Hi
I am new to this forum. I am looking for some information as I may move to Shanghai next year for work. I have 2 kids, currently in 5th and 9th grade. They are US citizens and currently going to American School in Japan. It appears that SAS is the one that fits our needs the best, although there seem to be quite a long waiting list from what I can read in this forum.

There are 2 SAS campuses in Shanghai, Puxi and Pudong. I get the impression that Puxi is the main campus, while Pudong is in the process of being expanded to accept students in upper grades, and therefore has more spots available. The question is - is there a real difference between Puxi and Pudong campus, in terms of the curriculum, quality of education or school experience? Pudong would be more convenient for me since my office is there, but school situation may end up being the ultimate decision maker in whether I'll be moving to Shanghai or not.

If this has been already discussed to death, please PM me. I read quite a few threads but I could not find an anwser to this. Thanks in advance.

I have kids at SAS PUXI and the biggest difference you will see between the two campuses is number of kids in each grade. The school is making a big effort for the campuses to be similar - curriculum alignment, same athletic conference starting next year, etc. Quite a few of the Puxi teachers went over to the Pudong campus to help start up the high school - 2008 will be their first graduating class with around 50 graduates (compared to the PUXI senior class of around 150). The current 9th grade class in Pudong has 120 students, so catching up to the Puxi campus very quickly.

Feel free to PM me with any specific questions.

I am curious....most students on the wait list for Puxi are encouraged to agreed to go to the Pudong campus first so they get into the line of "transfer students" which gets a priority than new students. Mostly after travelling for at least a semester, the students often get spots in Puxi, then they move to Puxi campus. Pudong becomes like a "parking school". Is this not disruptive to constantly have such high turnover of students all through the year?

chinatown, since your children are US citizen, your waiting line is considerably shorter.

Thanks both of you.
hautumncloud, I heard about this "parking school" reference before. Does this mean then being in Pudong is somehow less desirable than being in Puxi? If you were in Pudong and a spot opens up in Puxi, should you move?

Most of the moving to Puxi has come either due to geographical reasons (parents work and live in Puxi) or having kids in the high school grades because the high school at Pudong is very new. SAS Puxi has a very strong reputation and graduates go on to some top universitites. But as I mention in my previous post there are 120 kids in 9th grade at Pudong - that's big enough to set the stage for equal numbers in the future. I suspect in the long run Pudong will actually take over Puxi as the larger of the two since so many people work in Pudong these days.
When we moved here 4 years ago Pudong did not have high school so we chose to live in HongQiao and do the commute both ways - kids to Puxi, husband to Pudong. If we were coming now with kids in 10th grade or younger I would go to the Pudong campus for sure. They have some great teachers, equal resources, strong admin support and are now building the critical mass of students that they need to offer the same type of environment (competitive sports teams, lots of extracurricular opportunities, etc.).
If you will work in Pudong then it's definitely a good choice.

Even by Pudong standards, though, it's WAY out there. It takes us 35-45 minutes to get from our apartment near Century Park to the SAS campus and that's on a Saturday morning with little traffic.

chinatown wrote:Thanks both of you.
hautumncloud, I heard about this "parking school" reference before. Does this mean then being in Pudong is somehow less desirable than being in Puxi? If you were in Pudong and a spot opens up in Puxi, should you move?

chinatown, The students who do the "parking" are those living in Puxi and they commute more than one hour each way to Pudong while waiting for their spots in Puxi. There are more expats in my opinion living in the Puxi area, thus the demand on the Puxi campus but Pudong is a new area getting filled with expats as well.

Agree with sbergman, SAS Pudong is way way at the east tip of Pudong. To get there from many expat compounds in Pudong itself is not near unless you specifically find the compounds close to SAS Pudong which will likely be away from offices in Pudong (Lujiazhiu?) meaning that the hubby will have to travel a little?

tnmom has given quite an insight to both the campuses.

It is indeed Lujiazui. I think I need to get more familiar with the geography first! I get a feeling that navigating around the city is gonig to be quite a challenge...

Oh, don't worry about that. Finding your way around Shanghai isn't bad at all. Find a decent map and figure out where work will be and how you/he will be getting there. Then choose a school and then look for housing. There's plenty of good housing around so that should be the least difficult thing to find. If you won't have a driver, taxis are plentiful and the subway is a great way to go until you feel more comfortable giving directions. Most of the schools offer good shuttle service as do many of the living compounds. I'm a big fan of the subway - it will get you to most anywhere you need to be and usually faster than driving. Plus you don't have to have the harrowing experience of watching Shanghai traffic.

Find a decent map and figure out where work will be and how you/he will be getting there.

Of course neither SAS campus is really on any map of Shanghai - they are both so far out of the way that they have to be put in an inset square in the map if they are shown at all! The whole where to live/work/go to school issue can get quite complicated if you are particular about housing or schooling.

Does anyone know what housing opportunities are around SAS Pudong? The only one I came across is the high profile golf club. Is there affortable housing out there?

I've been looking in that area a bit as well. In the Zhangjiang area there is Tomson Golf Villas and Tomson Garden which are more like condo units. There are a few newer villa areas about 25 minutes from Pudong SAS--San Marino Bridge and Palm Springs Villas.

Of course there is Jin Qiao which everyone seems to live in. The commute is about 30 minutes by car. Lots of kids at Seasons Villas, Green Court/Hills/Villas. I really liked Pudong Century Garden for the beautiful park views, but those are apartment units and may not be large enough for a big family.