Hsinchu and its Science Park draw thousands of international and returnee families, and the city's schools are built around them. But unlike most places, the schools here sort families by a hard rule before fit or preference enters: who each school is allowed to admit. This guide starts there.
Most cities let a family weigh schools on curriculum, culture, and fit. Hsinchu does too, but only after a prior question is settled, because its schools fall into three groups defined by who they admit. The foreign schools require a foreign passport. The experimental academy is open to Taiwanese nationals without one. And the public bilingual school at the Science Park admits only the children of qualifying Park, research-institute, and university employees.
For a family, this means the shortlist is shaped before preference is. A foreign-passport family has one set of options, a Taiwanese-national family a different one, and a Science Park employee family a third. The comparison below sorts the five schools we cover by exactly that, so a family can see at a glance which doors are open to them before reading any further.
Find the row that matches your family, then read across. A school open to you is worth comparing on fit; a school closed to you can be set aside, however appealing. Eligibility is the gate; everything else follows.
| Your family | HISforeign school | HASforeign school | PASforeign school | HIAexperimental | IBSHpublic, Park |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Foreign-passport family, not a Park employee | Open | Open | Open | Open | Closed unless Park-employed |
| Taiwanese-national family, ROC passport only, not a Park employee | Closed | Closed | Closed | Open | Closed unless Park-employed |
| Science Park, ITRI, or university employee family | If foreign passport | If foreign passport | If foreign passport | Open | Open by exam, then lottery |
| Local family, ROC passport only, not a Park employee | Closed | Closed | Closed | Open | Closed |
The three gates: foreign schools (HIS, HAS, PAS) require a non-ROC passport; the experimental academy (HIA) is open to Taiwanese nationals with no passport or employer requirement; the public bilingual school (IBSH) admits only the children of qualifying Science Park, government, ITRI, and university employee families, by national regulation, with a language entrance examination and a lottery when places are oversubscribed. IBSH is also, despite its name, an American AP school, not an International Baccalaureate one. Each school's own page covers the detail.
Each guide covers one school in depth: its heritage, curriculum, results, admissions, and the families it suits. Listed below with the gate that decides who can apply.
The city's oldest international school, founded by Philips in 1981 and still led by its founding family. Small, settled, with a distinctive arts and music thread, and a purpose-built campus in Xiangshan.
Read the HIS guide →An American school on the Chung Hua University campus, with whole-school grades 1 to 12 accreditation, a math and science emphasis, and access to university theater, gym, pool, and track.
Read the HAS guide →The project-based, STEAM-focused school in Zhubei, with robotics, AI, and sustainability programs and an international VEX competition record. The premium, innovation-led option in the cluster.
Read the PAS guide →The newer Zhubei experimental academy open to Taiwanese nationals without a foreign passport, backed by the established STAR Korrnell group, with a county-recognized experimental-education credential.
Read the HIA guide →The public, bilingual school at the Science Park, reserved for qualifying Park, ITRI, and university employee families. An accredited American AP program at public-school cost, with substantial Chinese throughout. Not, despite the name, an IB school.
Read the IBSH guide →A scan-level comparison across founded date, curriculum, grade range, location, and the one feature each school is most distinctive for. Each school's full guide carries the deeper picture, and the eligibility table above is where to start.
| HIS | HAS | PAS | HIA | IBSH | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Founded | 1981 | 2004 | 2007 | 2022 | 1983 |
| Curriculum | American, AP | American, AP | American, AP, project-based | American, AP | American, AP, bilingual |
| Grade range | PreK to 12 | 1 to 12 | 1 to 12 | 7 to 12 | 1 to 12 |
| Location | Xiangshan, Hsinchu City | Xiangshan, Hsinchu City | Zhubei | Zhubei | Science Park |
| Eligibility | Foreign passport | Foreign passport | Foreign passport | Open to ROC nationals | Employer-gated |
| Distinctive for | Heritage and the arts | University-campus facilities | Robotics and STEAM | The Taiwanese-national path | Public-school value |
Harland is based in Taipei, and we teach Hsinchu families the same way we teach families across roughly eight countries: 1-on-1, online, with the same subject specialists. For a Science Park family, that means the entrance examinations, the AP courses, and the university preparation these schools lead toward are all within reach, wherever in Hsinchu you are.
These guides reflect publicly available information about each school, gathered and checked against the schools' own sources. Where a guide states a fact about a school, it is drawn from that school's own materials or other published sources, attributed accordingly. Hsinchu is newer territory for our coverage than Taipei, and we have written each guide to be useful and honest about what is and is not established, particularly for the city's newest schools.
Our Student Coordinator speaks with Hsinchu families regularly, and can help you work out which schools are open to you, how their entrance assessments work, and how to prepare, all before you visit. We work with Hsinchu families remotely.
We cover the five international and bilingual schools in Hsinchu City and Zhubei that serve the Science Park community most directly. Other local and bilingual schools in the area are not covered here; we recommend families considering them speak directly with parents currently enrolled.
Published June 2026 by Harland Academic Leadership. Each individual school guide carries its own update date. We refresh this index when coverage expands or when school-level facts change materially.