Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye vs Marymount International School Paris
🇫🇷 Paris · Side-by-side comparison on verifiable public data.
Reviewed by Priscilla Han
Which should you choose?
Both run American, so the difference is inspection rating, boarding, and fees rather than the curriculum itself; Marymount International School Paris has a public inspection verdict (CIS / Middle States Association (MSA) "Accredited (joint CIS/MSA re-accreditation visit in progress, 2025)") while the other sits in a market with no public inspectorate, judged on accreditation instead. The choice comes down to target curriculum, whether you need boarding, and budget — verify fees against each school's own figures.
Marymount International School Paris holds a public inspection verdict (CIS / Middle States Association (MSA) "Accredited (joint CIS/MSA re-accreditation visit in progress, 2025)"), while Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye operates in a market with no public inspectorate — the former has a verifiable official quality anchor, the latter is judged on accreditation depth. On cost, Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye has the noticeably lower entry fee — a material difference for budget-conscious families. See the table below for the figures, and verify against each school's own published fees.
Key Facts
| Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye | Marymount International School Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Curriculum | National / British / American | American |
| Ages | 3-18 | 2-14 (Pre-K to Grade 8; Grade 9 planned for Fall 2027) |
| Languages of instruction | French, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Polish, Portuguese, Russian | English, French |
| Annual fees | Free French state tuition; international-section association fees approx. EUR 2,000-9,300/year (varies by section, grade and payer) | EUR 23,750-39,000/year (2026/2027; first year higher with one-time enrolment fees) |
| Enrollment | — | 360 |
| Boarding | Day only | Day only |
| Inspection rating | — | CIS / Middle States Association (MSA): Accredited (joint CIS/MSA re-accreditation visit in progress, 2025) |
| Accreditations | French Ministry of Education (Éducation nationale, Académie de Versailles), Baccalauréat Français International (BFI / formerly OIB) | Council of International Schools (CIS), Middle States Association (MSA) |
Strengths
- ✓Free state-funded core tuition — by far the lowest-cost route to a recognised international/bilingual education in the Paris area
- ✓Fourteen national sections delivering genuine native-language, native-culture instruction toward the Baccalauréat Français International
- ✓Outstanding documented results — baccalauréat pass rates of 99-100% and a 'mention' (honours) rate above 90%
- ✓Structured one-year immersion ('Français Spécial') that absorbs non-French-speaking newcomers into the French system
- ✓Graduates routinely leave trilingual or quadrilingual, with a strong Concours Général and university-placement track record
- ✓Long heritage and stability as the oldest international school in France (founded 1923), with an established RSHM Catholic identity
- ✓Dual CIS and MSA accreditation, the recognised quality pairing for American-model international schools
- ✓Small, intimate community (~360 students, low student-to-teacher ratio) allowing close pastoral attention
- ✓Genuine dual-language French-English programme that builds local-language fluency alongside English-medium study
- ✓Strongly internationally diverse intake spanning more than 30 nationalities
Trade-offs
- !No boarding — it is a day school across several sites, so it cannot serve families needing residential places
- !Selective, language-dependent admission means it is not the open-access school its 'free public' label implies
- !The 'double enseignement' workload (full French curriculum plus the section programme) is heavy and not for every child
- !Section association fees and one-off entrance charges still apply, and vary confusingly by section, grade and whether an employer pays
- !Not an IB or Cambridge school and runs no externally examined diploma, so no published exam or IB-score outcomes exist to benchmark
- !Provision currently stops at Grade 8 (age 14), so families needing through-to-18 continuity must transfer for high school
- !Premium fees with a notably higher first-year cost driven by one-time enrolment and capital fees
- !No boarding and a single west-Paris (Neuilly) location, limiting catchment to nearby families
Best Fit For
- • Bilingual or expatriate families wanting a recognised international section without private-international fees
- • Academically strong, self-motivated children who can carry a dual-curriculum workload
- • Families targeting the Baccalauréat Français International and multilingual fluency
- • Households already settled in the Saint-Germain-en-Laye / western-Paris area able to commute daily
- • Internationally mobile families wanting an English-medium American-curriculum education in west Paris
- • Families seeking a values-led Catholic (RSHM) environment with an explicit justice-and-service ethos
- • Parents of early-years to middle-school children (ages 2-14) who value a small, high-touch community
- • Anglophone families who also want their children to gain real French through a dual-language programme
University Placement
School-reported · not independently verified
School-reported, unverified: graduates are described as progressing to leading French and international universities, with a strong record in the Concours Général; no independently audited destination breakdown is published.
School-reported, unverified: the school states a 99% acceptance rate to students' first-choice high school internationally and that 100% of students exceed MAP averages at all grades; these are self-published figures and are not independently verified.
More Comparisons
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I choose Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye or Marymount International School Paris?
Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye is best for: Bilingual or expatriate families wanting a recognised international section without private-international fees. Marymount International School Paris is best for: Internationally mobile families wanting an English-medium American-curriculum education in west Paris. The right choice depends on target curriculum, budget, and family priorities — the two are not linearly comparable.
How do fees compare between Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Marymount International School Paris?
Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye: Free French state tuition; international-section association fees approx. EUR 2,000-9,300/year (varies by section, grade and payer). Marymount International School Paris: EUR 23,750-39,000/year (2026/2027; first year higher with one-time enrolment fees). Verify against each school's own published fees; some figures are sourced from third-party aggregators.
What curricula do Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Marymount International School Paris offer?
Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye: National, British, American. Marymount International School Paris: American. Marymount International School Paris inspection: CIS / Middle States Association (MSA) "Accredited (joint CIS/MSA re-accreditation visit in progress, 2025)".
Do Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye or Marymount International School Paris offer boarding?
Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye: day school only. Marymount International School Paris: day school only.
Questions parents ask
This comparison is BrightKey's independent assessment using verifiable public data only. University-placement figures are school-reported and not independently verified. BrightKey takes no payments from schools. Our method →