NTU Singapore Acceptance Rate and Admission for Indians

NTU does not publish an NTU acceptance rate. What it publishes instead is a hard number you can measure yourself against before you apply, which is more useful, and it is a demanding one.

NTU wants at least 90% in your Standard 12 board exam, and the way it counts that 90% is stricter than the aggregate printed on your marksheet. This page works through exactly what NTU asks an Indian student for, where your JEE rank helps and where it does not, and how to decide between NTU and NUS.

Singapore dollar amounts convert at INR 74.33 to the Singapore dollar on 27 July 2026.

Does NTU publish an acceptance rate?

No. Like NUS, NTU releases no overall acceptance rate, and its Indicative Grade Profile covers only applicants presenting Singapore A-Levels or a Singapore polytechnic diploma. Indian Standard 12 is not in it.

NTU is direct about what that profile can and cannot promise. It says the grades “may vary from year to year, depending on the number and performance of applicants, and the number of places available”, and that meeting last year’s grades “does not guarantee admission to that programme for the current year”.

So the percentage you’re searching for doesn’t exist as an NTU figure. The number NTU does give you is the one below, and you can check yourself against it today.

What percentage does NTU actually need from an Indian student?

NTU asks for “at least 90% in all subjects including English but excluding the other languages and Technical subjects such as Home Science, Art, Fashion Design”, on its India Standard 12 page.

Read the exclusions carefully, because they change the maths. Your second or third language does not count toward the 90%, and neither do subjects like Home Science, Art and Fashion Design. A 93% aggregate that leans on a high language mark can fall below 90% once NTU strips those subjects out. That catches people.

Work out your own figure the way NTU will. Take only the subjects that count, average those, and compare that number to 90%, rather than reading the aggregate off the top of your marksheet.

One rule catches Indian students specifically. If you sit the Improvement Exam, NTU requires you to re-sit every subject you took in that sitting, and it will not combine three subjects from a 2026 Improvement exam with two taken earlier in 2025. Improving one or two weak papers and keeping your strong ones doesn’t work here.

Does your JEE rank or an Olympiad medal help at NTU?

A good JEE-Advanced ranking is valued at NTU. JEE-Main is not, and NTU states that it “is not required and it will not enhance one’s chances of admission”. So the exam that helps is the harder one, and only a strong rank in it counts.

There is a second route that most Indian students never hear about. Medallists of the major International Science Olympiads get more favourable consideration for programmes related to their subject.

The gap between those two rows matters, because several olympiads marketed in India carry names very close to the real international ones. NTU has evidently seen the confusion and written the exclusion into its own criteria, which is unusual and worth trusting.

Do you need IELTS for NTU?

Only if English was not your medium of instruction, or you took it as a second language. If you studied in English, you don’t need an English test, and NTU says taking one “will not enhance your chances of admission”.

If you do need one, NTU accepts a range and publishes the thresholds. The common ones for an Indian applicant are IELTS at overall 6 with 6 in writing and 6 in speaking, SAT at 1250, or PTE Academic at overall 55. An IGCSE O-Level English at first language, grade A, also clears it.

NTU or NUS, how should an Indian student choose?

Start with the subject, because the Ministry of Education describes the two universities differently and those descriptions are the real difference. NTU is “a comprehensive research-intensive university, with a strong focus on engineering, science and technology”. NUS is the broader, cross-faculty university.

Two things people expect to separate them don’t. The Tuition Grant and its 3-year bond are identical at both, and both sit near the top of the global rankings. So the decision is about fit and about your own record, not about prestige.

The practical read is simple. If your subject is engineering, science or technology and you have a strong JEE-Advanced rank, NTU rewards both. If you want to keep options open across faculties, or your marksheet is strong but nearer the middle where a fixed 90% would exclude you, NUS is the one whose published bar leaves room for the rest of your application.

What does NTU cost, and what is the bond?

Every course carries two prices, a subsidised one if you take the MOE Tuition Grant and a full one if you do not. Taking the grant commits an international student to a 3-year bond working for a Singapore-based employer after graduation.

For the scale, NUS publishes its full schedule and NTU sits in the same range as a fellow research university. NUS Computing and Engineering are S$21,400 a year with the Tuition Grant and S$39,700 without it for the AY2026/2027 intake, roughly INR 15.9 lakh and INR 29.5 lakh. Take NTU’s own figure for your course from its tuition fees page, and check whether the number you are reading is the subsidised or the full rate.

Sources

• NTU Admissions, India Standard 12
• NTU, Indicative Grade Profile AY2025-26 (PDF)
• NTU Admissions, tuition fees
• Ministry of Education Singapore, autonomous universities
• Ministry of Education Singapore, Tuition Grant Scheme
• NUS Registrar, undergraduate tuition fees per annum, AY2026/2027 (fee scale reference)