Explore Schools · Taipei

Morrison Academy Taipei

Founded
1961, as Bethany
Status
WASC and ACSI accredited
Grades
K through 12
Curriculum
American with AP
Key Insight

Morrison Taipei runs a roughly 100-student high school inside a 70-year, three-campus system.

Most schools force a choice between intimacy and infrastructure. A small school knows every student by name but runs a thin program. A large school runs everything but can feel anonymous. Morrison Taipei sits in an unusual middle position: the high school holds around 100 students, by the school's own published figures, yet it operates inside the Morrison Academy system, founded in 1952, with sister campuses in Taichung and Kaohsiung, shared accreditation, a common curriculum, and a boarding program at Taichung for the system's upper grades.

That structure has practical consequences for families. A student at Morrison Taipei is in classes small enough that disengagement is visible within a week, while still sitting inside a system that has graduated students into universities for decades. Morrison's published policy allows high school students to request a campus transfer each year, which means a family weighing Taipei day schooling against the Taichung boarding option is choosing between rooms in the same house, not between schools.

The trade is real, and we cover it honestly below: a 100-student high school cannot run thirty Advanced Placement courses, and Morrison does not pretend to. Families choosing Morrison are choosing depth of community over breadth of catalog. The ones who are clear-eyed about that trade tend to be the ones who thrive there.

What We See
The Linkou question

Since January 2020, Morrison Taipei has operated from a purpose-built campus in Linkou District, New Taipei City. For families based in central Taipei, the first practical question is not academic but geographic: Linkou sits northwest of the city, and the school day starts there. Morrison runs its own bus service with multiple pickup points, and the Taoyuan Airport MRT has made the corridor far more connected than it was a decade ago, but a Da'an or Xinyi family should still budget the commute honestly before falling in love with the campus.

The flip side is what the move bought. The Linkou campus is new, large by Taipei international school standards at roughly 25,000 square meters, and built for a full K-12 program with separate learning areas for elementary, middle, and high school. Next to the older campuses of central Taipei, the difference in space is immediate. Linkou itself has become a small cluster of international schooling, with Morrison as its largest and most established anchor, and a growing number of families are choosing to live in the district rather than commute to it.

Our practical advice: treat the campus visit and the commute trial as one trip. Do the morning run from your actual home at the actual hour. The school is worth seeing; the drive is worth knowing.

At a Glance

The essentials

High School Size
~100
Students in grades 9 through 12, per school figures
System
3 campuses
Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung, founded 1952
Location
Linkou
New Taipei City, campus opened January 2020
Accreditation
WASC · ACSI
Jointly accredited since 1977 and 1998 respectively
Eligibility
Foreign passport
Required for all students, per ROC regulation
Faith Life
Required
Bible classes K-12 and weekly chapel, no opt-out
Heritage
From six students in 1961 to a purpose-built campus

The Morrison Academy system was founded in Taichung in 1952 to educate the children of missionary families in Taiwan. The Taipei campus has its own founding story: in 1961, Beverly Zimmerman started Bethany Christian School with six students and two teachers. By the end of its first year it had grown to around fifty students, and in 1967 Bethany joined the Morrison system, becoming its northern campus.

For most of its history the Taipei campus was an elementary and middle school. Bethany operated from a multi-level campus on Ting Chou Road, completed in 1987, near today's Taipower Building MRT station. Ninth grade was added in 1996, and after a January 2013 board decision the campus grew a full high school, adding grades 10 through 12. The constraint was always space: a city campus built in the 1980s could not hold a complete K-12 program.

The answer came in January 2020, when the school relocated to a new campus at 1 Donghu Road in Linkou District and took its current name, Morrison Academy Taipei. The first senior class graduated from Linkou in May 2021. The school is operated by the Morrison Christian Association and is jointly accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, first approved in 1977, and the Association of Christian Schools International, since 1998.

1952
Morrison Academy system founded in Taichung
1961
Bethany Christian School opens in Taipei with six students
1967
Bethany joins the Morrison Academy system
2013
Board approves full high school, grades 10-12
2020
Relocation to the new Linkou campus, renamed Morrison Academy Taipei
2021
First senior class graduates from Linkou, May 2021
Curriculum

American college-prep with a biblical worldview, K through 12

Morrison runs an American curriculum in English from kindergarten through Grade 12, college-preparatory in structure and explicit about its Christian foundation. Families should understand both halves of that sentence before applying.

The academic spine is conventional American college-prep: English language arts, mathematics, sciences, and social studies benchmarked against US standards, with MAP testing in the lower grades tracking progress against American norms. Mandarin is taught daily from kindergarten through Grade 8 and becomes optional in high school. The school serves as a test site for the PSAT, SAT, and ACT.

At the top of the program sit Morrison's five standard Advanced Placement courses: AP Calculus, AP English, AP US History, AP Biology, and AP Chemistry, taught face-to-face from Grade 11. Students seeking AP subjects beyond the standard five can take additional courses online through the school's partnership with an accredited online provider. This is the honest scale trade of a 100-student high school: the core AP pathway is solid and taught in person, and the long tail of electives is outsourced rather than absent.

The faith dimension is structural, not decorative. Bible classes are part of the curriculum at every grade from kindergarten through Grade 12, and weekly chapel attendance is required. Morrison admits students from non-Christian families, and many attend, but the school is explicit that participation in Bible classes and chapel is not optional. A secular family considering Morrison should weigh this as a real feature of their child's weekly life, not a formality.

Academic Results

What Morrison publishes, and what it does not

Morrison Taipei does not publish campus-specific AP score distributions, SAT averages, or a graduating-class profile. We state that plainly rather than dress the section with system-level numbers presented as campus results.

What the school does publish is system-wide: according to Morrison Academy, approximately 97 percent of its graduates across the three campuses continue to higher education, historically with the majority heading to North America. That figure describes the system, of which the Taipei campus has been a full K-12 member only since its first senior class in 2021.

For a family used to reading the data-rich profiles of TAS or the large Asian internationals, the absence of published campus results is a genuine difference, and worth raising directly with admissions. The school points families to its annual report for outcome data, and in our experience admissions offices at small schools tend to discuss recent graduate destinations in concrete terms when asked in person. Ask.

Graduates to Higher Education
~97%
System-wide figure across all three campuses, according to Morrison Academy
Campus AP and SAT Data
Not published
Morrison Taipei does not release campus-specific score distributions
Admissions

How admission to Morrison Taipei works

Morrison runs a single online application across its three campuses, submitted directly to the school. The process is document-and-interview based rather than test-gated, and decisions come back fast by Taipei standards.

Eligibility
A foreign passport is required for every student. Morrison is registered as a foreign school in Taiwan, and ROC regulation restricts enrollment to holders of a non-ROC passport. Children of Taiwanese-heritage families qualify if the child holds a foreign passport. The parents' nationality does not affect admission. Families holding only ROC nationality are not eligible, and the school cannot make exceptions. Holders of PRC, Hong Kong, or Macau passports face additional conditions and should confirm their situation with admissions directly.
What's Assessed
Records, references, and a family interview
Morrison does not gate admission on a standardized entrance exam. The application asks for two years of transcripts in English and two teacher recommendations, followed by a family interview. English-language support policies apply for students still developing academic English, assessed during admissions.
Timeline
Opens November 1, best completed by late March
Applications for the following school year are accepted from November 1, and the school advises completing them by the end of March. Morrison states that decisions typically come within three working days of a completed file, and that it does not operate a traditional waitlist.
Practical Requirements
Residency and documentation
Students must live with a parent or guardian; Morrison Taipei has no boarding, though the system's boarding program operates at the Taichung campus for upper grades. Application documents include passport copies for parent and child alongside the academic records. Our Student Coordinator can walk you through current fees and the application sequence on a consultation call.
Fit

Who this school suits, and who it may not

Based on the school's published profile and what the structure of the program rewards. Morrison's distinctives are unusually legible: the scale, the faith life, and the location each filter clearly.

Often suits
Families with these orientations
  • Families wanting American curriculum at small scale. A high school of around 100 students means teachers know every student, and a struggling or coasting student is visible early. Families leaving larger schools often name this as the draw.
  • Christian families, or families comfortable with required faith life. For families seeking education with a biblical worldview, Morrison is the most established option in northern Taiwan, with seven decades of system history behind it.
  • Families in the Linkou corridor, or open to it. For families living in Linkou, Guishan, or along the Airport MRT line, Morrison is the anchor international school of a growing local cluster, on the newest campus of any school in this guide.
  • Families who value the three-campus system. Annual campus-transfer requests and the Taichung boarding option give Morrison families flexibility that standalone schools cannot offer, useful when work or family circumstances move.
May not suit as well
Families with these orientations
  • Secular families uncomfortable with mandatory chapel. Bible classes run K through 12 and weekly chapel is required, with no opt-out. Morrison welcomes non-Christian families, but the faith life is structural. Families who would find this a tension should weigh it honestly.
  • Students wanting a broad AP catalog. Five standard AP courses are taught face-to-face, with further subjects online. A student aiming to stack eight or ten APs across niche subjects will find TAS's larger catalog a better structural fit.
  • Families without a foreign passport. ROC-only nationals are not eligible, without exception. Families in this position looking at American-style curriculum should look at bilingual departments such as Fuhsing, or experimental institutions, instead.
  • Families anchored to central Taipei. The campus gained space by leaving the city. A family in Da'an or Xinyi unwilling to relocate or commit to the bus run may find the daily logistics wear over time.
Harland for Morrison Families

How we work with Morrison Taipei families

Morrison's admissions process is document-and-interview based, which changes what preparation means. There is no entrance exam to cram for; there is a file to make strong and an academic transition to be ready for.

01
Making the file strong
Two years of transcripts and two teacher recommendations carry the application. For students moving from Taiwanese or bilingual schooling, we work on the academic English that makes current schoolwork, and therefore current grades and references, stronger. The file improves because the student did.
02
Landing in an all-English classroom
Morrison's curriculum assumes English across every subject from day one. Students who build academic reading and writing before entry land on their feet; students who arrive cold spend the first semester catching up. Our content-based learning approach builds that readiness through real subject material, not isolated drills.
03
The AP years
Morrison's five core AP subjects, Calculus, English, US History, Biology, and Chemistry, map directly onto Harland's AP program with subject-specialist teachers. For students adding online AP electives beyond the core five, 1-on-1 support matters even more, since online courses offer less day-to-day teacher contact.
Other options worth knowing about

Schools Morrison Taipei families also consider

The schools that most often share a shortlist with Morrison: the other American Christian option in the city, and the large secular benchmark every American-curriculum family compares against.

Considering Morrison Taipei for your family?

A consultation with our Student Coordinator is the fastest way to think the decision through with someone who is not trying to sell you the school. We can talk through the application file, the academic English transition, the Linkou logistics, or how Morrison compares with the other schools on your shortlist. We start by listening.

Start the conversation Message us on LINE
Last updated · May 2026 · Source data: Morrison Academy published materials (ma.org.tw, taipei.ma.org.tw), WASC and ACSI accreditation records