IP Talent Domains Overview: Decoding DSA Choices for IP-Bound Students

Q: What does IP Talent Domains Overview: Decoding DSA Choices for IP-Bound Students cover?
A: A parent-friendly map of MOE’s DSA-Sec talent areas (“talent domains”), how IP schools adapt them, and what each area can mean for workload.

TL;DR
MOE states that P6 students can apply for DSA-Sec across talent areas such as Sports and games, Visual, literary and performing arts, Debate and public speaking, Science, mathematics and engineering, Languages and humanities, Uniformed groups, and Leadership.
Schools may brand programmes differently and set different selection rubrics, so the safest approach is: pick the talent area first, then verify each school’s requirements and timeline on its official page.

This overview maps MOE DSA-Sec talent areas to how they usually show up on IP-school DSA pages (programme names vary by school).

Status: MOE DSA-Sec overview (talent areas, portal choices, quota guidance, and 2025 key dates) checked 2026-01-26. Always verify the current year's timeline and each school's selection details on MOE and school pages.

1 | What Exactly Is a “Talent Domain”?

MOE commonly uses talent areas for DSA-Sec. In this guide, we use talent domain as a parent-friendly shorthand for the umbrella area that a school groups a programme under.

• A talent domain is a broad category that schools use to group related CCAs, competitions, and aptitude-based selection criteria.
• During the DSA-Sec application window, applicants indicate up to 3 choices and 3 talent areas in the DSA-Sec Portal (up to 2 talent areas can be for the same school as separate choices).
• The school then runs domain-specific trials (auditions, sports tests, coding challenges), plus a short interview.

For a full process walk-through see Direct School Admission (DSA) students in Integrated Programme schools — Things to take note of.

2 | The Seven Big Buckets (and Typical IP Tweaks)