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University Guidance & Careers

Sixth Form pupils in classroom

Pupils in the Senior School, and especially in the Sixth Form, take part in a full programme of activities to prepare them for applications to universities and for life beyond St. Paul’s. The programme includes lectures, workshops, talks by former pupils, as well as individual assessment and career guidance provided by the tried and tested Morrisby Psychometric Testing.

When they complete the secondary stage of their education, Pauleans leave the school fully prepared for the challenges of further study.

Pupils have the opportunity to attend practice for the ACT (American College Testing) and SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) examinations on Saturdays, to help them prepare to enter top universities. There is also one period in their timetable dedicated to university guidance, where representatives of leading British, American, European and Canadian universities provide advice on the vast available array of courses and their application procedures. Every year there are two university and professional guidance fairs where pupils can speak personally to directors of admissions. This all allows our pupils to make informed and fitting decisions about their futures.

Exams' results

IB Diploma Programme

In July, along with more than 170,000 other pupils throughout the globe, our 2021-22 Upper Sixth leavers celebrated their excellent results in the IB Diploma Programme. The average score of St. Paul's pupils achieving the IB Diploma is 34.6 points, higher than in 2019, before the pandemic, and when pupils sat their exams under the same conditions. Given that this cohort has endured having to study almost half of their IB courses online, and that they did not take IGCSE exams two years ago, we are proud about the excellent results and overall scores.   
Some 13% of the individual grades were 7s and we are especially proud of our seven high fliers who scored 40 or more points out of a possible maximum of 45. Across the board the results were excellent.  The top score in each subject is 7 and some subjects have done exceptionally well with high proportions of 6 and 7 grades. They all deserve our congratulations for their efforts and success.   
 

IGCSEs

In August 2022, it was the time to celebrate some of the best numbers in the school’s last five years in the Cambridge IGCSEs. Sixty-two per cent of our 2021-22 Form 5s pupils’ grades were A*-A, and 35% were A*. This is St. Paul’s best result for many years, quite possibly ever, which includes the pandemic period, when pupils had no exams. Overall, 85% of the grades are A*-B. These figures cover 81 candidates – one of our largest ever cohorts. This is a remarkable achievement, and every pupil is to be congratulated on their individual success!  
It has been a most demanding year for pupils. All of them have worked extremely hard to overcome the pandemic’s many challenges, in order to obtain their qualifications and advance with their next educational steps.  

News about our results

For more information on St. Paul's School exam results and leavers' destination, read our school profile:

Read our school profile 

Leavers' Destinations

St. Paul’s graduates enroll in three or four-year courses at colleges or universities. High academic standards are maintained throughout all academic years. Below is a list of our pupils' destinations over the past five years:

UNITED KINGDOM (Bath, Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Central Saint Martins, City University of London, Durham, Edinburgh, Imperial College, Kent, King's College London, London School of Economics, Nottingham, Oxford, Queen Mary, Royal Holloway, St. Andrews, Surrey, University of the Arts London, Warwick).

THE UNITED STATES and CANADA (Babson, Boston University, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon, Chicago, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, École des Hautes Études commerciales de Montréal, Georgetown, Georgia Institute of Technology, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, McGill, Notre Dame, NYU, Pepperdine, Princeton, Savannah College of Art and Design, Skidmore, Stanford, Stony Brook University, Swarthmore College, Syracuse Parsons, Toronto, Tufts, UBC, UC at Berkeley, UCLA, University of Pennsylvania, USC, Vanderbilt, Yale, Yale-NUS).

CONTINENTAL EUROPE (Bocconi University, Delft University of Technology, Erasmus University, ESADE Business School, IE University - Madrid, Luiss Guido Carli University, Trinity College, University of Amsterdam, University of Gronigen, Utrecht University).

BRAZIL (Fundação Getúlio Vargas, INSPER, Mackenzie, Pontifícia Universidade Católica (PUC), University of São Paulo).

St. Paul’s Mentorship and Work Shadowing Programme

The St. Paul’s Mentorship and Work Shadowing Programme provides opportunities for our community to come together and connect young Pauleans leaving the school with talents and resources within the school. It aims to enrich mentors and mentees alike through a mutually beneficial experience, and equip our pupils with transferable skills for their first steps in the world beyond the school.

Our community has a vast number of successful professionals spanning myriad fields, parents and Old Pauleans, in Brazil and overseas. It is only natural that our pupils and young professionals should take advantage of this talented network to help them with mentorship and work shadowing experience before applying to colleges and universities.

One of the IB programme’s aims is to offer pupils the chance to experience professional opportunities in areas of interest before they apply to colleges or universities. The mentorship scheme also provides ample scope to collect primary data in real working environments, to inform the Extended Essay, a crucial element of the IB programme.

For mentors, this programme is a chance to inspire our young Pauleans with transferable skills and knowledge, and to “give back”, by deepening their connections with the school community.

“This [mentorship programme] experience gave me insight into what it is like to work in the business field, which further convinced me that a Business Management university degree is a suitable fit for me. It also motivated me to research more about entrepreneurship, which led me to reintroduce the TED club at my school”, said Sofia (class of 2021) - photo below.

“This experience showed me the amount of preparation and studying that goes in before contacting these companies. This internship was a great opportunity to see what work is like within a real company and for me to see what practices work. Having more companies offer internships for students would allow us to learn what life is like working within the industries we’re more likely to apply to”, said Saul (class of 2021) - photo below.

University Guidance Team

Dr Barry Hallinan
Dr Barry Hallinan

Senior Master & Director of University Guidance

Mr Augusto Neto
Mr Augusto Neto

Assistant Director of University Guidance & Scholarship Mentor

Dr Shellida Viegas
Dr Shellida Viegas

Advisor for Brazilian University Entry