Collège Alpin Beau Soleil has stood in the centre of Villars-sur-Ollon, on the Route du Village, since the early twentieth century. It dates from 1910, which makes it one of the oldest private boarding schools in Switzerland. It has about three hundred students aged 11 to 18, from some fifty countries, and almost all of them board, in six houses.
Families searching for Beau Soleil often have Aiglon open in the next tab. The two schools share a plateau and a ski area, and not much else.
Beau Soleil
- Owned by Nord Anglia Education since 2011.
- About 300 students, aged 11 to 18.
- IB throughout, with a Diploma available in English, French or both.
- No scholarships.
Aiglon
- A not-for-profit foundation, founded in 1949.
- About 500 students, aged 7 to 18.
- British curriculum, IGCSE then IB, in English.
- A scholarship programme funded by parents and alumni.
For a French-speaking family, language is the difference that matters most. Beau Soleil offers the IB Diploma in English, in French, or as a bilingual diploma combining both, which a third of the 2026 graduates earned. For a child coming out of a French school whose English is still developing, that is a way in that English-only boarding schools do not offer.
The curriculum: IB from 11 to 18, no French bac
From Grade 6 to Grade 10, roughly ages 11 to 16, students follow the IB Middle Years Programme across eight subject groups. In Grades 11 and 12 they take the IB Diploma and can add, or take instead, an American-style high school diploma with a more career-focused slant; depending on the page, the school calls it the High School Diploma or the Advanced Studies Diploma.
There is no longer a French baccalaureate, even if a few directories still list one. Families committed to the French system should look elsewhere; the trade-off between the two diplomas is discussed in IB or French baccalaureate.
Published results for 2026: a 98% IB pass rate, an average of 35 out of 45, one perfect 45, and 55% of grades at 6 or 7. University applications go 40% to the UK, 30% to the US and 30% elsewhere. The class of 2026 received offers from Imperial, UCL, King's College London, St Andrews, Edinburgh, Vanderbilt, NYU, Boston College, Toronto and EHL, among others.
What Beau Soleil really costs
The fees page shows CHF 137,040. That is the number families remember, and it is misleading: the 2026-2027 terms and conditions add several compulsory lines.
| Compulsory item | Grades 6 to 10 | Grade 11 | Grade 12 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boarding and tuition | 137,040 | 137,040 | 137,040 |
| Senior supplement | - | 11,400 | 11,400 |
| Other fees (activities, expeditions, ski pass, insurance) | 26,460 | 26,460 | 26,460 |
| Annual grade trip | 8,490 | 8,490 | - |
| Annual total | 171,990 | 183,390 | 174,900 |
Amounts in Swiss francs, from the school's 2026-2027 terms and conditions. The senior supplement covers IB or diploma exam preparation and registration, and university counselling. "Other fees" covers the co-curricular programme, school challenges, expeditions, the ski pass, most outings within Switzerland, health and accident insurance, and Geneva airport transfers on official dates only.
On entry, once: a CHF 3,000 application fee, charged as soon as the form arrives; CHF 6,990 for the first uniform pack; and a CHF 15,000 deposit, returned within three months of the end of the financial year in which the student leaves. A student joining Grade 11 therefore costs CHF 208,380 in the first year, deposit included.
Billed at the end of each term on top of that: pocket money on a prepaid card (CHF 60 a week in Grades 6 and 7, CHF 80 in Grade 8), ski and expedition equipment, private sports coaching, the ski race team, flights, and the laptop every student must bring. Languages are worth checking. French, English, German, Italian and Spanish are included, but another mother tongue such as Russian, Chinese or Arabic costs CHF 6,000 a year for three weekly group lessons, or CHF 145 per private lesson. Any day spent at school outside term time is billed at CHF 500.
There is no financial aid of any kind.
Commitment dates to read before signing
The contract commits families early. For a new student, cancelling after a cut-off date costs the equivalent of the first term's boarding and tuition, and that date falls about five months before the start of term. For current students, leaving at the end of the year must be notified in writing before 15 March; after that, the first term of the following year is due. Leaving or being dismissed mid-year makes both the current term and the next one payable. And a returning student's place is only guaranteed if the first two terms are paid by 15 April.
Example: the 2026-2027 dates.
For a start on 7 September 2026, cancellation without charge had to arrive by 15 April 2026. For a start on 11 January 2027 the limit was 8 September 2026, and for 12 April 2027 it was 12 January 2027. Terms 1 and 2 are payable by 15 April, Term 3 by 31 January.
The application, step by step
The process is short. The family sends the application form, school reports for the last two years, a reference form completed by the current school and, a detail that surprises people, a motivation letter handwritten by the student. The CHF 3,000 fee follows. Then comes a meeting: a campus tour, a virtual discovery meeting with the admissions team, or an appointment with a school representative in your region. Every applicant takes placement tests in maths and English. The admissions committee decides within a week and then sends a written offer.
The school advises applying between September and December of the year before entry, as places are limited. It publishes no hard deadline and no acceptance rate.
The handwritten letter is the only document in which the child speaks for themselves, and it deserves the most care. I would have it written in the language the child writes best, since the school teaches in both French and English, on a single page, built on one concrete fact rather than a list of qualities: a sport played for years, something learned alone, a real reason for wanting to board in the mountains. The placement tests, whose content is not published, are mainly there to place the student in maths and English.
What Nord Anglia ownership means
Nord Anglia Education is a private group with more than eighty schools in some thirty countries. Beau Soleil joined it in 2011. For students, the group brings shared programmes: science and engineering challenges designed with MIT, with a possible visit to Boston; performing arts workshops with the Juilliard School; projects with UNICEF; and an online platform linking more than 100,000 students across the network. The school is also a member of the international Round Square network.
For families, it also means a group contract, precise and hardly negotiable, and a school run as a business: no foundation, no scholarships, fees that follow the schedule. I do not say that as a criticism, plenty of families prefer the clarity, but it is better known before comparing.
What students and families say
The Good Schools Guide, quoted by the school, calls it "a warm-hearted boutique boarding school" where students "work hard and ski hard", and where "kindness is the currency". In winter, PE gives way to skiing or snowboarding for up to two and a half days a week, on slopes five minutes away, with a race team, a freestyle team and the option of a ski instructor qualification. The rest of the year, expeditions run to nights in mountain huts and glacier crossings, and annual trips go to Kilimanjaro and South America. There are also seven whole-school challenges, one of them a summit climbed in the dark.
In a feature in an education magazine, students praise small IB classes; they also note that many students come for a single year, and that some friendships suffer for it. An independent site for international school parents advises checking the language of instruction subject by subject in the IB, since not everything is necessarily taught in both.
Which student it suits
Beau Soleil works well for a French-speaking child who wants a mountain boarding school without switching to English overnight, with a bilingual diploma at the end, and for families looking for a smaller community than Aiglon or Le Rosey. It also works for a single boarding year abroad, which many students do. It suits less well a family set on the French bac, or one that needs financial aid. For its price against the others, the full comparison is in Swiss boarding school fees.
Choosing between two boarding schools in the same village comes down to the child, their language, their pace, their plans for university, and the file is built around that. That is what we work on with families at Carmine, from the choice of school to the motivation letter; our school admissions page explains the support.