Graded — The American School of São Paulo

The short version

The short version

Graded — formally the Associação Escola Graduada de São Paulo — is a private, nonsectarian, non-profit American day school teaching 1,329 students of 48 nationalities from Pre-K3 to Grade 12 on a 65,000-square-metre campus in Vila Andrade, in the Morumbi district.

All graduates earn an American high school diploma, and students can add the IB Diploma and the Brazilian diploma on top; the Early Years programme is Montessori-based.↗↗

For an expat family, the practical summary is this: Graded is the default shortlist entry for an American or IB education in São Paulo, with centenary-deep roots and fees at the top of the market — on 2026-27 rates, R$153,816 a year in Lower School and R$190,872 in Upper School once you multiply out the monthly figures.

The details that catch relocating families are not the tuition, though: a one-time Capital Fund Donation whose amount is not published, a confirmation deposit pegged to 40 per cent of the July rate, and a fiscal-quarter rule that back-bills mid-year joiners to the start of the quarter.↗

What the school is

A chamber-of-commerce school, still non-profit after a century

Graded opened on 17 October 1920 as a two-room schoolhouse on Avenida São João, founded by the American Chamber of Commerce in partnership with six American companies — Citibank, Dow Chemical, General Electric, General Motors, Ford Motor and Goodyear.

It moved to its present campus on the Morumbi side of the city in 1961, and remains a non-profit association governed by a self-perpetuating Board of Directors established in 1931, whose members may serve up to four two-year terms and who steward an endowment alongside the annual budget.↗↗

The school is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) and the São Paulo state education secretariat (SEDUC-SP), is an IB World School, and is a registered examination centre for IB, College Board and ACT assessments — an unusually complete external framework for the region.

The student body is 52 per cent Brazilian and 22 per cent American and Canadian, with the balance spread across Latin America, Asia and Europe; 62 per cent of the 177 faculty are international hires.↗

The three-diploma structure is the strategic point. A child can hold an American transcript throughout, add the Brazilian diploma for local university options, and commit to the full IB Diploma in Grades 11-12 — useful insurance for families whose next posting is unknown.

Families set on a British GCSE/A-level route should look instead at St Paul’s or the British College of Brazil; Graded’s pathway is American-first.

Academics in practice

American diploma, IB on top, and a publishing culture

The Lower School pairs the Montessori-based Early Years with an American elementary programme; Middle School covers Grades 6-8; and the High School builds toward the American diploma with the IB Diploma as the senior accelerator.

Classroom Without Walls expeditions are a required part of the Grades 6-12 curriculum — not optional trips — and are billed separately on the monthly invoice.↗↗

Graded publishes a high school profile and college-acceptance lists through its own channels each year; we do not reproduce results figures here because cohorts change and the current numbers belong to the school.

Ask for the latest profile with IB Diploma results and candidate counts, and read them against the 446-student high school rather than as league-table numbers.↗

One practical academic note: families are responsible for all IB examination and registration fees — typically US$565 to US$1,070, payable to the school in November of Grade 12 — plus surcharges for late registration or course-level changes after the November deadline.

If your child is IB-bound, that is a known senior-year cost to hold in the budget.↗

Admissions and cost

Admissions, and the billing rules mid-year joiners miss

Third-party guides describe Graded admissions as competitive, with applications typically running October through February for August or January entry; the school publishes its own dates-and-deadlines page, which should be treated as the authority.

The application carries a one-time non-refundable fee — payable in reais for applicants resident in Brazil or US dollars for those abroad — and the school will only review an application once the fee has landed.↗↗

The published 2026-27 tuition is R$12,818 a month in Lower School (PK3-Grade 5) and R$15,906 a month in Upper School (Grades 6-12), billed in twelve instalments from July through June — R$153,816 and R$190,872 a year respectively. Rates are reviewed each February.

On top of tuition sit two significant extras: a one-time Capital Fund Donation required during enrolment, whose amount the school does not publish on its fee page, and an enrolment-confirmation deposit equal to 40 per cent of the July tuition rate per child — about R$5,127 in Lower School or R$6,362 in Upper School at current rates, credited according to the enrolment contract.↗

The clause that deserves a highlighter is the fiscal-quarter rule. Graded’s fiscal year begins on 1 July, with quarters running July-September, October-December, January-March and April-June — and a newly enrolled student owes tuition for the month of entry plus any preceding months within the current fiscal quarter.

Join in November and you are billed from October; join in September and you are billed from July. The corollary is genuinely useful: entries timed to the first month of a quarter — July, October, January or April — avoid back-billed months entirely, which is worth real money when a relocation date is flexible.↗

Smaller lines worth knowing: optional Education Insurance at 1.38 per cent of monthly tuition, required Classroom Without Walls trip fees in Grades 6-12, after-school activity charges, and Grade 6-12 textbook and digital-resource purchases.

Withdrawals mid-semester carry fees and penalties set out in the enrolment contract — a document to read before paying the deposit, not after. The school also runs named aid vehicles, including the Hitoshi Castro Outreach Program / Graded Scholar Program and the Janet Sallouti Financial Aid Endowment, for families who qualify.↗↗

The family experience

Morumbi logistics and a half-Brazilian community

The campus address is Av. José Galante 425, São Paulo 05642-001 — in Vila Andrade on the Morumbi side of the city, facing the Paraisópolis favela, a juxtaposition the school’s own materials engage with through service programmes.

It is a manageable run from the Morumbi, Campo Belo and Vila Olímpia neighbourhoods that corporate families favour; São Paulo traffic being what it is, test the morning drive at school-run time before choosing housing, and ask about the bus network serving your shortlist.↗↗

The community is more Brazilian than the word "American" suggests — over half the students hold Brazilian passports — which most internationally mobile families experience as a feature: children get Portuguese and a local peer group, and the school runs a Brazilian accredited programme alongside the American track.

The trade-off is that English-language support structures matter for children arriving without English; third-party fee comparisons list a separate additional-language charge at Graded, but we could not confirm it on the school’s own pages, so ask directly whether EAL carries a fee and at what level of need.↗↗

Take these to the school

Questions that move beyond the tour script