The Rankings — 2026/27
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Independent · Unpaid · Editorial
World's Top Schools, Ranked.
Every ranked and candidate school in the directory, one continuous list from #1 down. Use this view when you want the full picture without switching between tiers.
This ranking is locked. The next ranking update will be on September 1, 2027. How the ranking cycle works · Why this ranking exists
Penny's picks
France · Île-de-France
Lycée Louis-le-Grand
A Jesuit foundation from 1563 in the Latin Quarter, its prepa classes top national rankings across nearly every track.
80.9
Score
France · Île-de-France
Lycée Henri-IV
Storied Left Bank lycée prizing the French Bac and its feeder classes préparatoires to France's grandes écoles.
80.2
Score
France · Île-de-France
École Jeannine Manuel
VerifiedFounded by a Resistance veteran, this Left Bank lycee teaches core subjects bilingually and has topped France's rankings for a decade.
74.5
Score
France · Île-de-France
Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Grew from a NATO garrison school into the cradle of the OIB, where fourteen national sections share one French core.
74.4
Score
France · Île-de-France
Lycée Hoche
Scientific and economics prep classes taught inside an 18th-century convent listed as a historic monument steps from the chateau
74.3
Score
France · Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Lycée du Parc
France's largest classes preparatoires campus, drawing 14,000 applicants a year to 31 divisions feeding the grandes ecoles
73.9
Score
France · Île-de-France
École Saint-Louis de Gonzague
Jesuit since 1894 on the Chaillot hill, still teaching Ignatian rigor into France's top-ranked lycee and its elite prep classes.
73.7
Score
France · Île-de-France
American School of Paris
A founding IB school since 1946, this Saint-Cloud campus is the only Paris-area school offering a dual-track IB and AP curriculum.
72.5
Score
France · Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
Centre International de Valbonne
In Sophia Antipolis's tech park, five language sections converge around the OIB, feeding a boarding lycee's grandes ecoles prep classes.
70.8
Score
France · Île-de-France
International School of Paris
France's only school running all three IB programmes, housed in twin converted townhouses in the 16th arrondissement.
69.6
Score
France · Hauts-de-France
École Jeannine Manuel Lille
In Lille's affluent Golden Triangle, this bilingual boarding annex of the Paris flagship splits leavers between IB and French Bac tracks.
68.3
Score
France · Île-de-France
The British School of Paris
The only UK-government-accredited British School Overseas in France, pairing A-Levels and IB on the Seine west of Paris
68.2
Score
France · Île-de-France
Collège Stanislas de Paris
In Montparnasse since 1804, this Catholic day school channels rigorous bac prep straight into France's grandes ecoles pipeline.
67.6
Score
France · Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
Mougins School
A pine-forest campus inside the Sophia Antipolis tech park, delivering British IGCSEs and A-Levels since 1964.
67.6
Score
France · Île-de-France
École Alsacienne
Founded by Alsatian refugees in 1874, a Left Bank laboratory for secular, progressive pedagogy that shaped France's republican school system.
67.5
Score
France · Île-de-France
Notre Dame International High School
A US diploma and AP track unfold inside a 1929 French convent school on a 16th-century chateau estate, 35 minutes from Paris.
66.9
Score
France · Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
International Bilingual School of Provence
In the pine groves west of Aix, seventy-five nationalities split classes between French and English on the way to twin baccalaureates, OIB and IB.
66.3
Score
France · Île-de-France
Lycée Janson-de-Sailly
A jilted lawyer's bequest built a 16th-arrondissement giant whose prepa classes still funnel thousands into France's grandes ecoles.
65.6
Score
France · Île-de-France
Lycée Condorcet
Housed in a former Capuchin cloister near Saint-Lazare, this boarding-free lycee still funnels day students into France's elite prep classes.
62.9
Score
France · Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Cité Scolaire Internationale de Lyon
Born from Interpol's arrival in Lyon, its serpentine glass campus on the Rhone teaches baccalaureate students in nine mother tongues.
60.2
Score
France · Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Bordeaux International School
Run as a teacher-owned cooperative since 1999, this Bordeaux day school has been an official Cambridge examination centre since 1991.
59.9
Score
France · Île-de-France
Lycée Fénelon
A former hotel particulier turned Paris's first girls' lycee, now second nationally for ENS admissions via its literary prepa.
55.8
Score
France · Île-de-France
Ermitage International School
Founded in 1941 amid wartime Paris, this Maisons-Laffitte day school runs IB and French Bac side by side, with equestrian classes in the racehorse capital.
50.9
Score
France · Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
Mouratoglou Academy & School
Elite tennis training and the French Baccalaureate share equal billing across 33 courts on the Cote d'Azur.
50.7
Score
France · Normandy
École des Roches
A 1899 Norman chateau where France's first 'new education' experiment still shapes house-based IB and Baccalaureate scholars
47.6
Score
France · Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
PNSD Rosella Hightower (École Nationale Supérieure de Danse de Cannes)
On the Riviera, one of France's five national dance conservatoires builds the academic day around daily ballet class, not the reverse.
47.2
Score
France · Île-de-France
Marymount International School Paris
Running since 1923, France's oldest international school pairs American schooling with a bilingual track in leafy Neuilly.
45.5
Score
Methodology
How we rank
Our composite weights eight categories. Each is scored 0–100 by our editorial panel and audited against 30 sub-criteria drawn from school records, university placement audits, alumni surveys, campus visits and parent interviews. Schools cannot pay for placement or preview scores.
Weighting
- Academic Outcomes20%
- University Placement17%
- Prestige & Heritage13%
- Alumni Network13%
- Facilities13%
- Transparency & Communications8%
- Peer & Industry Review10%
- Admissions Selectivity & Demand8%
Score key
Reading the scores
Bands out of 100
Every category, sub-criterion and composite total across this issue uses the same six-band editorial palette. Bands are calibrated against the full 300-school cohort — a "Distinguished" mark is meaningfully harder to earn than a "Strong" one.
- Exceptional90–100
Top of cohort
- Distinguished80–89
Elite tier
- Strong70–79
Consistently high
- Solid60–69
Reliable performer
- Average50–59
Room to grow
- Below par< 50
Underperforming
The same colour bands are used inside each school profile, on category chips, radar charts and the annual score-history line — so a colour glimpsed on the Rankings page always means the same thing everywhere else.