RI IP Students: Subject Choices and University Planning Guide

RI publishes its current Year 5 and 6 subjects and subject-combination document on its academic page. That entry-year document, together with the university's own prerequisite page, should control your decision.

Q: How should an RI IP student choose Year 5 and 6 subjects?
A: List the university programmes you may apply to, record their exact prerequisites, and then compare those requirements with RI's current combination document and subject criteria. Do not rely on an older combination table or an assumed admissions advantage.

Last reviewed: 18 July 2026. RI last marked its Year 5 and 6 academic page as updated on 31 March 2026. Subject offerings, combinations, selection exercises, and university requirements can change by cohort.

What RI currently confirms

RI's academic page links its A-Level subjects and subject-combinations document and organises its Year 5 and 6 curriculum across aesthetics, humanities, knowledge skills, mathematics, mother tongue languages, physical education, and sciences.

RI also describes Raffles Academy in Years 3 and 4 as enriched and accelerated pull-out classes for students with particular talent and interest. RI separately has Year 5 and 6 Raffles Academy enrichment in the sciences. These are school programmes, not university admission guarantees.

The public pages do not establish a universal subject-selection date, a guaranteed change window, or approval for every theoretically possible combination. Use the instructions issued to your own cohort for those operational details.

A safer planning sequence

1. List several realistic degree options, including a fallback.
2. Open each university programme's page for Singapore-Cambridge A-Level applicants.
3. Copy every required subject and grade into a worksheet.
4. Mark recommendations separately from formal prerequisites.
5. Compare the result with RI's current subject-combination document and school criteria.
6. Ask RI about any selection test, assumed knowledge, timetable constraint, or change deadline that is not stated publicly.
7. Recheck the university pages in the year you apply.

This method avoids two common errors: treating a useful subject as a prerequisite, and assuming that a subject offered by RI can appear in any combination.

Example: medicine

For the current published Singapore-Cambridge A-Level route:

• NUS Medicine requires a good H2 pass in Chemistry and an H2 pass in either Biology or Physics.
• NTU's Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine requires H2 Chemistry and H2 Biology or Physics.

This means Biology is not the only second science that can meet the stated subject requirement. Admission also involves other current requirements, so use the medical school's page for your application year.