What I did not know about DSA - Part 2 : DSA Interview Preparation

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(f) What are the preparation needed for DSA?
It is difficult to prepare for the test. However, it is critical to prepare for the Interview. As explained earlier, there are many GEP students applying for the same DSA, are well trained for the interview by their schools.  If your kid is not from GEP program, you may want to consider to seek help. That's the reason training for DSA interview is not something new, per this report from todayonline.

Let me list down two DSA interview trainings that I know:
(1)  Speak Venture -  I engaged Speak Venture for my son.  Gary and Sabrina teach very well.

(2) Jackeline Carter Centre for Public Speaking  - I know about them after engaging Speak Venture. They have a lot of good information on their website. They are generous to share. Check out those free advises.

(3) There are others that look credible from their website. However, many of them do not give much information on the web. So, hard to tell whether their program are effective.


(g) I don't want to spend that kind of money for DSA interview training, what should I do? 
There are a lot of information nowadays. Check the following out:
(1) J. Carter's blog
(2) DSA Interview Blog
 (or Google for sample questions if you like)

I would say, teach your kids to treat DSA interview like Job interview, He/She should sell himself/herself. Practice explaining why the school should select you. Prepare your credentials well. But one point to remember is that some DSA interviews are group interviews. Make sure the candidate pay attention when others are answering, and they should fight for the chance to answer.  Get few friends together, conduct your own trial interview. Record down the interview and show the students how they perform. This step is very critical. Make good use of your mobile phone camera because it will make a lot of different when the kid see their own expression/mistakes.

(h) Biggest Misconception about selection criteria
Each school may have different criteria looking for talents that they want. I know HCI more because I know at least 3 persons who managed to get into HCI through DSA.  What I can say is that they do not select students who have the best results. Interview plays an important role. One common point I see in all the 3 successful candidates is that all of them are good at  at least one thing other than studies. So, if you have one special skill, make sure you go and take part in competition and show good track record. Do not back off from applying to HCI (can't say so for RI) even if you do not have the best result. However, do consider whehter HCI is suitable for you.

(i) When should I start preparing for DSA?
I would say, the preparation should start from Primary 4. Why? You need time to join those competitions. DSA requires you to show results from P4-P6.  Also, you should start preparing for DSA during P5 by visiting all those schools that you are interested in.

Good luck to you!  Before you apply, please revisit point (d) in part 1.

What I did not know about DSA - Part 1 General Information

Direct School Admission (DSA) was very new to me 6 months ago. Here are what I have found out:

(a) What is DSA?
Direct School Admission (DSA) is a program in Singapore introduced in 2004 for students who are studying Primary 6 or Secondary 4 to be guaranteed a place in a Secondary School or Junior College respectively. You may check out more from MOE website. I benefited a lot from the free eBook provided by Koobits.com. For those of you who know little about DSA, those information are very helpful.

(b) What are the test? 
Some schools such as Raffles Institute (RI) requires candidates to take Generally Ability Test. Some school such as Hwa Chong (HCI) conduct their own selection. In short, DSA needs preparation. Some parents even attempt to down load past exam papers for GAT or the secondary school's exam. 

I find that preparing for those written exam is a waste of time. In fact, my initial thought is that DSA may be additional trouble or preparation. So, why taking it?  Because of the fact illustrated in (c) below.

(c) Most top school offers half of the allocation through DSA
At least half of the allocation of top school like RI and HCI are offered through DSA. So, not applying for DSA would mean giving up good opportunity.

(d) Important considerations about DSA
Please apply the school you want, and not the school you can get. For example, many parents in my son's school get their son to apply for Catholic High School (a good school, but not top two at the point of writing). Some how, they were lucky that they did not get a place because when their sons get top score, almost all of them applied for RI and HCI. Good for them. I believe they will regret if their application was successful.

But, DSA application may work the other way, for example, you get into a good school through DSA but the PSLE result is not good enough to qualify for the school. So, think through this point well.

(e) Fierce competition from GEP students
Many students from Gifted Education Program (GEP) will apply through DSA. Generally, the GEP students are strong candidates. However, if your kid is from normal stream, please take effort to  assure him/her that while it is true that GEP students are strong candidates, that does not mean they are definitely better and there is no chance for normal stream students.  

But let me prepare you first, the competition is NEVER fair!  Why? Most of the students from GEP are prepared well by the school for the DSA interview, but most normal stream students are not prepared at all from our experience.

For example,  a training provider told me that they did training for 10 lessons for some GEP schools!!!!  Many GEP students whom I meet told me the same thing.  The hard truth is, due to this, normal stream student may be at a disadvantage position, because it makes a lot of difference whether one know or does not know how to handle interviews. Do not forget, we are talking about 12 year old kids here.

.... to be continued