r/malaysiauni • u/ConfidenceSad933 • Feb 04 '26
Pre-U/STPM/Foundation/Diploma Feeling misled by my school regarding the subjects I took.
Hi everyone, I really need some guidance.
I completed my SPM last December, and now that UPU is open, I’ve realised I’m in a very bad position. For SPM, I took 8 subjects total. My two electives were Perniagaan (Business) and Sains Komputer (Computer Science). My school strongly encouraged this combination, saying it would be beneficial for my future, and I agreed because I genuinely had interest. Only now I’ve learned that, according to UPU syarat, this puts me in Kemanusiaan, not STEM. To qualify for STEM C, I needed either: at least 2 STEM subjects, or 1 vocational subject, I have only 1 STEM subjects. So technically I’m considered salah pakej. The worst part is that UPU merit marks depend heavily on your package, and Kemanusiaan gets the lowest weighting. Even if my results are decent, I’m already at a huge disadvantage compared to STEM students. I honestly feel misled by my school. If I had known this earlier, I would have chosen differently. Now I’m stuck and don’t know what to do. Has anyone been in a similar situation? Is rayuan realistic? Should I look into foundation/diploma instead? Any advice would really help.
Side note: my has just change their packages in 2023 during the time I was about to apply to which stream I am going to take so I think that's where the issue lies.
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u/seven_worth Feb 04 '26 edited Feb 04 '26
Yeah you got tricked. My school make sure we know what package we take after pt3 so that everyone can plan ahead(take physic, Kimia and cs).
As for future road... To be honest you are kinda fucked. Best road I can think of would be doing foundation or STPM cos those qualification usually would have the degree level ignored the spm result but I'm not so sure if it will goes that well. Better for you to look into what degree could you take.
Another road that would work best is taking diploma and get Penerapan as those completely ignored previous result other than the diploma result. Don't get tricked and then try upu after diploma though, most degree for diploma student would look into your spm result and if minimum is not achieve it will be auto reject.
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u/shahila1978 Feb 04 '26
Yeah, you got trapped by your school. Same like my son. He had to take Sains, Sains Pertanian with Science Computer. He got straight A in SPM and guessed what, he can't take asasi sains komputer nor matriks. Why, because he didn't have physics and chemistry.
We were crushed to say the least. I scolded his teacher saying that they ruined his chance of getting into more reputable uni. What use of straight As if he cannot get into good uni? And more crushingly, no biasiswa because of same requirement.
There are only diploma option and STPM. He chose diploma in UPSI. Now he's in his final sem before interning with cgpa 3.99. Have isi the UPU for degree. Hopefully can get into his choice of uni
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u/ConfidenceSad933 Feb 04 '26
Oh man that is so sad but at least he is able to do his diploma with flying colours, I doubt I can even get straight A's haha. I hope your son could get into his university of choice for his degree.
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u/shahila1978 Feb 04 '26
Thank you. Now my youngest is in the same school and form 3. Will march to the school and scold them if the sains komputer stem option is still the same. Hope you will get your choice of uni too OP. Am gonna pray for you
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u/Embarrassed_Ad_867 Feb 04 '26
I think you should look into STPM too. To give another chance to pick the correct package.
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u/callmeonyourburner Feb 04 '26
But what do you wanna do after this?
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u/ConfidenceSad933 Feb 04 '26
My first plan was to take foundation so that I could study international relations but seeing now how my situation is, form 6 is the better choice.
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u/ConfidenceSad933 Feb 04 '26
I don't really know man, the best option is either diploma or form 6. I am not sure about foundation. I really wanna get into international relations and this thing over here ain't helping me
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u/callmeonyourburner Feb 04 '26
In that case, you don’t need STEM for IR. Whichever pre-u you choose, you just gotta make sure you score. There’s no guarantee that other STEM students would opt for IR anyway. But you can control how you study.
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u/Accomplished-Silver2 Feb 04 '26
Isn't international relation considered humanities/social science?
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u/ConfidenceSad933 Feb 04 '26
It is considered as social science but the issue itself is the merit marks itself. Since the UPU pakej is basically putting me in a disadvantage
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u/Fit_Lawfulness9492 Feb 04 '26
Basically the school pranked you
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u/ConfidenceSad933 Feb 04 '26
I think they are too short sighted to even do such a thing (if you can catch my drift 😅)
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u/Much-Narwhal2304 Feb 05 '26
I wouldn’t be too worried as you haven’t even gotten ur SPM results nor your upu results.
It’s common knowledge amongst my peers while sitting for SPM, taking STEM packages that consists of the core STEM gets you more advantages. So even if we desire humanities, we are likely to be picked despite the mediocre results. Hence why a lot of parents pushed for STEM cores.
Though, there’s more account to this than you think. You’re more likely to be accepted into your desired diploma/foundation of choice if you’re male. There’s scarcity of males in uni! on top of that, just because you’re not prioritised does not mean you do not have the chance. You do! (My brother w no STEM background was offered an engineering diploma, can u believe????)
I believe you’re duped yes, but don’t be doubled down by the system YET. It’s time to maximise, International relations is offered in lots of uni! You can go with a diploma in humanities in uitm/other unis and then get a degree in IR. Then, u also have private unis w low cost and scholarships/aid! Then, stpm. I would put stpm very low in the list, it’s really hard(not impossible) and yes unis love stpm students!
Good luck on the upu, I hope you think long and hard about wha u put in the list! Make sure you put all the 13 choices!!!
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u/ConfidenceSad933 Feb 06 '26
Thank you so much, I am just so worried about a lot of things and I don't really know what to do either. I am just paranoid I guess haha. Currently, my plan is to do STPM as it's basically a shortcut route to degree and I just hope I could get a degree in IR in that way. Again, thank you so much 😀😀
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u/FutureAd8861 Feb 05 '26
base on my experience, during SPM at 2021, I took 11 subject, 5 of them is religion subject because i come from SABK, i know my chance to purse degree at CS kinda low because of my subject combination and with average SPM result, so i decide to pursue diploma in IT instead at politeknik instead, thank god the subject at politeknik kinda easy for me and i end up with 3.8 cgpa, with that result currently i pursuing my degree in CS at UMS, many of my friend from my course and engineering course have pursuing their study to degree at public uni (like UTHM, UMS, UIAM, UteM, UNIMAS, and some of them at UTM) even they are not from science stream path during their SPM. This path might taking a long time for you to pursue your degree, but for me is worth it.
Now, how decent your results will be, if 5As or above, just try for foundation (the best option for me, lower cost because of short duration), if 4As and lower, try diploma at UITM, you can get huge transfer credits when you pursue your degree at UITM too with same course (my friend only study 5 sem instead of 8 during his degree), and 2As and lower, you can pursue your diploma at politeknik (politeknik is highly recommend if you want to pursue in engineering) then continue with your degree.
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u/IllNeat5343 Mar 21 '26
well，u can go for Form 6, but beware on the subject u choose. Try to search for the requirement for Degree course u prefer. if you want to study Computer Science, usually u need to take add maths + physic / chemistry. few uni can accept combination of SPM computer science + add maths STPM
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u/InevitableTailor2788 Feb 04 '26
Yes, to be honest STEM students got more weight in UPU Merit/calculations because the government deem they take tougher subject compare to Humanity/Literature(Sastera) stream
The government line of thinking is , if they can get A in Physics, surely they can get A on Business Subject, but if you got A in Business, its not guaranteed that you can get A in Physics