Getting into Saint-Jean de Passy

Saint-Jean de Passy publishes six dates on which applications open and not a single closing date. You know when to start, never when it will be too late. My advice to families does not change: apply early.

What follows comes from the school's own website, gaps included.

The calendar: the same opening order every year

Every year the school opens its year groups in the same order: sixième (the first year of collège, the French lower secondary school, at age 11) and the primary years in mid-September, seconde (the first year of lycée, at age 15) in mid-November, then the other collège years and première in January. The exact dates change from one year to the next; the order and the gaps between them stay the same.

For petite section, the first year of nursery, past rounds quickly displayed the words "registrations closed". At that level, the real deadline is clearly short.

A paper application, and both parents in the room

Unlike most Paris schools, which have moved entirely online, Saint-Jean de Passy works on paper. You download a PDF form, fill it in, and either hand it in at reception or post it to the rue Raynouard. Registration only moves to the online platform once the admission letter has been received.

The website's warning leaves no room for doubt: incomplete applications will not be considered, there is one application per child, and nothing will be returned. Send copies only.

There is no written test, at any level. It is the application, then the interview.

And the interview has a particular feature that needs organising well in advance: it takes place with the head of the school, with the child and both parents present. The website insists that both parents must attend. For a family where one parent lives abroad or travels, this is a real scheduling constraint, and it is not negotiable.

Three outcomes are published after the application has been reviewed: an offer of an appointment, a letter placing the child on a waiting list, or a rejection before any appointment.

Two traps in the sixième form

The first concerns languages. The 6^e form asks you to choose a language track that is final for all four years of collège: either reinforced English for five hours with German for three hours from sixième, or English for five hours followed by a second language in cinquième. No change will be possible after 30 June 2027. So the choice is made at the time of application, before you have met anyone, and it holds until the brevet (the national exam at the end of collège, at age 15).

The second is less expected. The form asks you to declare applications made to other schools, and explains why: heads of schools exchange information about their registration lists so that places are not blocked unnecessarily.

What it costs

Fifty euros in application fees, non-refundable. Then, on registration, an advance on tuition of four hundred euros, also non-refundable except in cases of force majeure. In the classes préparatoires (the two-year post-baccalauréat courses for the grandes écoles entrance exams), these amounts rise to one hundred and twenty and one thousand two hundred euros.

As for tuition, the published fees are those for the current year: about two thousand and fifteen euros in annual contribution for sixième, two thousand two hundred and fifty-seven for seconde, one thousand six hundred and thirty-three for primary. On top of this come year-group fees: two hundred euros in seconde, two hundred and ten in première, two hundred and forty in terminale. For sixième, these year-group fees are still listed as "to come" on the website, which means that at the time of applying, the real cost of a year in sixième cannot be calculated.

Two mechanisms reduce the bill: an automatic reduction linked to the quotient familial (the French measure of household income per family member), with an online simulator, and a fifteen per cent discount from the third child enrolled. Requests for an exceptional reduction have their own deadline, which should not be missed.

The unanswered questions

• No closing date, for any year group. A parent cannot tell whether they have a week or three months left. With a paper application, and incomplete files set aside without review, this is the most costly uncertainty in the process.
• No reply date. All we know is that registration becomes final once the third-term report has been received, with the decision on moving up to the next year.
• No number of places. The website says that admission depends on the places available, without ever giving a figure or publishing any ratio of applications.

What to do about it, in practice

In practice, I advise families to do three things.

Apply in the first few weeks. With no deadline, the only risk is that the place is taken. A complete application submitted in October is worth more than a perfect one submitted in February.

Block out the interview date for both of you. If one parent travels, agree on the principle now, not when the invitation arrives with two weeks' notice.

Treat the handwritten letter as a serious document. It is read, it comes from you, and it is the only point in the application where you can explain why this school rather than another. It should not sell your child. It should say what you are looking for, and why you think you will find it there.