What a Scholarship Interview Taught Me About DSA

I can still remem­ber the most nerve-rack­ing moment of my schol­ar­ship inter­view.

We had just com­plet­ed a group dis­cus­sion — three hours spent brain­storm­ing and strate­gis­ing with five oth­er can­di­dates I had come to know quite well. Togeth­er, we worked on a busi­ness case study, pre­sent­ing ideas to improve a cheese company’s oper­a­tions. The ses­sion had been intense but friend­ly, and we had built a gen­uine sense of cama­raderie.

Then came the pan­el inter­view.

Sit­ting in front of the pan­el along with my oth­er team mates, I was asked a ques­tion I didn’t expect:

“Name two of your team­mates whom you think are the weak­est.”

I was com­plete­ly caught off guard.

How was I sup­posed to answer that? I tru­ly felt that every­one had con­tributed mean­ing­ful­ly. But I also knew this was a cru­cial moment — my shot at the Lee Kong Chi­an Schol­ar­ship at SMU was on the line. I took a deep breath, named two team­mates, and gave my jus­ti­fi­ca­tions.

Walk­ing out of the inter­view room was one of the hard­est parts. I strug­gled to make eye con­tact with the two peo­ple I’d just named. The dynam­ic had shift­ed. What had been warm and col­lab­o­ra­tive now felt cold and awk­ward. 

Even though that moment didn’t feel great, I’m grate­ful for the expe­ri­ence.

That was my first real taste of a com­pet­i­tive inter­view. Since then, I’ve gone on to do a dou­ble degree in finance under a schol­ar­ship pro­gramme — which meant apply­ing to top finance intern­ships and grad­u­ate schemes. That also meant going through many rounds of assess­ments, from case dis­cus­sions to per­son­al inter­views, often with inter­view­ers from glob­al banks in the US or Europe.

And many times, I failed. Not because I wasn’t capa­ble — but because I wasn’t pre­pared. The ques­tions were unfa­mil­iar. The expec­ta­tions were dif­fer­ent.

And it made me reflect:

Why did I only start learn­ing these soft skills at 18?

Why did I have to be thrown into the deep end before I even under­stood what per­son­al brand­ing meant?

The truth is, in our school sys­tem, these soft skills just aren’t taught enough. Sure, stu­dents do group projects or give pre­sen­ta­tions — but they’re noth­ing like the high-stakes, high-pres­sure sit­u­a­tions you face in com­pet­i­tive appli­ca­tions.

And that’s what dri­ves me today.

When Algene con­vinced me to leave my finance job to co-found Think Teach Acad­e­my, I knew we had to build some­thing big­ger than just aca­d­e­m­ic tutor­ing. I want­ed us to cre­ate a space where stu­dents could learn how to reflect, com­mu­ni­cate, and express who they are with authen­tic­i­ty.

Because when par­ents ask me,

“Should my child apply for DSA?”

My answer is always: Absolute­ly. Do it.

There’s no down­side — just time and effort. And in return, your child devel­ops essen­tial skills:

• Self-aware­ness
  
• Clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion
  
• The abil­i­ty to present a coher­ent, com­pelling per­son­al sto­ry
  

You don’t need medals or nation­al achieve­ments to suc­ceed. What mat­ters is being able to tell your sto­ry in a way that aligns with what the school or pan­el val­ues.

At Think Teach, we’ve helped hun­dreds of stu­dents through the DSA jour­ney — and what we’re most proud of isn’t just the school offers. It’s the trans­for­ma­tion. It’s see­ing a qui­et Pri­ma­ry 5 stu­dent who doesn’t think they’re “good enough” grow into some­one who can speak con­fi­dent­ly about their val­ues, goals, and inter­ests.

I nev­er had that oppor­tu­ni­ty as a child. I had to wait until I was 18 to go through it all, fum­bling and learn­ing along the way.

But your child doesn’t have to.

DSA is the per­fect train­ing ground — not just for school admis­sions, but for life. It’s a safe place to build a pro­file, devel­op inter­view skills, and learn to artic­u­late a per­son­al brand.

And when the big­ger chal­lenges come — schol­ar­ships, intern­ships, job inter­views — they’ll be ready.

If you’d like to find out how to posi­tion your child for DSA suc­cess, we’d love to speak with you.

Let us help your child dis­cov­er who they are — and learn how to com­mu­ni­cate that proud­ly to the world

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Yours In Edu­ca­tion
Shou Yee
Co-Founder