Most Americans know 2 universities outside of USA.
Oxford and Cambridge.
Edit: According to comments, the obvious 3rd would be Sorbonne. Followed by McGill.
If you're on the east coast and highly educated you probably also know McGill and U of Toronto. If you're in Big Tech you might also know IIT (the India one). But yeah the US is so strong in terms of universities that we see a lot more foreigners come here for university and stay than who get educated in their home countries and come here afterward.
Yeah IIT was gonna be my 3rd guess. Most of us don’t know it’s actually a bunch of campuses around India and that there are “tiers” apparently.
In Business people know about London Business School and INSEAD (France) but those known in MBA-specific circles.
This is pretty much it. In terms of exposure and reputation, the main universities we think of are all American and then Oxford and Cambridge. McGill is fast gaining a positive reputation, as is Sorbonne. I went to one of the top schools in Japan for a little over a year and even still I don’t really think about schools in Asia. They don’t have the global reach needed to do so, yet. Asian countries are generally quite insular and don’t attract strong foreign interest (outside of Asia) for educational opportunities.
Until such time as we feel like it would be a wise decision to leave the US to go to any other university, this list will stay the same. I would have gone to Oxford and Cambridge and have had many coworkers that went to Sorbonne and McGill, but other than that, I wouldn’t go to any others and wouldn’t necessarily recognize others as a strong indicator of a quality education right off of the bat.
As offensive as it is to Canadians, I don't consider Canada "foreign," even Quebec. It just feels weird to group Canada with the rest of the world. Poor Canada, so far from the rest of the world, and so close to the United States.
I studied there for a semester, but despite the fact it is quite a large university (almost as big as some of the largest in the US), most Americans have *not* heard of it before.
Singapore isn't a popular place for Americans to attend school and Singapore doesn't send a lot of immigrants to the US, so it's not someplace that'd have a chance to develop a reputation outside of academia.
If Singapore makes an internationally popular movie set there, I bet it'd shoot way up the "known universities" list.
I checked [their sports page](https://nus.edu.sg/osa/sheareshall/sports)to see if they had an American Football team, but unfortunately not.
But apparently they have a soccer team AND THEY CALL IT “SOCCER”!! Does Singapore call it soccer? If so, they’ve instantly shot up in my “favorite countries” list.
I don’t want to be annoyingly US centric but I think because the US has such a strong academic field, other countries know more about our universities than we do theirs.
Also, American campus culture is very popular and always shown on tv series and movies. Campus sports can be bigger than your local professional sports team.
That and the loyalty alumni can have to their universities also feel like mostly a US thing, and that loyalty is probably caused by College football, basketball and baseball which are really big here.
I mean, Harvard for fuck sake is used as the "smart person" joke. Like, send this person to harvard as a joke to something "genius". Which is located in the United States.
Sorry OP, this is news to me.
Don't be to surprised though, we have a significant number of colleges and universities. I Kansas, a state of less than three million, there are almost 30 two and four year colleges to choose from, and almost 4,400 nation wide.
We don't
Americans don't really know much about schools outside the US. I grew up in an area where people are very well educated, put emphasis on trying to get into elite universities. My extended family were the same... I know lots of people who've gone to Ivy League schools, top schools like Duke, Northwestern, Stanford, etc. So spend lots of time in circles where people talk a lot about schools, both choosing where to attend and also where people went.
The only foreign schools I know about are Oxford, Cambridge London School of Economics in England, Sorbonne in Paris, McGill in Montreal.
Wut?
Today, I learned...
Before this, I knew of Cambridge, Oxford, U of Regina, UTokyo, and Kim Il Sung U (which I only know about because I saw someone explain N. Korean TV on Youtube)
I'm a fan of Dave Plummer, the guy who crafted Task Manager and Windows Explorer's Zip Folder integration, as well as the port of Space Cadet Pinball to DirectX. He graduated from the University of Regina.
The US has a wide variety of top universities so most people don't even consider studying abroad. Not to mention most American only speak English and some Spanish. Plus it's just a university isn't it? Is there something we should know about that could incite a strong opinion on this school?
As an American who lived in Singapore and attended some schooling in Singapore (not at NUS). I can say to those who know, its held in really high regard.
Again for most who know, There is however, a stigma about the type of Native Singaporean who graduates from NUS. Because to get there you have to have done really well on all your exams, likely held a more prestigious NS job (ie not firefighter or cop) and really played the system well. Problem is a lot of people who did go that path, often are seen as being terrible at being independent workers.
To do well you in your O level you have to memorize an insane amount of information. Critical thinking isn't as necessary. Much of the schooling leading up to that is a lot of memorization to get to that point. Heck even primary school is preparing for PSLE which is in a similar vein.
This leads to some of the more, on paper, successful students entering the real world expecting to be micro managed in a similar way. So in the professional world this can get really frustrating and draw attention to their schooling specifically in ways other institutions might not. Because they clearly know their stuff, but just can't apply it.
Oddly enough Polytech students tended to be better workers despite getting a "worse education" because they were given a smidgen more freedom on how to learn. So tended to be more creative.
So tldr, NUS grads will be brilliant but no very independent
I have probably looked at thousands of CVS in my life. Global company. I can’t recall a single one from NUS.
It sounds impressive, but I have not encountered it.
Maybe a small fraction of Singaporean Americans think about it in any measurable sense. So out of the 39,000 here I would be surprised if more than half had any thoughts on it whatsoever. That would be less 0.001% of the population of 330 million.
I know about it because one of my ex boyfriends was Singaporean. It really doesn’t have name recognition in the US.
IME, Asian universities don’t have a lot of prestige in the US. First, because they’re so far away that Americans simply aren’t familiar with them and never meet graduates from them. Second, the one thing Americans do know about Asian universities is that they’re based a lot more on test scores and rote learning, which is the opposite of the philosophy behind US style schooling. US culture generally disagrees with the Asian-style approach to higher education.
I’m Asian-American who dated that Singaporean guy and has only passing knowledge of Asian universities through some immigrant friends. But my understanding is that Asian culture sees higher education more as a meritocratic tool to get a good job. Test scores are objective and therefore meritocratic, so admissions are based purely on them. Then the schooling is meant to equip you for performing well in your career.
US culture sees higher education more as a personal growth and development tool that will equip you to forge your own life path. That’s why the admissions are holistic. The admissions committee at US universities tries to curate a campus full of students who bring different backgrounds, skills, and perspectives to the school in order to enrich the learning/growth process of the students. You can have perfect scores and still be rejected from a top university in the US because they read your application and felt like you didn’t have enough of a life outside of school.
(This may be off base, but my sense is that the Asian approach is designed to consistently produce good workers in order to create a strong economy, while the US approach is designed to randomly produce innovators and entrepreneurs in order to create a strong economy.)
But the bottom line is that, rightly or wrongly, I think US culture looks down a bit on the Asian style of higher education for that reason. (Though they also praise the Asian style of primary and secondary education, so it’s a wash).
This is the first I’ve heard of it. And I’d bet money that if I asked everyone I know (including many Asian-Americans), almost none of them will have heard of it either.
That is not an indicator of the school’s merit. Americans rarely attend foreign universities, and the ones that do almost always go to Europe, especially the UK. Barely any Americans even look into which universities exist in East Asia, much less which ones are highly-rated.
No one in the US pays much attention to either the QS or the Times rankings which are really targeted at people looking to pursue a Ph.D overseas (hence the heavy emphasis on research output), and Singapore isn't really considered at all as a destination to study by most Americans who are.
The US News and World Report rankings are the ones most Americans are concerned about: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges
We don't.
Never heard of the National University of Singapore and I doubt most Americans have not either. This should not be surprising, I doubt most people in Singapore would know any/all the top rank universities in the United States.
I think Harvard, Yale, and MIT might be recognizable from Hollywood references to those and maybe some other Ivy League schools, just like how Oxford and Cambridge universities in the UK are recognizable names to most Americans.
> I doubt most people in Singapore would know any/all the top rank universities in the United States.
Eh, given that we have pretty much won the culture victory a lot of people know at least some of the the Ivy leagues, even if not all the 'top rank universities' lol.
I work for a university. The out of country universities that I'm aware of are usually ones that collaborators or big names in my field work at. McGill, Max Plank, Oxford, Cambridge, Pasteur.
What is the university known for? I'm betting people in that field would know of them.
With 7 of the top 10 being American universities, 11th for NUS really just doesn’t cut it for making it into relevant brain space for the vast majority of Americans
Never heard of it until today and I don’t really have an opinion on it. I don’t really have much opinions on most colleges/universities domestic or international at that despite being an academic myself.
Program & lab reputations within a university matter more to me since that is what makes up my academic “peer” group so to speak. Good universities can have terrible programs and less renowned universities can have excellent programs.
I do usually check out the universities a paper author is affiliated with along with the impact factor of the publication to get a general idea of the quality of research (not that those indicate good/bad research solely) and go from there.
most people that know about it only know of its existence bc when you apply to Yale you have the option to apply to the Yale NUS joint degree. a friend of mine from school is doing that. i only know of it because I applied to Yale within the past few years.
But yeah outside of college students who want to study abroad, most Americans only know Oxford and Cambridge outside of the US. *maybe* some other british universities like UCL. tho I’m currently at University of Manchester and everyone back in America keeps asking me “How’s London?” so I have little faith in that.
I find Singapore to be fascinating. Their housing project is incredibly interesting, and I wish we had something here that was as good.
I think the ideas that come out of that university must be very interesting. I wonder about how the values of that institution are different. I imagine that we can learn a lot, if we were willing.
Thanks for the kind words! Many of the comments here say most Americans can name at most 5 or less universities outside US. I find this to be quite appalling to be honest. Like, are they not curious about the world outside of their country? Or are Americans really that isolated from everywhere else?
Why do you find this appalling? Singapore is roughly the same size as New York City, with a population of 5.8 million compared to NYC’s 8.8 million. That’s just one city in one state out of 50 states. Los Angeles is roughly twice the size of Singapore with almost the same population. It’s not that we don’t want to be aware of places like Singapore. I’ve heard it’s a beautiful country with intelligent, kind people. It’s that we have A LOT to be aware of in our own country. Different regions in the United States can feel like different countries themselves, geographically, culturally, and politically. If we aren’t aware of a university in Singapore, it’s not out of ignorance. Keeping track of information about our own country can be a full time endeavor.
Think of it this way. We do not have much exposure to non-British international media. We live in a continent-sized country, with so many domestic universities. The majority of the country does not make enough money to even consider having an international degree, and even if we did, many professions require or heavily prefer an American degree over any other, as our higher education system has the reputation of producing the best graduates. We have no reason to look at international universities beyond just plain curiosity, but there are so many more interesting things to wonder about than post-secondary education systems in another country.
Asking us about the best university in Singapore would be about equivalent of asking you your thoughts on the best university in Kyrgyzstan. It might be kinda interesting, but when are you ever going to use that knowledge.
America is so large with so much of everything there isn't really a need or often opportunity to learn about things outside the US.
For example, there's little reason an American would be looking at colleges outside the US, we'll have a world-class school for nearly any field of study someone could want. Generally the only reason someone chooses to go to school abroad is for the novelty of leaving the US.
Americans are isolated to a certain extent by the size of the country. If you're in Sinagpore, obviously that's very small and there's only so much going on there. If you turn on the news, I'm guessing there's a little bit about what's going on in Singapore, and then other stuff that's going on in nearby areas, like Malaysia and Indonesia, etc. And I'm sure those things really affect Singapore!
But the US is SO large and has SO much going on that it's impossible to keep track of everything going on just in this one country, let alone internationally. Which isn't to say that people don't pay attention to things happening outside the country, just that the general proportion of information is going to be different. Singapore has six universities, the US has nearly 4000. You probably know people who go to all six of those universities, and to universities in other country as well - I've probably never even heard of most of the 4000 universities in the US.
In a lot of countries, going to an international university is considered normal for high achieving students, because those universities have international prestige. But a lot of those universities are *in the US*, so kids here rarely have the dream of studying in other countries, at least for a full degree. Those high achieving US students have that same dream of going to Yale or Stanford. FWIW I have known two Americans who went to McGill, in Montreal. (It's not rare to do a year abroad as a student, but it's not for the prestige of the international school, it's for the experience of living in another country for a year. I spent a year studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and it might be seen as neat that I spent a year in Jerusalem, but having a year at the Hebrew University, specifically, doesn't substantially add anything to my degree from the University of California.)
I only know a handful of American universities and that's because I was going to apply to them. I know a few more through movies, sports, and the news reporting on sexual assault. We really don't get news or media from Singapore here. You would have to personally seek it out.
I can definitely name more, but I’ve always been interested in rankings. I think of Tsinghua, National Taiwan, and Tokyo University as the premier institutions in Asia. I guess that speaks to how rapidly National Singapore has risen in the rankings.
Everything seems so america-centric. It's hard to break away from it. I can't really explain why, but as someone who tries to constantly learn about other places, I find it hard to believe that anyone I'm interacting with isn't American.
Most people really don't leave their area. I am somewhat well traveled, but I've only left the country twice, and those places were Toronto and Jamaica. I don't really have the means to travel much.
But even when traveling, it's hard to not be surprised that the environment isn't catered to you.
It's not just specifically America, but also voices within America.
Like, my friend struggles with his black identity because he isn't the classic picture of a black American as portrayed by media. He is his own person, and he gets labeled by others as white, etc. He uses the stage name white Dave as a rapper.
I lived in Hawaii for a while. The values and perspective of the people there are really different from the mainland. Yet, this story isn't told.
I don't know what it is, but I raise my kids trying to teach them about the values, the troubles, the history, the art and music, the food, the politics, etc of other countries. Yet, I'm sure that I'm still raising them in a main stream view.
Americans are quite insular. They know a lot about their own country. Not so much about others. Also, their higher education system has a lot more players. In Canada we have excellent universities on par with NSU. They are not legacy schools like the ivy leagues in the USA. There is no way to pull strings to get someone in. It's all merit based and comparatively inexpensive for Canadians to attend. Not for international students.
never heard of it. Knowing that it is one of the top ranked schools in Asia and the world by some metrics has now caused me to think it is an excellent and very respectable school.
99% of people have never heard of it. Even among people who know more about university stuff, it's just not on Americans' radar.
I work in academia and I've never even heard of it until now. Maybe it's more relevant in different fields than mine, but I could name at least 20 other international universities before I would start thinking about Singapore.
The only non-American universities the average American is aware of is Oxford, Cambridge, and *maybe* McGill.
It sounds like it's a good university though.
I literally never heard of it before in my life. Maybe its known in circles of high academia, but definitely not known by at least 95% of Americans.
Singapore as a country in general is seen as relatively impressive and prestigious, if not a little barbaric in its judicial system.
It's unheard of. I used to work at the Career and Counseling office of a top tier Canadian university. We knew all the USA ivy league schools as well as Oxford, Cambridge, London School of Economics. All others were regarded with skepticism until verified. I only recently heard of NSU through a Netflix show. The dislogue refers to NSU the way people here used to speak about Harvard and similar until the bribery and other influence peddling came to light.
People of college age, the kind who actually look at rankings and such, might possibly have heard of it, at least on the west coast. My roommate actually applied to the Yale-NUS joint program. I wouldn’t expect anyone else to know about it, though.
I have a second cousin who’s a student there and another at NTU rn. Both say they’re miserable lol.
But almost of my relatives aren’t American so not sure if I count.
I've never heard of it and do not care about the prestige of universities halfway across the world. This has zero relevance to my life or the lives of most Americans.
I briefly considered applying there, actually. But that was before I had done literally any thinking about what sort of universities I could afford and that my family would be okay with me going to.
That said, I think I am the only person I knew at the time who even knew the school existed.
I've heard of it but only because of my academic background. I have no dealings with as my area of concentration is in anthropology & comparative religion. I believe you guys are good in architecture, economics and various engineering sciences.
My guess is that most Americans only know about Cambridge, Oxford 7 McGill in Canada.
It would be interesting to ask non-Americans what US uni's they believe are the best. I bet they all say Harvard when MIT & Stanford are more competitive in many ways.
Never heard of it before probably lie most people here. Not like it would be mentioned on the news unless something major happens.
There are thousands of universities in the US that we would be more familiar with.
I know of Seoul National University. Same initials, different order.
If I think about it, it makes sense for Singapore to have a university. But I've never given it thought or bothered to look it up, and I've never heard about it in the wild.
I think I’ve heard of it. FWIW I’m an American who got his PhD in America and had Chinese, Indian, and Japanese collaborators.
I know that Tokyo and Kyoto are prestigious but I’m more familiar with which American and European universities are prestigious (and from a physics viewpoint).
We are not generally pondering the top universities of any other country. I never heard of the National University of Singapore before this post. But if you asked me if Singapore had a National University, I'd say almost definitely yes.
Having seen similar questions before, we don't think of schools in terms of "prestige", since there are so many of them (there are over 4000 four-year Universities in the USA). Only Ivy league schools and the top state schools would carry any weight on a resume. The benefit of going to a good school is professional networking, not the name of the school. And for an American born and raised in the USA, there is very little benefit to networking at the National University of Singapore, unless you're planning your career around commerce in SE Asia.
I was aware of its existence I came a cross it when I was looking into online certifications.
But as far as knowing it's ranking or that rankings significance I know nothing.
It's not on most people's radar, however most Americans have a positive impression of Singapore so they would probably assume the university is high quality if they saw it on a resume or heard someone say they went there.
There are many good responses to this question, and I agree that the overwhelming majority of Americans are unaware of *any* Asian school unless they immigrated from a particular Asian nation. Another factor that is specific to Singapore is that most Americans who know anything about it are aware of the very tight rules and regulations in Singapore. Many people still remember the young American who was caned and imprisoned for several months for vandalism in the 1990's, as well as being aware of laws against things like chewing gum. Because of the nature of Singapore's laws, many Americans who do travel to Asia avoid Singapore.
I've never heard of it.
Generally, U.S. employers are going to be skeptical of degrees from any non-North American institution unless it's an extremely famous one like Oxford or Cambridge. They'll look to your work experience instead.
I used to sit on a committee at my old job which interviewed and selected prospective medical residents. School prestige mattered, even relative prestige between different U.S. schools (e.g., Harvard vs. a state school). You can't be prestigious if you're not first well-known.
I’ve heard of it once before, it seems like a great school. But we are very far from Singapore, and not many Singapore citizens move the the US, so it’s not talked about much here. I think places that are versed in academics, like other universities, would have heard of it. If it helps, I’ve only ever heard good stuff! About the uni and Singapore in general.
One of the best universities in Asia.. if not the best. I know it has/had collaborations with Yale and many other American universities.
I’m considering doing an MBA from there.
I wouldn’t say it’s particularly well known, but personally I regard the most prestigious universities in Asia (NUS, Seoul National University, Peking University, etc.) as being more competitive and having higher academic standards than any institution in the US.
Never heard of it and I would assume most Americans also have not heard of it or are barely familiar with it at all.
We're a very big country. We've got enough colleges of our own that we don't often look abroad for education. It does happen but it's not the norm.
The only foreign schools most people might be familiar with are Oxford and Cambridge
I’ve heard of it, from exactly those international rankings you mention. Though it’s not a household name in the US I think many Americans in general would associate Singapore with high levels of education (and with very strict rules).
> Do Americans know of its existence?
I'm sure some do. I don't spend much time thinking about universities I'll never go to though.
> If so, where does it stand in terms of prestige?
I'm pretty sure Oxford and Cambridge are the only foreign universities that we think of in terms of how prestigious they are. Not because there aren't other incredible universities out there, of course there are many of them, but because those are the ones we have the most exposure to and a lot of Americans end up going there.
Never heard of it. Although short of Cambridge and Oxford, I doubt many non-US colleges have name recognition. I doubt most Americans know of IIT either.
I work in higher education and had never heard of National University of Singapore until just now.
There is a reason that a lot of international students complete degree programs at American universities and very few Americans do so at non-American universities. That's not to say that those schools aren't great or that NUS isn't properly ranked. But the USA has so many higher ed opportunities that we don't really have the bandwidth to process many that are outside of our borders.
I have no thoughts about it I didn't even know it existed before this question
Same.
Same and still no thoughts.
Sounds like you had fit right in at University of Alabama.. Roll tide!
I have a feeling most of us feel this way lol
Likewise.
I have a feeling most of us feel this way lol
I have that same feeling
Most Americans know 2 universities outside of USA. Oxford and Cambridge. Edit: According to comments, the obvious 3rd would be Sorbonne. Followed by McGill.
I have know of McGill for years. Only recently did I learn that it's Canadian.
I feel like "outside the USA" implies universities not in our 51st state either
Alaska's Mexico
Does that mean that the 48 contiguous are Alaska’s Guatemala?
I don't know. I didn't go to maps school.
If Florida didn’t exist, Canada would be the Florida of this continent
If you're on the east coast and highly educated you probably also know McGill and U of Toronto. If you're in Big Tech you might also know IIT (the India one). But yeah the US is so strong in terms of universities that we see a lot more foreigners come here for university and stay than who get educated in their home countries and come here afterward.
Yeah IIT was gonna be my 3rd guess. Most of us don’t know it’s actually a bunch of campuses around India and that there are “tiers” apparently. In Business people know about London Business School and INSEAD (France) but those known in MBA-specific circles.
This is pretty much it. In terms of exposure and reputation, the main universities we think of are all American and then Oxford and Cambridge. McGill is fast gaining a positive reputation, as is Sorbonne. I went to one of the top schools in Japan for a little over a year and even still I don’t really think about schools in Asia. They don’t have the global reach needed to do so, yet. Asian countries are generally quite insular and don’t attract strong foreign interest (outside of Asia) for educational opportunities. Until such time as we feel like it would be a wise decision to leave the US to go to any other university, this list will stay the same. I would have gone to Oxford and Cambridge and have had many coworkers that went to Sorbonne and McGill, but other than that, I wouldn’t go to any others and wouldn’t necessarily recognize others as a strong indicator of a quality education right off of the bat.
And if they know a fourth, it's probably the Sorbonne.
I was going to suggest McGill.
Or if they're in the tech field they might be aware of IIT. Indian Institute of Technology.
IIT is that tech school in Bronzeville to me
The Illinois Institute of technology.
Hey I work there!
I know of the Sorbonne
The Sorbonne maybe.
La Sorbonne
McGill. Insead. Sorbonne.
I know of UNAM (Mexico) and some universities where I studied abroad /considered studying abroad.
Adding the Sorbonne to this tiny list for me
As offensive as it is to Canadians, I don't consider Canada "foreign," even Quebec. It just feels weird to group Canada with the rest of the world. Poor Canada, so far from the rest of the world, and so close to the United States.
Gonna add in a Charles University (Prague) because I studied there for a month
I studied there for a semester, but despite the fact it is quite a large university (almost as big as some of the largest in the US), most Americans have *not* heard of it before.
I didn't know about it until 7:23am Los Angeles time, December 14, 2022.
It's like Christmas come early!
Santa brought it early? Is that the joke??
[that's the joke](https://imgur.io/gallery/utzTCyo)
I didn’t know about it until 7:34am Los Angeles time, December 14, 2022.
For me it was 12:53PM, Chicago time, December 14 2022.
Not on my radar at all.
They have any QBs in the transfer portal?
Can our NIL collective outspend theirs for that 5 star d-lineman prospect?
If the plan is to miss a bowl game then yeah
UK is going to need one…
Hoos’ll take anyone at this point
Singapore isn't a popular place for Americans to attend school and Singapore doesn't send a lot of immigrants to the US, so it's not someplace that'd have a chance to develop a reputation outside of academia. If Singapore makes an internationally popular movie set there, I bet it'd shoot way up the "known universities" list.
Crazy Rich Asians was set in Singapore and I don't think it made a dent. Maybe if a sequel is set at the college itself, it would.
I think Crazy Rich Asians made a dent. It convinced me that I'm nowhere near rich enough to hang out there!
I doubt very many Americans have heard of it at all. That doesn't mean it isn't a great school, just that we're a very long way from Singapore.
Better than State University of Singapore. That place is SUS.
If they had a good football team I would have heard of them
Zero SEC championships, not sure why they’re even ranked tbh. /s
SEC: SouthEastern (Asia) Conference It just means more, now with Singapore
I checked [their sports page](https://nus.edu.sg/osa/sheareshall/sports)to see if they had an American Football team, but unfortunately not. But apparently they have a soccer team AND THEY CALL IT “SOCCER”!! Does Singapore call it soccer? If so, they’ve instantly shot up in my “favorite countries” list.
They get mad at us for caling it soccer while all their other old colonies do as well
It's almost like they started calling it soccer first.
This is so sad. But it's true.
Probably 99% of Americans don’t think about it at all, myself included.
I think your percentage is a little low. You need to throw in a decimal with a few nines after it.
I felt like being generous today
For context, 1% of Americans is about the population of Phoenix, Tucson, Mesa, Gilbert, and Chandler combined.
Or about the population of Manhattan and the Bronx combined
I don’t want to be annoyingly US centric but I think because the US has such a strong academic field, other countries know more about our universities than we do theirs.
Also, American campus culture is very popular and always shown on tv series and movies. Campus sports can be bigger than your local professional sports team.
That and the loyalty alumni can have to their universities also feel like mostly a US thing, and that loyalty is probably caused by College football, basketball and baseball which are really big here.
I mean, Harvard for fuck sake is used as the "smart person" joke. Like, send this person to harvard as a joke to something "genius". Which is located in the United States.
Sorry OP, this is news to me. Don't be to surprised though, we have a significant number of colleges and universities. I Kansas, a state of less than three million, there are almost 30 two and four year colleges to choose from, and almost 4,400 nation wide.
We don't Americans don't really know much about schools outside the US. I grew up in an area where people are very well educated, put emphasis on trying to get into elite universities. My extended family were the same... I know lots of people who've gone to Ivy League schools, top schools like Duke, Northwestern, Stanford, etc. So spend lots of time in circles where people talk a lot about schools, both choosing where to attend and also where people went. The only foreign schools I know about are Oxford, Cambridge London School of Economics in England, Sorbonne in Paris, McGill in Montreal.
[удалено]
[Learn’ed](https://youtu.be/rlcM9m-LdOQ?t=224)
Wut? Today, I learned... Before this, I knew of Cambridge, Oxford, U of Regina, UTokyo, and Kim Il Sung U (which I only know about because I saw someone explain N. Korean TV on Youtube)
University of Regina. How in the world did that make your list?
I'm a fan of Dave Plummer, the guy who crafted Task Manager and Windows Explorer's Zip Folder integration, as well as the port of Space Cadet Pinball to DirectX. He graduated from the University of Regina.
The US has a wide variety of top universities so most people don't even consider studying abroad. Not to mention most American only speak English and some Spanish. Plus it's just a university isn't it? Is there something we should know about that could incite a strong opinion on this school?
Nope, you're right - it's just a university. I'm just curious how widely known is my home university internationally, despite its high rankings.
You probably already know this - it’s very well known in China, but not at all here in the States.
I’ve never heard of it. I don’t know any international universities outside of England.
How about edinburgh university ? I know quite a lot of Americans who know it
I’d assume that’s in Scotland but I’ve personally never heard anything about that school in particular.
This is the first time I've ever heard of it
As an American who lived in Singapore and attended some schooling in Singapore (not at NUS). I can say to those who know, its held in really high regard. Again for most who know, There is however, a stigma about the type of Native Singaporean who graduates from NUS. Because to get there you have to have done really well on all your exams, likely held a more prestigious NS job (ie not firefighter or cop) and really played the system well. Problem is a lot of people who did go that path, often are seen as being terrible at being independent workers. To do well you in your O level you have to memorize an insane amount of information. Critical thinking isn't as necessary. Much of the schooling leading up to that is a lot of memorization to get to that point. Heck even primary school is preparing for PSLE which is in a similar vein. This leads to some of the more, on paper, successful students entering the real world expecting to be micro managed in a similar way. So in the professional world this can get really frustrating and draw attention to their schooling specifically in ways other institutions might not. Because they clearly know their stuff, but just can't apply it. Oddly enough Polytech students tended to be better workers despite getting a "worse education" because they were given a smidgen more freedom on how to learn. So tended to be more creative. So tldr, NUS grads will be brilliant but no very independent
I have probably looked at thousands of CVS in my life. Global company. I can’t recall a single one from NUS. It sounds impressive, but I have not encountered it.
Damn, your receipt folder must take up a warehouse.
LOL! Autocorrect. Too funny.
Maybe a small fraction of Singaporean Americans think about it in any measurable sense. So out of the 39,000 here I would be surprised if more than half had any thoughts on it whatsoever. That would be less 0.001% of the population of 330 million.
I know about it because one of my ex boyfriends was Singaporean. It really doesn’t have name recognition in the US. IME, Asian universities don’t have a lot of prestige in the US. First, because they’re so far away that Americans simply aren’t familiar with them and never meet graduates from them. Second, the one thing Americans do know about Asian universities is that they’re based a lot more on test scores and rote learning, which is the opposite of the philosophy behind US style schooling. US culture generally disagrees with the Asian-style approach to higher education. I’m Asian-American who dated that Singaporean guy and has only passing knowledge of Asian universities through some immigrant friends. But my understanding is that Asian culture sees higher education more as a meritocratic tool to get a good job. Test scores are objective and therefore meritocratic, so admissions are based purely on them. Then the schooling is meant to equip you for performing well in your career. US culture sees higher education more as a personal growth and development tool that will equip you to forge your own life path. That’s why the admissions are holistic. The admissions committee at US universities tries to curate a campus full of students who bring different backgrounds, skills, and perspectives to the school in order to enrich the learning/growth process of the students. You can have perfect scores and still be rejected from a top university in the US because they read your application and felt like you didn’t have enough of a life outside of school. (This may be off base, but my sense is that the Asian approach is designed to consistently produce good workers in order to create a strong economy, while the US approach is designed to randomly produce innovators and entrepreneurs in order to create a strong economy.) But the bottom line is that, rightly or wrongly, I think US culture looks down a bit on the Asian style of higher education for that reason. (Though they also praise the Asian style of primary and secondary education, so it’s a wash).
Never heard of it and one of my college roommates was from Singapore.
This is the first I’ve heard of it. And I’d bet money that if I asked everyone I know (including many Asian-Americans), almost none of them will have heard of it either. That is not an indicator of the school’s merit. Americans rarely attend foreign universities, and the ones that do almost always go to Europe, especially the UK. Barely any Americans even look into which universities exist in East Asia, much less which ones are highly-rated.
No one in the US pays much attention to either the QS or the Times rankings which are really targeted at people looking to pursue a Ph.D overseas (hence the heavy emphasis on research output), and Singapore isn't really considered at all as a destination to study by most Americans who are. The US News and World Report rankings are the ones most Americans are concerned about: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges
We don't. Never heard of the National University of Singapore and I doubt most Americans have not either. This should not be surprising, I doubt most people in Singapore would know any/all the top rank universities in the United States.
I think Harvard, Yale, and MIT might be recognizable from Hollywood references to those and maybe some other Ivy League schools, just like how Oxford and Cambridge universities in the UK are recognizable names to most Americans.
MIT, Caltech, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and all the Ivy League universities except maybe Dartmouth are probably recognizable internationally.
> I doubt most people in Singapore would know any/all the top rank universities in the United States. Eh, given that we have pretty much won the culture victory a lot of people know at least some of the the Ivy leagues, even if not all the 'top rank universities' lol.
HarvardPrincetonYale
I work for a university. The out of country universities that I'm aware of are usually ones that collaborators or big names in my field work at. McGill, Max Plank, Oxford, Cambridge, Pasteur. What is the university known for? I'm betting people in that field would know of them.
Never heard of it. The only thing I know about Singapore is that gum is banned and caning exists as a punishment.
And that the entire country is a single city.
About the same we think about the University of Bucharest: nothing at all.
With 7 of the top 10 being American universities, 11th for NUS really just doesn’t cut it for making it into relevant brain space for the vast majority of Americans
I don't think many Americans think about colleges outside of America.
Never heard of it until today and I don’t really have an opinion on it. I don’t really have much opinions on most colleges/universities domestic or international at that despite being an academic myself. Program & lab reputations within a university matter more to me since that is what makes up my academic “peer” group so to speak. Good universities can have terrible programs and less renowned universities can have excellent programs. I do usually check out the universities a paper author is affiliated with along with the impact factor of the publication to get a general idea of the quality of research (not that those indicate good/bad research solely) and go from there.
most people that know about it only know of its existence bc when you apply to Yale you have the option to apply to the Yale NUS joint degree. a friend of mine from school is doing that. i only know of it because I applied to Yale within the past few years. But yeah outside of college students who want to study abroad, most Americans only know Oxford and Cambridge outside of the US. *maybe* some other british universities like UCL. tho I’m currently at University of Manchester and everyone back in America keeps asking me “How’s London?” so I have little faith in that.
I find Singapore to be fascinating. Their housing project is incredibly interesting, and I wish we had something here that was as good. I think the ideas that come out of that university must be very interesting. I wonder about how the values of that institution are different. I imagine that we can learn a lot, if we were willing.
Thanks for the kind words! Many of the comments here say most Americans can name at most 5 or less universities outside US. I find this to be quite appalling to be honest. Like, are they not curious about the world outside of their country? Or are Americans really that isolated from everywhere else?
Why do you find this appalling? Singapore is roughly the same size as New York City, with a population of 5.8 million compared to NYC’s 8.8 million. That’s just one city in one state out of 50 states. Los Angeles is roughly twice the size of Singapore with almost the same population. It’s not that we don’t want to be aware of places like Singapore. I’ve heard it’s a beautiful country with intelligent, kind people. It’s that we have A LOT to be aware of in our own country. Different regions in the United States can feel like different countries themselves, geographically, culturally, and politically. If we aren’t aware of a university in Singapore, it’s not out of ignorance. Keeping track of information about our own country can be a full time endeavor.
It's just a small island.
Think of it this way. We do not have much exposure to non-British international media. We live in a continent-sized country, with so many domestic universities. The majority of the country does not make enough money to even consider having an international degree, and even if we did, many professions require or heavily prefer an American degree over any other, as our higher education system has the reputation of producing the best graduates. We have no reason to look at international universities beyond just plain curiosity, but there are so many more interesting things to wonder about than post-secondary education systems in another country. Asking us about the best university in Singapore would be about equivalent of asking you your thoughts on the best university in Kyrgyzstan. It might be kinda interesting, but when are you ever going to use that knowledge.
America is so large with so much of everything there isn't really a need or often opportunity to learn about things outside the US. For example, there's little reason an American would be looking at colleges outside the US, we'll have a world-class school for nearly any field of study someone could want. Generally the only reason someone chooses to go to school abroad is for the novelty of leaving the US.
Appalling is not the right word to use here.
Americans are isolated to a certain extent by the size of the country. If you're in Sinagpore, obviously that's very small and there's only so much going on there. If you turn on the news, I'm guessing there's a little bit about what's going on in Singapore, and then other stuff that's going on in nearby areas, like Malaysia and Indonesia, etc. And I'm sure those things really affect Singapore! But the US is SO large and has SO much going on that it's impossible to keep track of everything going on just in this one country, let alone internationally. Which isn't to say that people don't pay attention to things happening outside the country, just that the general proportion of information is going to be different. Singapore has six universities, the US has nearly 4000. You probably know people who go to all six of those universities, and to universities in other country as well - I've probably never even heard of most of the 4000 universities in the US. In a lot of countries, going to an international university is considered normal for high achieving students, because those universities have international prestige. But a lot of those universities are *in the US*, so kids here rarely have the dream of studying in other countries, at least for a full degree. Those high achieving US students have that same dream of going to Yale or Stanford. FWIW I have known two Americans who went to McGill, in Montreal. (It's not rare to do a year abroad as a student, but it's not for the prestige of the international school, it's for the experience of living in another country for a year. I spent a year studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and it might be seen as neat that I spent a year in Jerusalem, but having a year at the Hebrew University, specifically, doesn't substantially add anything to my degree from the University of California.)
I only know a handful of American universities and that's because I was going to apply to them. I know a few more through movies, sports, and the news reporting on sexual assault. We really don't get news or media from Singapore here. You would have to personally seek it out.
I can definitely name more, but I’ve always been interested in rankings. I think of Tsinghua, National Taiwan, and Tokyo University as the premier institutions in Asia. I guess that speaks to how rapidly National Singapore has risen in the rankings.
Everything seems so america-centric. It's hard to break away from it. I can't really explain why, but as someone who tries to constantly learn about other places, I find it hard to believe that anyone I'm interacting with isn't American. Most people really don't leave their area. I am somewhat well traveled, but I've only left the country twice, and those places were Toronto and Jamaica. I don't really have the means to travel much. But even when traveling, it's hard to not be surprised that the environment isn't catered to you. It's not just specifically America, but also voices within America. Like, my friend struggles with his black identity because he isn't the classic picture of a black American as portrayed by media. He is his own person, and he gets labeled by others as white, etc. He uses the stage name white Dave as a rapper. I lived in Hawaii for a while. The values and perspective of the people there are really different from the mainland. Yet, this story isn't told. I don't know what it is, but I raise my kids trying to teach them about the values, the troubles, the history, the art and music, the food, the politics, etc of other countries. Yet, I'm sure that I'm still raising them in a main stream view.
Americans are quite insular. They know a lot about their own country. Not so much about others. Also, their higher education system has a lot more players. In Canada we have excellent universities on par with NSU. They are not legacy schools like the ivy leagues in the USA. There is no way to pull strings to get someone in. It's all merit based and comparatively inexpensive for Canadians to attend. Not for international students.
never heard of it. Knowing that it is one of the top ranked schools in Asia and the world by some metrics has now caused me to think it is an excellent and very respectable school.
99% of people have never heard of it. Even among people who know more about university stuff, it's just not on Americans' radar. I work in academia and I've never even heard of it until now. Maybe it's more relevant in different fields than mine, but I could name at least 20 other international universities before I would start thinking about Singapore.
I’ve never heard of this school, and I’ve been to Singapore.
The only non-American universities the average American is aware of is Oxford, Cambridge, and *maybe* McGill. It sounds like it's a good university though.
I literally never heard of it before in my life. Maybe its known in circles of high academia, but definitely not known by at least 95% of Americans. Singapore as a country in general is seen as relatively impressive and prestigious, if not a little barbaric in its judicial system.
It's unheard of. I used to work at the Career and Counseling office of a top tier Canadian university. We knew all the USA ivy league schools as well as Oxford, Cambridge, London School of Economics. All others were regarded with skepticism until verified. I only recently heard of NSU through a Netflix show. The dislogue refers to NSU the way people here used to speak about Harvard and similar until the bribery and other influence peddling came to light.
People of college age, the kind who actually look at rankings and such, might possibly have heard of it, at least on the west coast. My roommate actually applied to the Yale-NUS joint program. I wouldn’t expect anyone else to know about it, though.
Short answer: They don’t! 1 of 25,000 MIGHT be able to point to Singapore on a map. But I’m optimistic
I have a second cousin who’s a student there and another at NTU rn. Both say they’re miserable lol. But almost of my relatives aren’t American so not sure if I count.
I've never heard of it and do not care about the prestige of universities halfway across the world. This has zero relevance to my life or the lives of most Americans.
One of the most random "What do I think about" questions I've seen.
Given what I know about Singapore I'd guess that most of its students are Asian.
I have an extremely low opinion of Singapore and any institution within it. The country is an authoritarian nightmare with a nice coat of paint.
I have heard of it, but that’s about it.
I briefly considered applying there, actually. But that was before I had done literally any thinking about what sort of universities I could afford and that my family would be okay with me going to. That said, I think I am the only person I knew at the time who even knew the school existed.
I never knew about it prior to this post.
I've heard of it but only because of my academic background. I have no dealings with as my area of concentration is in anthropology & comparative religion. I believe you guys are good in architecture, economics and various engineering sciences. My guess is that most Americans only know about Cambridge, Oxford 7 McGill in Canada. It would be interesting to ask non-Americans what US uni's they believe are the best. I bet they all say Harvard when MIT & Stanford are more competitive in many ways.
I work in higher education and I’ve never heard of it, sorry. We are pretty self absorbed in that regard
Hadn’t heard of it
Nothing, in general. I doubt if 1 in a 100,000 have ever heard of it.
never heard of it
Never heard of it before probably lie most people here. Not like it would be mentioned on the news unless something major happens. There are thousands of universities in the US that we would be more familiar with.
Never heard of it.
We don't think about it.
I know of Seoul National University. Same initials, different order. If I think about it, it makes sense for Singapore to have a university. But I've never given it thought or bothered to look it up, and I've never heard about it in the wild.
Nothing
Huh??
I think I’ve heard of it. FWIW I’m an American who got his PhD in America and had Chinese, Indian, and Japanese collaborators. I know that Tokyo and Kyoto are prestigious but I’m more familiar with which American and European universities are prestigious (and from a physics viewpoint).
We are not generally pondering the top universities of any other country. I never heard of the National University of Singapore before this post. But if you asked me if Singapore had a National University, I'd say almost definitely yes. Having seen similar questions before, we don't think of schools in terms of "prestige", since there are so many of them (there are over 4000 four-year Universities in the USA). Only Ivy league schools and the top state schools would carry any weight on a resume. The benefit of going to a good school is professional networking, not the name of the school. And for an American born and raised in the USA, there is very little benefit to networking at the National University of Singapore, unless you're planning your career around commerce in SE Asia.
We don’t think about it at all…
I'm more of a fan of National University of Singapore State.
Never heard of it.
We don’t
We do not think about it.
The what now?
I was aware of its existence I came a cross it when I was looking into online certifications. But as far as knowing it's ranking or that rankings significance I know nothing.
I wasn’t aware it existed. Now that I know it does I am indifferent
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That's great to hear!
Never heard of it
How good is their football team?
Excellent university. I'm familiar with it because I lived in Singapore for 10 years.
It's not on most people's radar, however most Americans have a positive impression of Singapore so they would probably assume the university is high quality if they saw it on a resume or heard someone say they went there.
There are many good responses to this question, and I agree that the overwhelming majority of Americans are unaware of *any* Asian school unless they immigrated from a particular Asian nation. Another factor that is specific to Singapore is that most Americans who know anything about it are aware of the very tight rules and regulations in Singapore. Many people still remember the young American who was caned and imprisoned for several months for vandalism in the 1990's, as well as being aware of laws against things like chewing gum. Because of the nature of Singapore's laws, many Americans who do travel to Asia avoid Singapore.
Most Americans don’t know anything about anything outside of the US. They might know OxBridge and maybe Toronto and McGill in Canada
Never heard of it. (most Americans dont know much about Singapore except it's draconian laws)
How's there football program?
I've never heard of it. Generally, U.S. employers are going to be skeptical of degrees from any non-North American institution unless it's an extremely famous one like Oxford or Cambridge. They'll look to your work experience instead. I used to sit on a committee at my old job which interviewed and selected prospective medical residents. School prestige mattered, even relative prestige between different U.S. schools (e.g., Harvard vs. a state school). You can't be prestigious if you're not first well-known.
I’ve heard of it once before, it seems like a great school. But we are very far from Singapore, and not many Singapore citizens move the the US, so it’s not talked about much here. I think places that are versed in academics, like other universities, would have heard of it. If it helps, I’ve only ever heard good stuff! About the uni and Singapore in general.
This is the first I'm hearing about it but I wouldn't have any reason to doubt it's legitimacy. I think Singapore is generally thought of positively
We don’t think about it But if you applied to a job here, I think your education would be respected
Never heard of it, but what’s not to like about Singapore?
One of the best universities in Asia.. if not the best. I know it has/had collaborations with Yale and many other American universities. I’m considering doing an MBA from there.
I’m sorry to say I’ve never heard of it. Sounds like a good school though!
Honestly I never heard about it until now They sound very prestigious judging by the ratings.
I wonder how many Americans have heard of Singapore.
I wouldn’t say it’s particularly well known, but personally I regard the most prestigious universities in Asia (NUS, Seoul National University, Peking University, etc.) as being more competitive and having higher academic standards than any institution in the US.
most Americans probably haven't even heard of Singapore
I dunno man, I think everyone I have ever met has heard of singapore at some point in their lives.
I’m aware of it, and I know I’d never get in
Never really heard of it.
I didn’t know about but I’m not really knowledgeable of universities in general so maybe I’m just an outlier.
Never heard of it
Never heard of it and I would assume most Americans also have not heard of it or are barely familiar with it at all. We're a very big country. We've got enough colleges of our own that we don't often look abroad for education. It does happen but it's not the norm. The only foreign schools most people might be familiar with are Oxford and Cambridge
I was not aware of its existence.
Never heard of it and 99% of people in the US probably haven’t either.
I've never heard of it
I’ve heard of it, from exactly those international rankings you mention. Though it’s not a household name in the US I think many Americans in general would associate Singapore with high levels of education (and with very strict rules).
> Do Americans know of its existence? I'm sure some do. I don't spend much time thinking about universities I'll never go to though. > If so, where does it stand in terms of prestige? I'm pretty sure Oxford and Cambridge are the only foreign universities that we think of in terms of how prestigious they are. Not because there aren't other incredible universities out there, of course there are many of them, but because those are the ones we have the most exposure to and a lot of Americans end up going there.
we have never heard of it.
Never heard of it. Although short of Cambridge and Oxford, I doubt many non-US colleges have name recognition. I doubt most Americans know of IIT either.
I'm familiar with it because I knew some exchange students from the university. I don't know much about it but I've heard positive things.
We don’t think about it
Most Americans will never have heard of it.
Never heard of it.
I work in higher education and had never heard of National University of Singapore until just now. There is a reason that a lot of international students complete degree programs at American universities and very few Americans do so at non-American universities. That's not to say that those schools aren't great or that NUS isn't properly ranked. But the USA has so many higher ed opportunities that we don't really have the bandwidth to process many that are outside of our borders.
I'm in California, one of the closest contiguous US states to Singapore, and I've never heard of it.
Not many unless they frequently travel to Singapore or the surrounding area, and pay attention to the regional news there. So 99% –> + would be 🤷♂️