I write this in response to Ajmel Hafiz's comments and in support of Perantau's reply to the former.

I am a Chinese Malaysian presently residing and working in Singapore. I studied in US universities through the financial generosity of the institutions that I attended. They offered a foreigner financial assistance even when my own country did not.

I take exception to Hafiz's statement that "you will find more Malay Malaysians than Chinese or Indian Malaysians in universities like Harvard". I have two degrees from Harvard University, and frankly met more Chinese Malaysian full-time students than Malay Malaysian students during my time there (I understand that the Malaysian government does occasionally send top civil servants to attend short courses at Harvard but these are not considered true Harvard alumni, meaning one who has an actual degree).

I met five Malaysians while at Harvard, and four were ethnic Chinese and none of whom was on government scholarship. The other student was a Malay Malaysian studying at the law school. I understand there was also a member of the Malay aristocracy completing his PhD at Harvard when I was there, but I never met him.

Moreover, I have met two Malay Malaysians studying at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but then again I have also met a similar number of Chinese Malaysian MIT students. For those who are unfamiliar, both Harvard and MIT are located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT is only two subway stops away from Harvard (on the Red Line of the MBTA).

These are my personal experiences. While my experiences may not be representative of the true ethnic makeup of Malaysian students at Harvard and MIT, bear in mind that we all should not make blanket statements without supporting facts.

You might think that I chose not to associate with Malays while in the US. That is simply not the case, though I certainly did not go out of my way to do so. More unites us as Malaysians when in a foreign land than divides us, whatever the ethnicity.

In fact, there are so few Malaysians who attend Harvard at any one time that we don't even have our own Malaysian student club. We have to share a club with the Singaporeans, who dominate it.

Other than that, I just wanted to confirm Perantau's statement that many non-Malay Malaysians, rightly or wrongly, do view the published examination results from MRSM schools very sceptically. But who can blame them after what they experience and see every day?