Cities / Geneva / College du Leman
College du Leman
Geneva's largest international day and boarding school, a 10 hectare campus in Versoix between the Jura and Lac Léman, founded in 1960 and operated since 2015 as part of the Nord Anglia Education network. CDL runs roughly 2,000 students from age 2 to 18 and over 100 nationalities.
In brief
Geneva's largest international day and boarding school, a 10-hectare campus in Versoix between the Jura and Lac Léman, founded in 1960 and operated since 2015 as part of the Nord Anglia Education network.
CDL runs roughly 2,000 students from age 2 to 18 and over 100 nationalities. The senior school is unusual for the breadth of exit pathways. Students can finish on the IB Diploma, IB Career-related Programme, US High School Diploma with AP, French Baccalauréat or Swiss Maturité, with IGCSEs feeding all of them. Accreditations include CIS, NEASC and the German ZFA.
Families speak well of the international mix and the boarding option for students from age 10, useful for diplomatic and corporate-rotation households. The Nord Anglia partnerships with Juilliard, MIT and UNICEF surface in arts, STEM and global citizenship programming. The school is academically demanding, fees sit at the top of the Geneva market at around CHF 25,000 to CHF 37,000 for day students, and parents looking for a smaller, more intimate setting will find the scale a stretch.
Fees
Annual fees
| Year level | Age | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-school (ages 2-5) | 2 | CHF 24,900 |
| Primary G1-5 | 6 | CHF 29,300 |
| Middle School G6-8 | 11 | CHF 34,500 |
| High School G9-10 | 14 | CHF 35,980 |
| High School G11-12 & IB | 16 | CHF 36,980 |
One-time fees
| Item | Age | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Application Fee | CHF 500 | |
| Security Deposit (day) | CHF 600 | |
| Admission Fee (day) | CHF 3,800 |
Reviews
A long-running Versoix fixture on a ten-hectare campus between the Jura and Lac Léman, with around 1,800 pupils from a hundred-plus nationalities and a 300-strong boarding cohort. The headline draw is choice: IB Diploma and Career-related, American High School, French Bac, Swiss Maturité, AP, Cambridge, all under one roof. Academic delivery on the IB side has been consistently strong. The friction parents talk about sits on the operational side, not in the classroom.
Positives
- Multi-curriculum offer. Five upper-school pathways including IB DP, IB CP, American Diploma, French Bac and Swiss Maturité, plus AP and Cambridge IGCSEs lower down. Useful for globally mobile families who don't yet know which exit route they need.
- IB results. 100% pass rate in the IB Diploma and IB CP in both 2024 and 2025, with an average diploma score of 35 against a global average around 30.
- Campus and boarding. Ten-hectare site with modern teaching buildings and dedicated residential villas housing up to 250 boarders, plus weekend mountain trips bundled into the boarding fee.
- International mix. Over a hundred nationalities on roll. Newly arrived families report that children settle in quickly and form friendships across the cohort.
Considerations
- Communication at secondary. Parents talk about thinner outreach in the upper school than in primary, where the parent community is more visible. Day-to-day contact often runs through the parent network rather than the school.
- Administration. The school has a long-standing reputation among parents for being administratively disorganised. Staff-side accounts echo the same picture, with repeated HR and payroll friction.
- Sports culture. Extra-mural sport sits lighter here than at some peer schools. Families coming from a more team-sport tradition tend to notice.
- Fees. Boarding runs to CHF 113,500 for 2025/26. Senior day fees sit around CHF 36k to 37k, with admission and deposit charges on top. Top of the Geneva market.
- Leadership transition. Pauline Nord, Director General since 2019, leaves on 1 August 2026 for the Swiss International Scientific School in Dubai. Dr Emmanuel Bonin, previously head of the French International School of Hong Kong, takes over the same day.
Leadership
Mrs. Pauline Nord
Mrs Pauline Nord has been with Collège du Léman since 1987 and was appointed as the school's first female Director General in August 2019. Prior to this role, she served as the Academic Director from 2014 to 2019. Mrs Nord holds a Master of Arts in International Education from King's College London, which she completed between 2021 and 2023. Throughout her long tenure at the school, she has been instrumental in driving its success and fostering a diverse community of over 100 nationalities. As Director General, her mission is to inspire, empower, and challenge students to become global citizens who are positive contributors to society, guided by the school's RISE values of Respect, Internationalism, School Spirit, and Excellence.
Accreditations
- Council of International Schools 01
- New England Association of Schools and Colleges 02
- Zentralstelle für das Auslandsschulwesen 03
Academic results
- IB Average 2025 35
- IB Pass Rate 2025 100%