SOTA Singapore: Should You Choose an Arts Secondary School for Your Child?

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Does your Primary 6 child have an artistic passion, such as music, dance, or theatre? If so, Singapore’s School of the Arts, more commonly known as SOTA, might be a better option for your child than a conventional secondary school.

To hear from SOTA’s educators and take a campus tour, you and your child should make time for SOTA’s Open House event on 1 April 2023. Thereafter, if your child is interested, please note that SOTA does not participate in the Secondary 1 posting process. Instead, students need to apply through its Talent Academy, and for 2023, applications are open from 31 March till 19 May.

Don’t worry if you and your child haven’t given much thought to applying for SOTA. Read our Q&A below, so that you can make an informed decision about whether your child should put in an application.

Does my child need formal training or preparatory classes to get into SOTA?

Not necessarily. It depends more on whether your child is successful in highlighting their talent during the trial process.

For music, some of SOTA’s students haven’t had formal training. Instead, they picked up their instrument — or in some cases, vocal proficiency — through Co-Curricular Activities (CCAs) in primary schools, such as the school band, the chinese music ensemble, and the school choir. 

The same holds for students who are interested in studying dance and other art forms at SOTA. In fact, there are students who have made it through the auditions with skills picked up from YouTube videos!

As long as students have had prior exposure or experience to an artform, SOTA welcomes them to apply through the school’s Talent Academy. The Talent Academy is SOTA’s Direct School Admissions (DSA) platform, where shortlisted applicants are assessed through activities such as auditions, portfolio reviews, and interviews.

To level the playing field, admissions staff are tasked to look out for students who have had no formal training, but display innate ability. They do this by requiring students to improvise on the spot and adapt to unknown scenarios using their creativity.

How will I know if SOTA is suitable for my child?

We would suggest that you have a heart-to-heart talk with your child, to find out why they are keen on SOTA in the first place.

There are some reasons for considering SOTA that should trigger alarm bells in your head — for instance, one shouldn’t try for SOTA simply because it looks fun, cool, or easier to get through than a conventional secondary school. If your child is harbouring such thoughts, he or she may be seeking an escape from hard work, rather than looking to hone a passion.

Instead, here are three things for your child to think about, before putting in an application: 

Is it hard to get into SOTA?

Based on a 2017 news report, SOTA receives up to 1,000 applications every year, and admits about 200 in each intake, or 20% of applicants. In comparison, in the ‘regular’ DSA process for secondary schools, about 30% of applicants are accepted. 

In other words, what you can be sure of is that the majority of applicants will be rejected, as a child will need to jump through several hoops to enter SOTA. Apart from displaying interest and genuine talent, it helps if a child has received awards in relevant competitions, such as the art and creative writing competitions run by SOTA. As there will also be an interview component, children who are articulate will definitely have an edge. Being able to cite an artist or performer as a personal hero may also assure admission officers that a child has more than a passing interest in art.

What if your child isn’t mature or savvy enough to ace auditions and interviews? It’s still useful to go through the application process, because it can help your child to see how much effort it takes to get in. Encourage them to be resilient even if their application falls through, and remind them that SOTA isn’t the only avenue available to aspiring artists — there are other arts courses and schools to consider at a later stage. There’s also Singapore’s first arts university to look forward to, which will begin accepting students in 2024.

Do SOTA students fare well academically?

SOTA publicises the results for its graduating cohorts every year, so you can read the updates and decide for yourself. 

In 2022, 164 SOTA students sat for the IB examinations, with a 100% pass rate in both the IBDP (International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme) and IBCP (International Baccalaureate Career-related Programme). SOTA’s IBDP students obtained an average score of 39.7 points, with more than 50% scoring 40 points and above. (See how this compares to other IB schools in Singapore.)

Objectively, what is a good IB score? If one is eying top universities worldwide, then a score over 40 is what many students aim for. It’s possible to enter sought-after universities with scores less than 40, but typically, such students have a stellar extracurricular record.

Are SOTA’s graduates limited in their future study and career choices?

This is really down to the individual’s drive and determination, but based on past cohorts, the sky’s the limit. In fact, SOTA’s graduates have gone on to pursue courses at prestigious schools such as Berklee College of Music, Yale, and Stanford in the US, and the Oxbridge universities in the UK, just to name a few. 

Here’s a statistic that may surprise you: After SOTA, some students have pursued arts degrees, but over 70 percent of its graduates have chosen non-arts courses such as engineering and political science. (Get details here.) You can read about a SOTA pianist who opted to switch gears to become a software engineer — this was partly due to her stage fright struggles, as well as her discovery while at SOTA that she had a knack for science subjects.

For your child, such examples illustrate that our paths are not set in stone. We may make decisions based on certain factors now, but it’s perfectly alright to decide that something else is a better fit, even years down the road. If one does not pursue an arts career after leaving SOTA, there should be no regrets, as it’s all about the memories, friendships, and lessons learned.

Want to talk to other parents about SOTA? Join the conversation here!