Even being at the top of the class might not be good enough for a Malaysian public university.
Higher Education Minister Idris Jusoh said today that students with a perfect 4.0 cumulative grade point average (CGPA) on their Higher Education Certificate of Malaysia (STPM) results might not be admitted into national universities, due to limited placements and a highly competitive field of candidates, especially in the medical sciences.
“Universities also look at curricular activities, look at volunteerism, not only academic performance. Which is why we have integrated CGPA (from now on),” he told Bernama.
“If CGPA is everything, probably they (the universities) will not have interviews.”
Universities like Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Universiti Malaya (UM) currently conduct interviews in order to screen applicants to their undergraduate programmes.
Idris mentioned that applicants who get turned down can file appeals to the Central Universiti Unit (UPU) until August 21.
