The Sunday Star 9th April 2001

By Zarinah Daud

BUKIT MERTAJAM: Ong Sheng Wuey was on top of the world when he scored 10 A1s in his SPM examination and was invited to have lunch with the Prime Minister in Putrajaya together with the country's top students.

But for the last week, the high achiever of Jit Sin High School Bukit Mertajam has been walking around with a heavy heart.

Despite scoring straight As, Ong cannot comprehend why his application to a local university has been rejected.

"I kept reading the list on the Internet and I could not find my name. It is very disappointing.

"I had hoped to attend local university because both my pensioner parents cannot afford to send me to a private college," he said yesterday.

Ong's predicament was shared by 18 other Jit Sin students, all of whom scored at least 9As.

Jit Sin produced 79 top students scoring between nine As and 11As.

Twenty-seven of them were offered courses in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia while the majority went to private colleges, leaving the remaining 19.

The school's top scorer Moy Wai Lun who scored 10 A1s and one A2, was offered a diploma course in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia instead of his first choice of a degree course in Aeronautics.

Another straight As student, Lim Si Wei said she applied to do a degree course in Chemical Engineering but her name failed to make the list.

The school's counselling teacher Agnes Lim said the students were upset because some of their classmates were offered places in local universities although their results were not excellent.

"I advised them to go to Form Six and do well in the STPM so that they can have a better chance.

"However, they are worried because there is no guarantee either, following reports that STPM top scorers were not able to pursue courses of their choice."

In Ipoh, MAZNI MUSTAFA reports that 14 students from various schools here, who excelled in last year's STPM examination, have expressed disappointment with the university courses offered to them as they differed from their choices.

One of the student, Wong Eee Ling, who got 3As and 1B, said she wanted to do medicine but was offered Applied Science at Universiti Sains Malaysia.

Wong, from SM St Michael, said she could not understand why her application to study medicine in the local universities was rejected when she was one of the three top students in her school.

"Even my second choice to do pharmacy was not considered," she said. Another student, Tan Yee Loong from SM Sam Tet who got 4As, said he was offered to do Speech Science instead of medicine.

He said he could not understand why he was offered that course when the subject required was Physics.

"I took up Biology but was offered that course," he pointed out.

Another seven STPM students who came to the MCA to complain were those whose applications for local universities were rejected completely.

Perak MCA Public Affairs and Complaint Bureau chief Lee Kon Yin said all the 14 students had submitted their appeals to the respective universities.