1. About KIST

K. International School Tokyo (KIST), founded in 1997, is a private, co-educational, non-denominational day school serving the international community of Tokyo from 3-year-olds through Grade 12. KIST is accredited by the Council of International Schools (CIS), and is recognized as an educational foundation (gakkou houjin) by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

To foster the high-level knowledge, skills and volunteer spirit that students need in order to make meaningful contributions to our global community in the future, KIST strives to create a safe and caring environment set firmly within a framework that promotes academic excellence through traditional values, a disciplined approach and a balanced, healthy lifestyle.

KIST students have high academic aspirations and the desire to continue “learning for life” after they graduate. Possessing an outstanding volunteer spirit and high moral character, they demonstrate their compassion by acting on their desire to help others in need and believe that such actions can make the world a better place. In order for students to be successful, there is a strong expectation that parents/guardians will provide sufficient support to their child as well as to the school.

Approximately 670 students representing around 40 different cultural backgrounds currently attend KIST. A very high percentage of students have dual nationality.

The educational program at KIST is based on a continuum of challenging international curricular frameworks as follows:

• K1 to Grade 5: IB Primary Years Programme (PYP)
• Grades 6 to 8: KIST Lower Secondary Programme (LSP) — designed for students to succeed in the IGCSE (G9–G10) and DP (G11–G12)
• Grades 9 and 10: International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE)
• Grades 11 and 12: IB Diploma Programme (DP)

The IB Diploma Programme (DP), which is designed for students aged 16 to 19, is offered to students at KIST during their final two years of schooling, and is widely recognized as a qualification for entry to universities around the world. The DP is a rigorous, academically challenging course of study that provides opportunities for students to acquire knowledge and develop skills such as analytical skills, critical thinking skills, logical thinking skills and communication skills, in addition to developing a volunteer spirit—all of which are necessary for students to succeed in our ever-changing global society. The DP requires students to complete six subjects delivered through discussion-based lessons and regular submission of reports. In addition, DP students are also required to develop intelligent thinking skills through the completion of a written research investigation—the Extended Essay, and complete a Theory of Knowledge (TOK) component to promote critical thinking, as well as a Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS) element designed to develop social skills. Due to the advanced educational content, it is not unusual for high scoring IB Diploma graduates to receive scholarships from universities around the world.

At KIST, in order to achieve our mission, we provide a high-quality education and supplementary support to all students from Elementary through Secondary School, with the ultimate goal of enabling students to acquire knowledge and develop skills in the DP to a high level in order to be successful in our global community. As the acquisition of knowledge and development of skills to a high level leads naturally to the achievement of high scores in the DP, we consider final DP scores to be a barometer that measures student success in the DP.

As of October 2025, there were 5,900 IB schools in the world in 160 countries. In May 2025, 202,103 students from 3,401 schools worldwide took the IB DP exams.

For more information on the IB programs, please visit the IB website at http://www.ibo.org/.

Although KIST provides opportunities for students to engage in a wide range of non-academic pursuits through its after-school clubs and enrichment programs as well as participation in other creative and artistic events and activities throughout the year, we place special emphasis on academic development, particularly in English and mathematics. In order to realize their goals and dreams in the future and contribute to society in meaningful ways, almost all students desire to study at universities and other institutions of higher education after graduating from KIST. Achieving high scores in the DP provides opportunities for students to gain entry to leading universities around the world, regardless of their family background or financial situation.

KIST’s first graduating Grade 12 class was in 2006. For eleven consecutive years since our tenth graduating class in 2015, our graduates have achieved the highest average score out of all schools offering the IB Diploma in Japan. In 2025, our graduates attained an outstanding average score of 42.0 points out of a total of 45 (world average: 30.6 points), In 2019, KIST was ranked for the first time in the IB-schools.com Global Top IB Schools list at number 12, and in subsequent years, reached the top 10, further consolidating KIST’s position as one of the highest ranking IB schools in the world. In the 2025 rankings, KIST reached number 3 in the world, putting it amongst the most prestigious schools in the world. Some of the wide range of universities KIST graduates have attended over the last five years are listed below. Since 2022, an amazing 93% of graduates have entered their first-choice university or college.

• Boston University
• Brown University
• Carnegie Mellon University
• Georgia Tech
• Johns Hopkins University
• Stanford University
• University of California Berkeley/Los Angeles
• University of Chicago
• University of Michigan

• University of British Columbia
• University of Toronto

• Imperial College London
• King’s College London
• LSE
• University of Cambridge
• UCL
• University of Manchester (Medicine)
• University of Nottingham (Medicine)
• University of Oxford

• Juntendo University (Medicine)
• Keio University
• Kyushu University
• Nagoya University
• Science Tokyo (Medicine)
• University of Tokyo
• Waseda University

• CUHK
• HKUST
• KU Leuven
• Nanyang Technological University
• National University of Singapore
• Trinity College Dublin
• University of Amsterdam
• University of Hong Kong
• University of Melbourne
• University of New South Wales
• University of Sydney
• Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar
• Yonsei University

A complete list of university offers and attendances may be viewed on the school website at https://www.kist.ed.jp.