Despite a ‘near-perfect’ academic record, Edward Wong was denied entry to six universities’ accounting courses
Edward Wong, a 20-year-old from Penang, had achieved a perfect cumulative grade point average of 4.0, top marks in all subjects, and scored 9.9 out of 10 for co-curricular activities in the national Malaysian Higher School Certificate (STPM), the country’s national pre-university examination, which is internationally recognised and widely regarded as more academically rigorous than other pathways into public universities.
Despite that, he was denied places in accounting programmes at six universities, including Universiti Malaya, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). He was instead offered a management course at USM, which he described in a social media post describing his situation as “neither my passion, nor my dream”.
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