A TOTAL of 13,053 students received their A-level results this year, and 11,418, or 87.5 per cent of the cohort, secured at least three passes in Higher 2 subjects, and passed General Paper or Knowledge and Inquiry.

There is no basic university entry requirement as entry criteria are course-specific.

Despite a fee increase of up to 20 per cent this year, all four universities told GenY that no one will be denied an education because they can't afford it.

The universities indicated that they will be offering roughly the same number of places as last year.

Based on last year's figures, 25,000 people applied for 6,500 places at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and 35,000 people competed for an estimated 6,000 places at Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

At the Singapore Management University (SMU), there were 13,000 applicants for the 1,600 places last year. Figures were unavailable from SIM University (UniSIM).

Students may apply to more than one local university.

Across-the-board university open houses are a relatively new concept here: NUS and NTU launched these only in 2001 and 2005 respectively. They had individual faculty open houses previously. SMU and UniSIM embraced the concept from their start-up, in 2002 and 2005 respectively.

All four universities declined to disclose their open house budgets. But over the years, the events have grown in scale and become more varied, especially in student-led activities.

Alex Liam