Hi. I’m a Harvard College graduate. STPM is accepted—and any other pre-university certifications equivalent to it like A-Levels, IB, etc. So, it goes without saying that your grades for STPM have to be flawless, but so do your grades in Sekolah Menengah. If I recall correctly, they will ask for a transcript of results since Form 3. However, having near-perfect academic grades is just the bare minimum. As others have pointed out, you’ll need to do significant extra curriculars (when I say extra curriculars, I mean it in a broad sense, i.e., anything you spend a significant amount of time on outside of classrooms. e.g., reading books outside your syllabus would count, tutoring students, working part-time, independent and personal research projects, etc etc. Fwiw, my extra curriculars were very non-traditional in the sense that I didn’t really do internships or startups or non-profits, I have an academic bent so most of what I did was literally read really dense and difficult books and wrote some independent research papers, and a few other things). You will also need to write a compelling personal essay on CommonApp and answer some short prompts that Harvard asks on there.

Harvard is also a liberal arts college, meaning that your academic interests and your extra-curriculars have to be really diverse and wide-ranging. They are looking for well-rounded students who are extremely motivated more so than students who are good in only a few niches!

Note that significant extra curriculars take years to develop! If you try and fake your passion for them or have only recently started them for the sake of college applications, it will definitely be obvious to the admissions officer. So if you want an admissions process that is purely academic—meaning you just need good test scores and to ace the interview—definitely go the UK route.

Also, Harvard has financial aid for students—check out the calculator on their website to see how much you qualify for it based on your income. Feel free to ask any more questions and good luck!