How an Average Student Got Accepted into Indonesia’s Best University
I was never anything special.
Going back to three years ago, I was a freshman at one of an Islamic boarding school located in West Java. A very far location from my hometown, Jakarta.
I struggled a lot during my first year of high school, especially because I had never tasted even a drop of Indonesia’s curriculum. And trust me, it was hard. I was so used to learning in Arabic from my elementary until junior high years that I couldn’t even grasp the basic concepts using Bahasa Indonesia in senior high.
Long story short: My grades were awful. And it didn’t help that during my sophomore year, I participated in a hefty amount of organizations and competitions.
For my colleagues, achieving awful grades was dangerous. In Indonesia, there are three pathways available to get accepted into a public university: SNMPTN, SBMPTN, and independent exams conducted by the university itself.
The SNMPTN pathway is the easiest. All you have to do was submit your grades from the first semester to the fifth semester and chip in two award certificates if you participated in any competitions or olympiads. Simple as that. Whether you get accepted or not depends on the university you choose, different universities have different regulations regarding this pathway.
As you can guess, that pathway is a dream for the majority of my friends. It was tempting to enter university without all of the extra learning you’d have to go through like in SBMPTN. But I never bothered, not with SNMPTN nor SBMPTN. I didn’t care whether my graphics score would look like those ECG machines you see in the hospital whereas my friends would strive to get extra credit.
When asked about college, I would always answer that I would like to study abroad. Not in Indonesia with all the harsh competition. Since both of my parents had at least one of their degree abroad, I became absorbed into the idea of following their footsteps.
But senior year changed everything.
The fifth-semester went smoothly at first, my grades were getting better since there were no more organizations nor competitions to participate in anymore, those kinds of things were prohibited for the seniors in my school. Still, I went to international education events and diligently searched for bachelor scholarships on Google. It was as if my mind couldn’t be changed.
One day, in the middle of my fifth-semester, a phone call changed everything.
During one of my weekly phone calls, my mom said to me: “I think it would be better for you to take your bachelor degree in Indonesia first, then you can continue your studies abroad. You’ll have a network of relations in Indonesia if you do so. Unlike your dad, who was considered lucky for landing a job after spending his senior to post-doctoral years in the States, he didn’t have any connections.”
After that phone call, I thought about what my mom said. She was right, if I were to take my bachelor degree abroad then it would be highly likely that my life will continue in the country I decided to study abroad at. And I wasn’t ready for that, to be so far from my family and living so many years in a foreign country alone.
Then a thought occurred to me: “If I am going to study in one of Indonesia’s universities, then I’ll be attending Indonesia’s best public university there is.”
Lo and behold, that university is Universitas Indonesia. For me, it was UI or die.
There was a teeny tiny problem though.
Universitas Indonesia is the primadonna of all campuses. Every senior in Indonesia has probably dreamt of attending UI. Last year’s acceptance rate was horrifyingly low. It was a little bit scary for an average student like me to dream so big.
Passing SNMPTN was not a choice for me, I was fully aware of my grades that were not fit to enter the top university in Indonesia. There was no choice for me but to study for SBMPTN if I wanted to attend UI.
And boy, did I work hard for that.
The field of study I became interested in was immediately Chemistry. Engineering didn’t appeal to me at all due to the heavy amount of physics, and I was never entertained with the idea of studying one particular field for a full seven years if I decided to take Medicine. Or maybe I just don’t like Medicine either.
A week after, I asked my mom to order me a set of practice books for SBMPTN, I knew that I needed to catch up with my friends who were already much more prepared than I was at that time.
When the books came, I quickly went through the first book. It was about the scholastic skills and IQ practice, so it wasn’t particularly hard. The Bahasa and English books were also fairly easy, I had always loved reading and that quickly became an advantage for me.
Then there were only 4 books left: Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, and my worst enemy — Physics.
The first book I completed from the four was Chemistry, I found the problem sets much more tolerable and at that point, I had started to enjoy learning about the subject. The other three books were filled in randomly, I cherry-picked the materials that I liked and only sifted through the ones that I disliked. Until now, the Physics book remains empty compared to the others.
It wasn’t easy though, I had to squeeze in learning from those books during my break time and lunch hour. Instead of gossiping with my friends like I used to before Dzuhr prayer, I committed myself to bring one book to work over while waiting for the prayer to be commenced. And thankfully, I had friends who supported me.
I started to feel the rewards from my hard work. During SBMPTN tryouts, my name would always be amongst the top ten achievers, and gradually, I was head to head with the two smartest students in my class. It felt amazing to finally achieve something academically after 2 and a half years of mediocracy.
Fifth-semester came to an end, and the sixth quickly rolled in.
The pressure was starting to build up by then. Teachers started to put expectations on me for the National Exams because they saw my potential. During the National Exams prep classes, I was bunched up with the best students in every subject. Except for mathematics.
But still, I was always placed in the top class for SBMPTN prep. Admittedly, it started to stress me out sometimes when I couldn’t answer a question my other friends went so gracefully through. I began working harder, sleeping later and choosing more secluded places to study in order not to get distracted by everything else.
When the National Exams were finally over, I sighed in relief. I finally went through one of the final steps of senior high. And the results were pretty satisfying, it was a good thing that I didn’t know yet at that point. Looking back, I would probably be way too relaxed when I knew about the scores I achieved. Even though whatever scores I got had no connection whatsoever with SBMPTN.
My first SBMPTN exam was due in a week, and that meant more studying and more caring for my well-being. I didn’t want to stress myself out and drop sick before exam day. So I started to shorten my study times and give myself more sleep. And of course, eat as much as I needed.
Thankfully, my first SBMPTN exam went smoothly. Although I started to feel nauseous during the last problem set, I had to say that it went pretty smooth.
Ten days later, I became sick. I had to sleep in my dorm and take a rest. It was not supposed to be a big deal but that day was supposed to be my first results day. My roommates came back to our room looking either gloomy or confused. It was a new system, after all. We were given our scores first then we had to choose what university and major we wanted, we didn’t have any standards to contemplate how high our scores needed to be to get accepted into the university and major we wanted.
I was curious, but at the same time, sick.
The next morning I felt better. Immediately after breakfast, I rushed to the counselor’s office to use the computer to look up my results. And with a few juniors peeking from behind me, I started to write them all down.
Not so surprisingly, I got a 395 on Physics. While the other subjects were higher, including a 700+ in Chemistry, Reading, and Writing subtests. Of course, I was grateful.
Graduation came and high school ended, and so did the era of being a boarding school student with little-to-none access to technology.
I began to study using the digital resources that I could find. I watched CrashCourse on Youtube to understand the concepts of physics that I didn’t fully understand before. I used Eduka to simulate where I would rank nationally in Universitas Indonesia.
Short days after graduation, it was time for my second exam.
It was easier for me. And my score in Physics went up a dramatic difference. But somehow, my other scores dropped. I didn’t think about it too much, though. I felt that my first set of scores were enough due to the simulation at Eduka. All I could do at that moment was pray that God would not let me down at that point.
Here’s an interesting story though.
Since every SBMPTN participant had the option to choose between two fields of study or two universities, I didn’t have any idea what my other choice would be. Architecture and Interior Design were scratched off my list due to my horrid score in Physics. Computer Science was strictly off-limits, my mom was a CS student herself and for some reason kept highly suggesting her children not to pursue the same subject as she did.
I talked about this with my family, and at first, my father recommended me taking Public Health as my first choice then Chemistry as my second since the acceptance rate for Public Health was lower than Chemistry. Still, I wasn’t fully convinced.
At some point, I figured that maybe I should only input one choice, but my parents were against that thought. They said that it would be a waste if I didn’t use all of the chance I had.
Then the decision was finally made. I took Medicine at UI as my first choice and Chemistry at the same university as my second.
Wait, isn’t there something wrong here?
As I said before, I had never been particularly interested in Medicine. But some family members encouraged that I study Medicine and become a doctor since my grandfather is a doctor whose children didn’t continue in his footsteps.
I thought that maybe it was the perfect solution. I would choose Medicine as my first choice to keep my relatives happy. And thanks to Eduka, I knew that only a true miracle would allow for my scores to be enough for getting accepted into the oldest faculty in Indonesia’s history.
Then the day finally came.
I was ecstatic. I fell from my chair. I thanked God immediately by performing what is called sujood syukr.
For me, this achievement shows that sincerity and authenticity can take you places. I never had a real goal except for studying abroad, and this changes everything. I had always wanted to contribute something to the world, and maybe this is the path chosen for me. And I’m willing to go through it, whatever it takes.
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This post was written in response to Eduka’s blog challenge: #AkuInspirasiku.
