago with poor results. Not to say that there are not a fair number of Singaporeans graduates around, but they went to top schools, not NUS/SMU. In Singapore, only Insead is on the list and they actually recruit on the Insead campus a few times a year. There are more finance MBAs, but there are all sorts so its probably not correct to say that you need finance. In the Graduate program, the only difference between MBAs and Undergrads is base pay. They do the same work. Some of the graduates from Ivies studied history, English etc, but they are really smart. The graduates are eventually sent abroad for a few months for training, but most say its a junket and they had a good time. Hard to tell because they are competitive amongst each other.

There are NUS/SMU grads around, but they snuck in either as desk assistants or research assistants and then worked their way up. The few interns that are around usually have some lobang like me. One of the other intern's father is CEO of a firm which is an IB client. Another local intern is really really pretty. If you are not from Ivy, you need a lobang or be really good looking.

College Confidential - View Single Post - Singaporean connection

well someone very dear to me applied for a summer internship to 3 BBs. Got accepted at 2 of the banks and picked one (obvsly).

He was offered an analyst position at the end of his internship.

FWIW, he's from SMU. The only "lobang" he had was that his prof passed on his resume directly to HR for one of the banks. I doubt that can be considered a lobang by any means.

I'm from the research department of a BB Investment Bank and we do take in a fair number of summer interns from SMU and NUS. However, in our whole global markets division, we only offered one a permanent job in the last 2 years. A summer intern would not be offered a position as a writing analyst. Usually they have to work as a research assistant for about 2 years before being promoted to analyst. There was one case where a particularly confident and articulate research assistant was allowed to publish after 10 months on the job.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Also, I have heard that it is possible to get a bachelors with management in 3 years rather than the 4 as suggested by the poster above. I know people who people from very different backgrounds who graduated with the degree you mentioned. I am even more surprised that medical students can infact take that course and graduate with a bachelors in management in 3 years (though not in medicine)!

If you look at the requirements here:

Undergraduate Admissions: Cambridge Admissions Office - Politics, Psychology & Sociology

it seems impossible to finish the PPS in less than 3 years. Could it be that you take all the management courses in parallel with PPS in the 3rd year? If so, do you pay both tuition fees (i.e., tuition fee for PPS and tuition fee for management) and just one college fee?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

well someone very dear to me applied for a summer internship to 3 BBs. Got accepted at 2 of the banks and picked one (obvsly).

He was offered an analyst position at the end of his internship.

FWIW, he's from SMU. The only "lobang" he had was that his prof passed on his resume directly to HR for one of the banks. I doubt that can be considered a lobang by any means.

what department? front office?

Originally Posted by ipodderz

I deferred my michaelmas 2010 entry for 2011 due to personal reasons. As you can see, I only included tuition fee as a comparison without living costs as those can be quite different depending on whether you are living in the states vs UK.

Sorry to nit pick, but "Michaelmas" is only used for UK Universities. Cornell, like otherUS Universities, refers to it as the "Fall Term"

Originally Posted by Unregistered

what department? front office?

yes IBD front office.