Local start-up theRightU launches portal for pre-univeristy students

Will assist and prepare them for entry.

In a release, the university admissions and higher education consultancy theRightU said it has developed a comprehensive suite of web-based tools, comprising a website, online discussion forum and mobile app, to assist pre-university students in applying to and preparing for university, effectively becoming an industry leader in the education counselling and consulting sector.

Conceived by former A*STAR researcher Chan Khai Leok, a PhD-holder from Cambridge University in the UK, and his friend Sean Quek, who graduated with an MBA from Harvard University in the US, theRightU aims to help youths keen on pursuing higher education adapt to and capitalise on the shifting trends within the education sector to achieve their aspirations.

In recent years, the growing demand for higher education, fierce competition among Singaporean youths as well as non-citizen pre-university students for limited places in government-endorsed universities has resulted in many fairly competent students falling through the cracks of the local education system.

theRightU cited the number of students leaving Singapore to study in the UK has risen 10-18% every annum from 2008 to 2012, hitting a record high of 4840 last year. "As an outcome, there exists a significantly large pool of youths interested in pursuing higher education who would have to try their luck with foreign varsities; a path which might not initially appeal to them," the release said.

theRightU's one-stop-portal, theRightU.com, aims to resolve this problem by means of consolidating large quantities of information and providing analytics/analysis via data-crunching tools that students and staff can use, which empowers the individual and creates a dynamic research experience.

Youths will have full access to comprehensive online databases, which will allow them to conduct research on varsities (including theRightU’s twenty university partners), courses and career options independently before approaching a theRightU consultant for personalised coaching and application support.

One of the more unique characteristics of theRightU.com is the academic and interest profiling feature, which formulates customised résumés, containing a set of course and career preferences alongside academic details provided by users.

These internal résumés can be used to algorithmically determine course and university eligibility, admission probabilities and referred to for recommendations for specific degree programmes.

Also, there will be no shortage of opportunities for students to pick the brains of theRightU staff members, all of whom have lived and studied abroad, not only in person but through the myriad of social media platforms utlilised by theRightU.

Two other highlights among the services provided by theRightU include a forum and a mobile app.