How to apply to international schools in Shanghai

✓Identify which Shanghai school route your family is pursuing rather than assuming every English-language program follows the same rules.

✓Read the city's current enrollment and qualification guidance, then compare it with each target school's published eligibility categories.

✓Send the admissions office a concise eligibility question when your passport, permanent-residence, employment, or family situation does not match a published category exactly.

✓Ask what must be available at application, assessment, offer, and enrollment because schools may request route documents at different stages.

✓Start with schools currently listed by Shanghai, then verify the exact campus, ages served, curriculum, language support, and admissions contact on each school website.

✓Write down non-negotiables for curriculum continuity, language, learning support, activities, safeguarding, and target start date.

✓Shortlist the specific campus—not only the school brand—because availability, commute, bus service, and grade coverage can differ.

✓Keep at least one realistic alternative when a preferred grade or campus has limited capacity or a wait pool.

✓Send the child's date of birth, current grade, school calendar, expected completion date, and preferred start date to admissions.

✓Ask which grade the portal will assign and how the school treats moves between academic calendars or a January start.

✓Record the date an application becomes complete—not merely submitted—and the next published decision or update window.

✓Confirm whether the target grade and campus are reviewing applications, at capacity, or using a wait pool before paying an application fee.

✓Create separate, clearly named files for the student and each parent rather than combining unrelated pages into one scan.

✓Check whether the school requires a full passport, identity page, current visa or residence page, work permit, Shanghai address proof, birth certificate, or employer evidence for your category.

✓Ask whether certifications, authentication, notarization, or translations are required before paying for them.

✓Keep expiry dates visible and plan how updated permits will be supplied if the family's immigration or work process is still underway.

✓Request legible reports or transcripts for the periods named by each school and retain both the original and any approved translation.

✓Tell the current teacher, counselor, or administrator to expect a confidential form sent directly by the target school.

✓Check whether older students need separate English, mathematics, counselor, or administrator recommendations.

✓Track outstanding third-party items because an application may remain incomplete until recommendations, records, and the application fee are received.

✓Ask what format, language, duration, time zone, equipment, and adult presence apply to an in-person or remote assessment.

✓Help the child understand the process without coaching toward a rehearsed performance or misrepresenting current ability.

✓Share relevant learning, language, behavioral, medical, or support history through the school's approved process so fit can be assessed responsibly.

✓Ask what services are currently available and whether any language or learning support carries a separate fee.

✓Use the fee schedule for the correct academic year, campus, grade, payment plan, and currency.

✓Separate refundable amounts from non-refundable application, enrollment, entry, or capital fees.

✓Add transport, meals, uniforms, required devices, educational travel, exams, language support, deposits, and payment charges where applicable.

✓Ask an employer which items are reimbursable, who pays first, what invoice format is required, and what happens after withdrawal or relocation.

✓Read the offered campus, grade, start date, conditions, support arrangements, acceptance deadline, payment deadline, and refund terms together.

✓Confirm school-bus availability and test the home-to-campus journey during real morning and afternoon traffic before choosing housing.

✓Ask for the first-day, health, immunization, safeguarding, technology, uniform, meal, pickup, and parent-portal handoff list.

✓Record the final decision and every deadline in one family calendar; Premium can turn the selected school and documents into a synced relocation plan.