Advanced Placement courses are year-long, college-level courses offered to high school students. They could be compared to H3 A Level subjects in Singapore.
Most universities and colleges in the United States grant college credits to high AP scores—allowing students to skip year-one introductory courses—though finer details vary from school to school. By taking multiple AP examinations, students can claim a semester's, and in some rarer cases a whole year's, worth of college credits. This means that said students can graduate early, have more free electives, pick up an additional major, or undertake an accelerated Master's track.
Students can take AP examinations without going through a formal course in school—meaning Singaporean students can self-study and prepare for AP examinations after they finish the GCE A Levels or the International Baccalaureate. While AP courses materials have a lot of breadth, their rigor and difficulty should pose no issue for Singapore junior college graduates. Furthermore, a great deal of AP material overlaps with the GCE A Levels and the International Baccalaureate syllabi. Thus, students in Singapore can take advantage of AP examinations to get ahead in college.
In Singapore, most AP subjects are offered by Raffles Institution and the United States Education Information Center. Registration opens in late February, so interested students should contact them in January.
In Vietnam, a few international schools in Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh allow outside students to register for AP examinations at their school. However, the number of subjects that are offered are very limited.