How to Apply to International Schools in Athens: A Step-by-Step Guide (2026)

The admissions landscape at Athens international schools is not uniform. Some schools run competitive examination-based entry each year; others operate rolling admissions with the registrar throughout the year. Understanding which model applies to your target school — and acting early — is the difference between a smooth transition and a waiting list.

Admissions Models: Know Your School

Competitive Examination Entry: Athens College / Psychico College (HAEF)

Athens College and Psychico College are selective institutions. Entry at Grade 3 (Elementary), Grade 7 (Junior High School Year 1), and Grade 10 (High School Year 1) is by competitive entrance examination, held annually in March for the following September intake. The examination covers the school's academic standards in Greek, mathematics, and English.

Key facts:

• Examinations are held on the Psychico campus
• Applications typically open in October/November for March examinations
• Results and offers are issued within weeks of the examination
• There is no mid-year rolling intake at the standard competitive entry points

Families planning a September move should begin the HAEF application process the October before — meaning the planning timeline starts well over a year in advance if you are not yet in Athens.

Rolling Admissions: Campion School, St. Catherine's, ISA

Campion School, St. Catherine's British School, and the International School of Athens (ISA) all accept applications throughout the year and assess places against current availability. There is no single examination date; assessment is continuous and the child may be invited for an informal academic assessment on or shortly after application.

Admissions at these schools typically work as follows:

1. Online enquiry / initial contact with the registrar
2. Application form and documents submitted
3. Current school asked to provide a report / reference
4. Informal assessment (in person or sometimes by prior academic records)
5. Offer made, conditional on satisfactory assessment and place availability
6. Acceptance of offer, payment of registration and reservation fees

If no place is available, the child's name is added to the waiting list for the relevant year group.

The Application Checklist

Regardless of which school you are applying to, gather the following documents early:

For HAEF: additional Greek-language materials or preparatory information may be provided with the examination invitation. Candidates sitting in English and Greek will typically be assessed in both.

Step-by-Step Timeline (September Entry)

The following timeline applies to families planning a September start and applying to Campion, St. Catherine's, or ISA:

For HAEF (Athens College / Psychico College), compress this timeline: application to sit the March examination needs to be submitted by the previous October/November, meaning the process begins 14 to 17 months before the intended September start.

Mid-Year Applications

Life does not always follow a September schedule. Job relocations, Golden Visa residency timelines, and family circumstances frequently mean families need a school place in January, April, or at other points during the academic year.

Campion, St. Catherine's, and ISA all accommodate mid-year in-year admissions where places exist. The application process is the same as for September entry. The practical challenge is availability: Year 7 (the first year of secondary school) is the most constrained year group at most schools because it is the natural entry point for families arriving from UK-based primary schools.

If you are relocating mid-year and cannot find a place immediately, some Athens families use temporary home-schooling arrangements or enrol the child in a Greek private school for a term while waiting for a place at their preferred international school.

Applying from Overseas

All three rolling-admissions schools (Campion, St. Catherine's, ISA) accept initial applications from families still outside Greece. The school visit and informal assessment can sometimes be conducted during a house-hunting trip to Athens. Build the school visits into your first exploratory trip rather than a later one: meeting the registrar in person, seeing the facilities and getting a candid answer about availability will shape where you then look for a house, and doing it the other way round frequently means viewing property in the wrong part of the city.

Where the move is tied to a residency application, the two timetables need to be run together rather than one after the other. A Greece Golden Visa application and a school admission are independent processes with independent lead times, and neither waits for the other — but the property that satisfies the first determines the daily journey imposed by the second, and that is a decision made once and lived with for years. Our guide to the best areas of Athens for families near international schools sets out how the schools are distributed across the city.

Language Considerations

Most Athens international schools do not require incoming children to speak Greek. For purely English-medium schools (Campion, St. Catherine's) this is irrelevant to the admissions decision. ISA operates entirely in English. For HAEF, Greek language competence is relevant to the entrance examination and to daily academic life; some families prepare their children with Greek language lessons before the examination.

See settling your child into school in Athens for more on language, cultural adjustment, and healthcare registration.

After the Offer: Next Steps

Once you receive an offer:

1. Accept in writing within the deadline stated in the offer letter — offers at popular schools do not remain open indefinitely
2. Pay the required fees — registration fee, development fund, and reservation deposit (if applicable) are typically due on acceptance
3. Provide the vaccination record — required for formal Greek school registration
4. Arrange uniform and transport — contact the school for the uniform supplier and bus route details
5. Register with a GP and dentist — see settling your child into school in Athens for private healthcare options in Athens

Running a Shortlist Rather Than a Sequence

The most common process mistake families make is applying to their preferred school, waiting for an answer, and only then approaching the next one. Given the timelines above — a fixed annual examination at one institution and rolling availability at the others — a sequential approach can cost a full academic year.

Apply to your shortlist in parallel. Two or three schools is usually enough; more than that produces a great deal of administration and rarely improves the outcome. Be straightforward with registrars about the fact that you are considering other schools, which they expect and are entirely used to. What is worth avoiding is accepting a place you do not intend to take simply to keep it warm: acceptance normally triggers non-refundable payments, and a place held and then released late in the cycle is unhelpful to everyone including the next family on the list.

Keep a simple record for each school: who you have spoken to, what has been submitted, what is outstanding, and when you were told to expect an answer. Admissions correspondence spread across several inboxes over a year is how documents get missed.

Documents That Take Longest to Obtain

Of the items on the checklist above, three routinely take far longer than families allow.

Reports and references from a school you have already left. Once a child has moved on, or once the summer holidays begin, obtaining a reference from a previous teacher can take weeks. Request these before you leave, not afterwards, and ask for more copies than you think you need.

Apostilles and certified translations. Where a document must be legalised or translated by a certified translator, the process runs on its own timetable and cannot be accelerated by urgency at your end. Ask each school at the outset precisely which documents need this treatment, and have them all done in one batch.

Vaccination records. These are frequently held by a practice in another country, sometimes in a format that does not correspond to what a Greek school registration expects. Obtain the full record early and ask the school what form it needs to be in.

Two Different Kinds of Assessment

The distinction drawn above between competitive examination entry and informal assessment is important for how you prepare a child, because the two are asking different questions.

A competitive examination ranks candidates against one another for a limited number of places. Preparation is legitimate and expected: familiarity with the format, timed practice, and — where the examination is partly in another language — sustained work on that language well in advance.

An informal assessment is diagnostic. The school is establishing where the child sits academically so it can place them in the right year group and identify what support they need. Coaching a child to perform above their level here is counterproductive: it produces a placement they cannot sustain. The useful preparation is reassurance rather than revision — explaining what will happen, that there is no pass or fail, and that the school is trying to help.

In both cases, tell the school in advance about anything relevant: a diagnosed learning difference, a recent disruption, a language the child is still acquiring. Schools plan around information they have, not information they discover later.

Waiting Lists: What to Ask and What to Do

A waiting list is not a queue with a published number, and the amount of useful information you can obtain varies considerably by school. Ask three things: roughly where you sit, how much movement that year group has seen in recent years, and whether the list carries over to the following academic year or is rebuilt each cycle. The answers will tell you whether you are dealing with a short wait or a structural shortage.

While you wait, stay visible without becoming a nuisance — a brief, courteous check-in at sensible intervals, and prompt notification of any change in your circumstances or dates. Places most often come free when another family's plans change, which happens with little notice, so make sure the registrar has current contact details and knows how quickly you could take a place.

For more on how the year groups fill and where the pressure points are, see waiting lists at Athens international schools.

If the Place Does Not Come Through

Have a second plan before you need one. The alternatives noted above — a temporary arrangement for a term, or a place at a different school while remaining on a waiting list — work considerably better when they have been researched in advance rather than improvised in August.

Decide as a family, now, what happens if the preferred school is unavailable for the whole of the first year: does the move proceed anyway, does the timing shift, or does a different area or school become the plan? That conversation is straightforward in February and painful in August with a relocation date already fixed and a container on a ship.

How Global Investments Can Help

If your Athens school search is connected to a move to Greece — whether for work, Golden Visa residency, or lifestyle — our team can advise on property in Greece in locations suited to your shortlisted schools. We work with internationally mobile families across the full relocation picture. Browse listings or contact us to discuss your timeline.

This guide is for information purposes only. Admissions processes, fees, and timelines are subject to change. Always verify current requirements directly with each school.