The Admissions Exercise for International Students places children into P2 to P5 and S1 to S3, with a Cambridge English score required upfront and a centralised maths test.
By Marcus Toh · 2026-04-14
The Admissions Exercise for International Students is the centralised route for international students into mainstream schools, placing successful candidates into Primary 2 to 5 and Secondary 1 to 3 for the following academic year. Placement is offer based: candidates who perform well enough receive school offers subject to vacancies, which means passing the tests earns consideration, not a guaranteed seat at a chosen school.
The structure has two gates in sequence. First, MOE requires a minimum score in the Cambridge English Qualifications, attained before submitting the application, with the qualifying test and score depending on the child's age and target level. Then comes the centralised Mathematics test, administered by SEAB.
| Level | Mathematics test | English |
|---|---|---|
| Primary 2 to 3 | Two parts, 65 minutes total | CEQ score submitted upfront |
| Primary 4 to 5 | Two parts, 85 minutes total | CEQ score submitted upfront |
| Secondary 1 to 3 | Two parts, 2 hours 15 minutes total | CEQ upfront, plus an English test of 2 hours 10 minutes: a writing task of 200 to 400 words and 50 multiple choice questions |
Timing wise, AEIS runs later in the year for placement the following January, with exact registration windows and test dates published on MOE's AEIS schedule, so families planning a move should check the current year's dates early, because the CEQ result has to exist before the application does, and booking a Cambridge test takes lead time of its own.
Families arriving from overseas consistently underestimate one thing, and it is not the maths: it is that Singapore's system assumes English as the working language from day one, and the AEIS structure, CEQ before you even apply, is the honest signal of that. The children I have seen transition well spent their preparation months living in English, reading, watching, speaking, while the ones who drilled only test papers passed tests and then struggled through their first real school term.
The maths side usually carries the opposite surprise: Singapore's syllabus runs ahead of many systems, and no calculator changes how a child must compute. So prepare both gates for what they are, a language life change and a syllabus gap, not two exams, and give the runway six months rather than six weeks. The exercise rewards readiness, and readiness is exactly what makes the first year in a Singapore classroom happy instead of merely survivable.
AEIS places students into P2 to P5 and S1 to S3 only: P1 entry runs through the P1 registration exercise, and the graduating years are excluded because a student cannot realistically join a cohort in its national exam year.
No. Offers depend on performance and vacancies, and successful candidates are placed where places exist rather than choosing a school, similar in spirit to how other centralised placements work.
Citizens and PRs returning from overseas use a different, dedicated route, the School Placement Exercise for Returning Singaporeans, which we cover here, with its own tests and an assured placement option AEIS does not offer.