School Insight: International School Bangkok (ISB)

Is there anyone who has had personal experience with ISB either in the capacity of student, parent, or staff member?

I’m interested in learning more about the school and its culture, in particular:

-Extracurriculars available
-Leadership and volunteer opportunities
-Academic structure (curriculum / how are classes categorised/streamed
-School tradition and culture
-Social aspect / inclusivity
-Facilities
-Anything else applicable/useful

What are the best parts about attending ISB? In addition, what are some of the weaknesses (if any).

What are some of the reasons that I’d choose ISB over other top Bangkok International schools?

I’m currently attending ISB :slight_smile:

ISB has around 250 people per year, and as one of the top Thai International schools, we have around 70% international students and Thai students are capped at 30%. Most of the international students come from America, and also some from japan and korea.

ISB is a IB school, but we’re very american in that we have GPA’s. School doesn’t rank. Theres a lot of variety in what curriculum and how rigorous they go. You have options of taking Full IB, Partial IB, or just getting a regular ISB certificate. The top students usually take 4 Higher Levels though and these are the students who get into ivy leagues etc.

Teachers care a lot about how hard you work and how well rounded you are, and we have a class president, vice president, and class representative leadership positions which are based 100% on student voting. So you really have to be liable to stand out and to be elected, you need to give a speech and win the popular vote.

I think in general ISB teachers are really nice, but quite bad at teaching. They are helpful outside class, but at the same time, I feel like teachers put more importance on being friendly than being a good teacher. A lot of students go to private academy to supplement teaching.

Extra-curricular wise - ISB is great and it’s very easy to start a club as long as you have good intentions and teachers are always very supportive. The top varsity sport teams are most respected in terms of extra-curricular.

One of the downsides recently was a house system they started last year. School is divided into 4 Houses but noone likes the system and it doesn’t work well with ISB culture. I think that might be erased soon.

We have 5 counsellors who meet us in senior year. You can meet them when you want and they can be somewhat useful.

Overall, I think ISB is on par with BPS as the top tier 1 schools in Bangkok.

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