The way Brent International School presents itself is intentional. No ostentatious advertising campaigns or large billboard advertisements. Situated approximately 25 kilometers south of Metro Manila in Barangay Mamplasan, Biñan, Laguna’s Brentville Subdivision, the campus exudes the calm assurance of a long-standing establishment. Brent is one of the Philippines’ oldest international schools, having been established in 1909. It still has things to prove more than a century later.
The school has an ecumenical flavor rather than a strictly denominational one because of its affiliation with the Episcopal Church in the Philippines. The student body truly reflects the welcome for students of all nationalities and faiths, which goes beyond words on a website. On any given day, you can hear students from Korea, Europe, the US, and other parts of Southeast Asia conversing in six different languages. Few schools truly achieve the kind of international diversity that most talk about.
The school is divided into an Early Learning Center, Lower School, Middle School, and Upper School and serves students in Nursery through Grade 12. The International Baccalaureate Diploma Program, which is available in Grades 11 and 12, is the attraction for the majority of families, especially at the higher grades. Brent’s approach to the IB is particularly inclusive; instead of selecting only students who are likely to pass, any student who is willing to take on the workload is allowed to enroll.
Nevertheless, the outcomes are impressive. Over a recent multi-year period, the school’s average IB pass rate was 91.2%, significantly higher than the global average. It is more difficult than it seems to combine high performance with open access.
A tour of prestigious universities can be found on the list of schools where Brent graduates are accepted. Recent records of college acceptance include Yale, Brown, Berkeley, NYU, McGill, Seoul National University, and many more. It’s possible that the IB’s widespread recognition does a lot of the heavy lifting here, but there is undoubtedly something about the preparation itself—the writing, the research, the lengthy essays—that gets students ready for the kind of academic pressure those institutions anticipate.
The school provides more than 120 extracurricular activities. Brent participates in the Asia Pacific Activities Conference alongside other international schools in the area, demonstrating how seriously athletics are taken. A Grade 9 student who won a gold medal at the International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence and placed first among Team Philippines in a significant international competition, a Grade 10 guitarist who was chosen for a prestigious jazz program at the American School in London, and second graders competing in a national aquathlon are just a few examples of recent student accomplishments. It’s difficult to ignore how wide that range is—second-grade swimming competitions and elite academic competition are both equally celebrated.
As expected, tuition is high. Upper School fees for the 2026–2027 school year are approximately $9,680 plus P444,000 in Philippine pesos. Matriculation, capital development, and application fees are added on top. This makes Brent completely unreachable for a lot of Filipino families. The cost is perceived by the upper-class local families and the expatriate community as the price of a specific type of education that travels, opens doors across borders, and operates on a standard that most local schools aren’t built to meet.
Depending on what you’re measuring, that premium may or may not be justified. IB scores, university placements, and alumni like Mary Divine Grace Pacquiao and Donita Rose indicate that the school fulfills its commitments. It’s a different question, and one that probably isn’t asked enough in places like Brent, whether education at that price point serves a wider social good. For the time being, the institution continues at a pace that 117 years of practice have made seem effortless, the Lions graduate, and the buses honk at year’s end.
