A parent's search for private colleges and universities after SPM

I call this post a parent's search for private colleges and university after SPM because this is not meant to be an informational post. It is just the sharing of my private musings and thoughts while searching for a private college and university for my children. Photos are kept to a minimum to keep this post as short as possible.

We always make it a point to do a research by visiting the educational facilities for all the schools our children had to go to starting from primary school, secondary school and later on college and university. Personally visiting the premise gives us a better feel so we can visualize if our children will be happy there for the next few years. However, due to the pandemic, most parents have had make do with visiting virtual educational fairs like the picture you see below. We visited some too. However, there is nothing like visiting the real thing. Of course if you are sending your kids abroad, you may not be able to visit beforehand.

This post is merely about some of the private local universities and colleges we visited and our initial impression. It is by far not a comprehensive researched article. Just a private sharing which I promised to share with some friends. Some of the photos are lost now too because these were taken around 2018 and 2019 before the pandemic. 

In 2018, we visited the University of Nottingham Malaysia, Semenyih, one day on our way back from hiking in Broga. The University is vast, has a nice lake in the grounds and student quarters are located nearby. Not much for me to write about here, this was just a visit on a whim. It is nice but a bit quiet. Most of my photos are gone now accept a picture of the lake in the University grounds.

In 2019, we visited a few more colleges and universities including Taylors, Sunway, TARUC, UTAR, UCSI, including a matriculation college which I shall share below. 

Below are some pictures of Taylor's College which we visited during its Open Day before the pandemic. We went to the Taylor's Lakeside campus in Subang Jaya which houses both Taylor's College and Taylor's University. The college received “University College” status in 2006, and "University" status in 2010, which further divided it into Taylor's University and Taylor's College. as the name suggest, the University surrounds a lake.

Since we were at Taylor's, it was only natural that we stopped by Sunway College and Sunway University. We also visited it a second time for a scholarship interview later on. Sunway University was established in 2004 as Sunway University College. It was upgraded by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education to full university status in January 2011 and became Sunway University. As for the physical site, Sunway College is right opposite Sunway University. We were impressed by the library which uses facial recognition recognition to enter but was told that it is usually very crowded around exam season.

We also visited Monash University Malaysia while we were in the area. Like Sunway and Taylor, these are urban universities. So they do not have sprawling campuses. Instead, the campuses are built upwards. While at Monash, you would definitely want to find out more about MUFY (Monash University Foundation Year) which is the pathway to Monash University.

 

We love how the whole area for Taylor's, Sunway and Monash is in an established township with easy links to transportation and amenities.

Next up: Confusion between TARUC and UTAR. 

This is a little bit confusing to us because of the similarity in the names. TARUC stands for Tunku Abdul Rahman University College and UTAR stands for Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman. Can you see why we were confused? 

The only way to clear up the confusion is to visit both educational institutions. TARUC is as its name a University College. However, despite its name of "University College", it is actually a sprawling campus with wonderful facilities. We visited the Kuala Lumpur main campus in Setapak. We had to board a bus just to tour around the campus. What I remember from the Open Day was the person patiently helping my kid take a personality test and then trying to match the personality with the course. I also remembered visiting the student's accommodation which was part of the tour. We got down to view the facilities. Unfortunately below is the only photo I managed to take at the time! 

As for UTAR, we visited the Sg Long Campus. UTAR Sg Long is more of an  urban university. It is housed in two buildings, one in traditional style and the other a modern one. UTAR Kampar which we did not visit is in Kampar with a sprawling campus. Some courses are available exclusively at the Sg Long campus while others are at the Kampar campus. 

If you are visiting UTAR, you could drop by UCSI as well. UCSI is located at Taman Connaught, Cheras, close enough for a same day visit though not entirely near.

We were also shown the student's accommodation at UCSI and were told there were too types, a more basic one and another which is located at the hotel run by them ie Le Quadri hotel which is located nearby.

IMU or the International Medical University is a private medical and health sciences university in Malaysia. If your child is interested in medical, dental or nursing courses, you can consider this uni. The fees are not cheap though.

Finally, we saw an Open Day for one of the matriculation colleges and visited one too. This is the list of all the Kolej Matrikulasi in Malaysia. We visited Kolej Matrikulasi, Selangor during its Open Day. Unlike the private colleges, there was no one to greet us. We went in and walked around on our own. I had the impression that the Open Day was more a day for the different matriculation colleges to get together to showcase their projects. We spoke to several of the students about their projects. They were all brilliant students from different matriculation colleges all over Malaysia.

Currently application for matriculation colleges are open from 15 March 2022 to 15 April 2022 for SPM 2021 students.

This is but a small handful of the many private colleges and universities available in Malaysia. It would be a good idea to start visiting education fairs around the time when kids are in Form 4 to open their minds to the possibilities in courses and colleges and to help steer their thoughts towards what they wish to do after SPM. 

Some choices open to students after SPM include foundation courses, STPM, Matrikulasi, Assasi, A-levels, IB, Diploma, TVET, MUFY, AUSMAT (Australian Matriculation), ADP (American Degree Program) and many other options. 

So many possibilities and countless private and public educational institutes. The time to start thinking about tertiary education would be when students choose their streaming in Form 4. Start on the desired University program and work backwards to help students know the type of foundation course required and the qualifications necessary to pursue the course of their choice and their eventual career. Good luck to all!

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