SNA Marianapolis International School
Bien Hoa, Vietnam · est. 2020 · PrivateKey facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
NEASC · candidateCollege Board · authorised programmeNguyen Hoang Group · school is part of the networkInternational Schools of North America (SNA) · school is part of the networkWhat stands behind each entry
An American accreditation working since 1885. For international schools it uses an approach where the visitors look first at live lessons rather than at folders of paperwork: the team works in the school for about a week. It is the only one here whose public directory honestly separates accredited schools from candidates.
What the badge means for this school. The school is a candidate for accreditation by this organisation: the route has been started but not completed. Candidacy speaks of an application made and a file accepted for consideration, not of the outcome of an inspection, and the organisations themselves usually require schools to say that it does not guarantee accreditation. The candidacy is confirmed in the organisation's open directory.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →An American organisation that allows a school to put the letters AP on a pupil's transcript. The permission is granted course by course and tied to a particular teacher, it has to be renewed every year, and College Board reads the course syllabus before granting it.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run advanced AP courses - not the school as a whole, but one by one: by subject and by teacher. Governance, safeguarding and the primary years are not part of that check. Which subjects are actually approved is visible in the ledger. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →Advanced Placement: American advanced courses for the senior years. The exam for a course is set and marked by the College Board, not by the school. A good result is counted by American universities as a first-year course already passed, which saves a student time and money.
What this means for this school. A school does not get to call a course AP automatically: the College Board reads the course syllabus and approves it separately for every subject and every teacher, and the permission has to be renewed each year. Every approved school in the world is listed in the open AP Course Ledger, and this school's entry there stands as a line in the accreditation block above. How many courses a school is approved for, and in which subjects, the ledger does not show in its general listing. AP has no leaving certificate of its own: it sits on top of the school's main programme rather than being a separate system.
Nguyen Hoang Group, in Vietnamese Tập đoàn Nguyễn Hoàng, is a Vietnamese private education group founded in 1999, with its head office in Ho Chi Minh City. Its own site describes it as having grown into an investment institution working in three directions: education, healthcare and technology. The members section lists nine members. Five universities: Hong Bang International University (1997), Hoa Sen University (1991), Gia Dinh University, Ba Ria-Vung Tau University (2006) and Mien Dong Technology University (2013). Three school systems: International Schools of North America (2005, grades 1 to 12), the bilingual UK Academy (2016, from kindergarten to secondary school) and iSchool (2008, sites in 14 provinces and cities, some 48,500 pupils). Plus the charitable foundation Bông Hồng Nhỏ. The site gives no overall number of schools, campuses or pupils for the group. It does not separate ownership, management and franchise: the members of the group are called simply members, and the legal form of the connection is not described.
What this means for this school. The network owns or operates the school. Its accreditation and programme authorisation the school obtains separately, in its own name.
International Schools of North America, SNA for short, is a school brand and system within the Nguyen Hoang group: its own site calls it a member of the group outright, and the site of the second campus describes that campus as the result of a collaboration between the American Marianapolis Preparatory School and the Nguyen Hoang group. Neither of the sites draws a distinction between ownership, management and franchise. The year of foundation is 2005. There are two campuses. The first, Saigon South, has worked in Ho Chi Minh City since 2005, teaching grades 1 to 12, with the full IB continuum - PYP, MYP and DP; the site states that in 2022 the school became the sixth in Vietnam with authorisation for the whole continuum, and names membership of CIS and WASC. The second, SNA Marianapolis, opened in 2021 in Bien Hoa in Dong Nai province, is called the first fully international school in the province and the second branch of Marianapolis Preparatory School; its programme is American with AP courses, not IB. The SNA site describes the stages as running from pre-school to upper secondary school, while the group's site speaks of teaching from grade 1 to grade 12; we give both. The language of instruction is English.
What this means for this school. The network owns or operates the school. Its accreditation and programme authorisation the school obtains separately, in its own name.