zzm9980 wrote:OK, I understand now. I didn't realize polys were 'lesser' schools. I'm from the US, where we have polys such as Rensselaer, Cal Poly, etc, hardly considered second-rate schoolssundaymorningstaple wrote:The problem was the OP's. In Singapore, normally, the only people who go to Polytechnics are the ones who could not get into Universities. Therefore, the Poly is normally their last stop before hitting the workforce. So, any in a Poly deemed suitable, at that time, would be offered PR. He turned it down and took another route to get a degree, thereby sabo'ing his chances of PR. Now, the gahmen's priorities have shifted and the PR to foreign students has been discontinued, and because he rejected it............
Let's put it this way, it ain't gonna be easy.
The SG system might derive from the old UK system of having universities and polys, and it definitely was a two tier system with the entry requirements. I forget in what ways now as all polys were elevated to university status in c.1990. A failed bit of attempted social engineering I suspect...
Most cities would have had a uni and also a poly. You can still often usually tell whether a place is and was a uni, or whether it is an old poly now styled a uni by the complexity of it's name.
For example:
University of Manchester
vs
Manchester Metropolitan University (ex poly)
University of Oxford
vs
Oxford Brookes University (ex poly)
University of Sheffield
vs
Sheffield Hallam University (ex poly)
As the ex-polys carry less prestige they (generalising) attract lesser candidates for easier degrees. Hence despite them all being Unis now, a degree from an ex-poly might still be considered somewhat second rate.