International School Nido de Águilas

The short version

The short version

The International School Nido de Águilas — Nido — is a private, co-educational, non-sectarian, non-profit day school founded in 1934, teaching roughly 1,500 students from 50 countries (16 per cent American, 50 per cent Chilean, 34 per cent other nationalities) from Early Years to Grade 12 on a park-like campus in Lo Barnechea, against the Andean foothills.

Teaching is in English except required Spanish from Kinder 2 up; the school offers US and Chilean diplomas and has run the IB Diploma Programme since 1982. It is the long-standing U.S.

State Department-supported school in Chile, US-accredited (NEASC per current profiles) and recognised by the Chilean Ministry of Education.↗↗

For an expat family, the practical summary is this: Nido is the default shortlist entry for an American or IB education in Santiago, and the only prominent school in Chile on the US calendar — two semesters, late July to December and mid-February to June — so a child arriving from the northern hemisphere in June transfers cleanly.

The cost structure is Chilean-elite: tuition priced in UF (the inflation-indexed unit), a UF 350 incorporation fee spread over three years, and a list of extras (EAL, IB, transport, cafeteria, Week Without Walls) billed separately.

A consular compilation put 2024-25 tuition at US$11,400-20,900 a year; Nido publishes its 2026-27 table in UF, so get the current arancel in writing.↗↗

What the school is

A foundation-governed American school, ninety years in

Nido was founded in 1934, blending “the best traditions of Chilean and North American education”, and is governed by a Board of Directors of nine to thirteen members elected for three-year terms by the Fundación Educacional Nido de Águilas, the sponsoring foundation.

It serves Santiago’s international business and diplomatic community alongside Chilean families seeking an English-language, US-style education — the US State Department’s own Chile orientation manual lists it first among the schools Fulbright families have used.↗↗

The non-profit structure is not just a label: the school states that almost 85 per cent of all tuition goes to hiring and retaining teachers, and its incorporation fee is explicitly directed to campus enhancements, capital projects and the endowment fund. Head of school Ken Kunin was appointed in 2022.

The school-submitted IB profile lists 1,440 students from 48 nations, an average class size of 20 (17 in IB classes) and a 1:7 teacher-pupil ratio.↗↗

The calendar deserves its own paragraph because it is the school’s most practical distinction. Chilean schools run March to December; Nido runs two semesters from late July to December and mid-February to June, with a five-week June-July break and the southern-summer holiday from mid-December to mid-February.

For a family arriving from the US, Europe or Asia mid-year, Nido is the only prominent option in Chile where no repeat-or-skip decision is forced — which is precisely why the US-calendar question should be settled before you compare anything else.↗↗

Academics in practice

American college-prep with an IB core — and an English gate

Nido’s programme is US-style liberal-arts college preparation, with all teaching in English except Spanish (required at every grade from Kinder 2 to Grade 12).

Students can graduate with the Nido/US diploma, the Chilean national diploma, and — since 1982 — the IB Diploma; the school’s IB profile reports that over 60 per cent of Grade 11-12 students take the full Diploma and that results consistently exceed the world average.

That figure is school-submitted, so treat it as a strong claim to verify, not an audited one: ask for the published results with cohort sizes.↗↗

The language policy has teeth at both ends. English-language acquisition support exists, but entry to Upper Elementary, Middle and High School requires prerequisite levels of English proficiency — so older joiners with weak English face a real gate, and the EAL programme is billed separately from tuition.

Spanish, conversely, is non-negotiable for everyone: it is required from Kinder 2 to Grade 12, which is how the Chilean diploma stays within reach.↗↗

One advisory note that belongs here because it shapes the application experience: the US State Department’s Chile orientation manual warns that Santiago schools are slow to respond to admissions enquiries and that persistent follow-up is needed. Budget lead time, and treat silence as process rather than signal.↗

Admissions and cost

The UF 350 incorporation fee — and an aid process with a home visit

Nido prices in UF — the Unidad de Fomento, Chile’s inflation-indexed accounting unit published daily by the tax authority — so the peso amount of each instalment depends on the UF value on the day it falls due: inflation-proof, but not exchange-rate-proof for a dollar-earning family.

The published 2026-27 incorporation fee is UF 350 per student entering K2 and above, payable UF 120 in year one, UF 120 in year two and UF 110 in year three; withdraw before year two or three and the remaining instalments are not owed, and returning students who already paid in full never repay.

Chilean law sets no price rules for fully private (particular-pagado) schools, so the published arancel is the only reliable source.↗↗

Tuition itself can be paid in one annual, two bi-annual or ten monthly instalments, and is reassessed every April. The exclusions list is long and worth pricing line by line: EAL programme fees, Week Without Walls, the IB Programme, transportation and cafeteria are all billed separately from annual tuition.

A 2024-25 expat compilation put tuition at US$11,400 (PK-K1) and US$20,900 (K2-Grade 12) plus annual registration of US$1,500-1,900 — a secondary source; Nido’s own 2026-27 table is published in UF as an image, so confirm the current numbers directly.↗↗

The financial-aid programme is unusually substantive — and unusually invasive. Aid is need-based, capped at 50 per cent of tuition with an average award of 25 per cent, and can also be applied to the incorporation fee.

The application requires a job contract, payslips, bank statements, investment and debt certificates, a personal interview and a home visit; families must re-apply every year, and anyone receiving an educational subsidy from an employer is ineligible. For corporate-posting families whose package includes schooling, that last clause settles the question before it starts.↗

The family experience

Foothills campus, northeast-corridor logistics

Nido sits in Lo Barnechea, the northeastern wedge of Santiago where the city meets the Andean foothills — the same corridor as Santiago College and Craighouse, and the neighbourhood belt (Las Condes, Vitacura, Lo Barnechea) where most expat families land.

Commutes inside the corridor are short; crossing the city to it in the morning is not. Transport is billed separately, so map the bus routes against your housing shortlist before signing a lease.↗

Community texture: a genuinely mixed school — half Chilean, a sixth American, a third from everywhere else — with the institutional habits of a US independent school (Eagles athletics, Week Without Walls experiential trips, a camps programme in the long breaks).

Reported sentiment in the consular record is warm but pragmatic: the orientation manual’s “follow up persistently” warning applies to admissions, and the fee structure draws the usual grumbling about extras. This edition is document-based; the visit questions below are where you test the reality.

Take these to the school

Questions that move beyond the tour script