🇨🇳 Shanghai
Best International Schools in Shanghai
The top-rated international schools in Shanghai include Concordia International School Shanghai, Dulwich College Shanghai Pudong, Shanghai American School. BrightKey has independently rated 5 schools on verifiable public data — ordered by inspection & accreditation tier, with no payments from any school.
What “best” means here
This is not a paid ranking — no school can buy a position. Order follows our transparent tier: in markets with a graded public inspectorate (e.g. Dubai's KHDA), by the verifiable inspection band; where there is none, by accreditation depth and curriculum authorisation, capped at A. Within a tier, schools are listed alphabetically. School-reported university placement is always flagged and never tiered.
Read the full tiering methodology.
A SHMEC-regulated, American-curriculum (AP) co-educational K–12 day school in Jinqiao, Pudong — not an IB school. Enrolment is restricted to families meeting Shanghai's eligibility rules: predominantly foreign / HK / Macau / Taiwan passport holders, with only narrow exceptions for certain PRC nationals (overseas residency or mixed-nationality cases). WASC- and Lutheran-accredited with strong school-reported AP and US/UK university outcomes.
A foreign-passport-only British-international day school (ages 2–18) in Pudong, running the English National Curriculum and IGCSE into the IB Diploma. It is effectively closed to ordinary Chinese mainland nationals — a foreign passport or foreign-residency status is required under Shanghai Education Commission rules — and pairs a strong school-reported IB record (38.1/45 average in 2025) with deep accreditation across CIS, IBO, WASC and Cambridge.
A foreign-passport-only, not-for-profit American K–12 school (Pre-K–Grade 12) across two Shanghai campuses (Puxi and Pudong) — it cannot enrol ordinary mainland Chinese nationals (only children born overseas to PRC citizens, HK/Macau/Taiwan residents, or SHMEC-waiver holders qualify). Founded in 1912, it is one of the few Shanghai schools offering both the American AP track and the IB Diploma, accredited by WASC and CIS.
A fully bilingual (English–Mandarin) British international day school in Pudong's New Bund district, following the English National Curriculum and IGCSE into a bilingual IB Diploma. It is an international school under Shanghai's SHMEC rules — open to foreign-passport families and defined returnee / HK-Macau-Taiwan / foreign-PR pathways, but not to ordinary Chinese mainland nationals, who attend its bilingual sister school, Huili.
A foreign-passport / expatriate international school (it enrols children of foreign passport holders and cannot admit mainland Chinese nationals) distinguished by one of China's deepest English–Chinese bilingual models — including dual native-English / native-Chinese co-teachers in the early years and a Western–Chinese co-leadership structure. It runs a British-rooted Cambridge IGCSE → IB Diploma pathway and is CIS-accredited.
You can also browse the full directory and sort it yourself, or compare schools side-by-side.