A Comprehensive Timeline of JC (and Beyond)

Here, neatly consolidated in one place, are all the important dates of events, tests and more that you’ll need to know for your two years in JC. I’ve also included the application deadlines and local university open house dates for the year after graduation.

Often we are given vague approximations such as “mid-January”. I’ve chosen to give all the exact dates from my own JC years (2018-2019) to give you the clearest idea of what to expect. Note that these dates may vary slightly from year to year, but most will remain within the same period.

Here are some useful trends to take note of:

Past O Level results release dates: 13 Jan 2020, 14 Jan 2019, 12 Jan 2018, 11 Jan 2017, 11 Jan 2016.
The JAE registration period is held over 5 calendar days, starting from the day of the release of O Level results.
JC Open Houses are usually clustered within this JAE registration period.
JC1 commences at the start of February.
JC1 Orientation lasts for 2 to 3 weeks.
JC1 Promotional Exams usually begin in Term 4 Week 3.
JC2 Preliminary Exams usually begin in Term 3 Week 9 or Term 4 Week 1.
The A Level papers usually begin in mid-October and last till end-November.
The A Level papers for H3 subjects will be the last few, usually at the start of December.
Past A Level results release dates: 21 Feb 2020, 22 Feb 2019, 23 Feb 2018, 24 Feb 2017, 4 Mar 2016.
University Open Houses are usually in late February and early March.

Note: For admissions tests, I included only the SAT (US) and BMAT (Medicine) since these were the only two that I took. There are too many different tests to list all the dates here. For 2020, these dates are also subject to change due to COVID-19.

You may search up the detailed timelines and COVID-19 advisory on their respective websites. Here are a few popular ones: ACT (US), UCAT (Medicine), LNAT (Law), Oxbridge admissions tests (UK Oxford and Cambridge).