Finland · Helsinki
This is a City of Helsinki lukio, not a private IB campus. The Finnish-language line sits on Kalevankatu. The IB line sits on Ruoholahdenkatu. The 2026 joint application closed on 17 March. For most families upper secondary is still free. From 1 August 2026 the city prints a third-country fee.
Este retrato ainda está em inglês. As outras línguas chegam escola a escola.
Currículo como a escola o publica:Finnish lukio / ylioppilastutkinto · IB Diploma Programme
Línguas de ensino:Finnish (yleislinja), English (IB line)
Ressun lukio is a City of Helsinki upper secondary, not a private international campus. Official English page hel.fi — Ressun lukio. Finnish home hel.fi — Ressun lukio. The English page’s own sentence: two programmes — a Finnish-language line on the national curriculum, and an English-language IB Diploma Programme.
Two doors you can actually picture. The Finnish line’s street address on the English page: Kalevankatu 8–10, 00100 Helsinki. Postal box 10304. Opening hours printed there: Monday–Thursday 7.30–17.30, Friday 7.30–17.00. The IB house’s street address on the Finnish IB contact page: Ruoholahdenkatu 23, 00180 Helsinki. Postal box PL 18304, 00099 Helsingin kaupunki. Same weekday hours.
It is co-ed. It is a day school. The IB from-abroad page is blunt: not a boarding school. Students live with their families. They must have a guardian in Finland. The school cannot arrange accommodation or visas.
It is not the International School of Helsinki. It is not SYK. It is not The English School. If a pack says “the Helsinki IB,” ask which legal name is on the place, and which building you would actually walk to.
The useful questions are Finnish. Is this child applying to the yleislinja for the ylioppilastutkinto, or to the IB preparatory year on Opintopolku? Does the family already live in Greater Helsinki with a guardian, or is someone hoping a sixteen-year-old can arrive alone? And have you read the city’s third-country lukio sentence for studies starting 1 August 2026 — because “public” is no longer the same invoice for every passport?
A municipal lukio in the centre, with a science emphasis the Finnish home page names (tiedepainotus), and an IB line that the city treats as a special task. The Finnish home: about 900 students. The Finnish apply page: 200 starting places on the yleislinja. The IB apply page: 120 students a year into the preparatory year that precedes the two-year Diploma; at least 95 from Finnish comprehensive schools; an extra quota of up to 25 from other countries or school systems.
It will suit a family who want a City of Helsinki Monday, a Finnish leaving paper or an IB paper, and who already understand that this is yhteishaku, not OpenApply. It will not suit a family who need English from preschool, a rolling August file, or a bed. Walk ISH if that is the climate. They share Ruoholahti air and almost no admissions story.
The English apply page’s spring 2026 count, printed after the window closed: 536 applicants for the 120 Year 10 / preparatory places. Of those, 135 applied for the maximum 25 discretionary places — applicants coming from other school systems than the Finnish comprehensive school.
ISH is a fee-paying IB continuum from the early years in the same Ruoholahti neighbourhood. Ressu’s IB starts after peruskoulu. The from-abroad page names ISH and the European School as houses that are not Finnish comprehensive schools — those applicants sit in the discretionary quota, not in the GPA queue.
SYK is a Finnish private sopimuskoulu with its own IB line and a printed sentence that it does not charge pupil fees. Ressu is a city lukio. Same family of IB paper. Different legal maintainer.
The English School finishes with the national matriculation, not the IB. Ressu’s Finnish line does that too. Ressu’s IB line does not.
A child who wants to move to Finland alone is not a Ressu applicant. The from-abroad page says so twice. Exchange-year hunters are also refused.
Kalevankatu is central Helsinki — museums, the railway station, a Tuesday you can walk. Ruoholahdenkatu 23 is the modernised IB house the Finnish “tutustu” page names, with laboratories. Time both from the flat you will actually rent. They are not the same tram stop.
The Finnish home: science visits, special courses, international cooperation, competitions, and hobby life that is scientific, artistic and communal. We will not invent a bus. Ask.
The English apply page’s Open Doors for the IB section, already held for the 2026 intake, sat in the ground-floor cafeteria at Ruoholahdenkatu 23: 8 January 14:00, 15 January 15:30, 20 January 14:00, 2 February 15:00. The Finnish-line open doors sat in the Kalevankatu festive hall. Those dates are history now. Ask the live page for the next January.
The Finnish home, as a news line: school starts Wednesday 12 August 2026. The office closed 24 June–4 August 2026. Write before you assume someone answers in July.
This is Opintopolku, not a school portal.
Finnish line (yleislinja). The Finnish apply page: 200 places. Joint application 17 February 2026, 8:00 to 17 March 2026, 15:00. Paper applications had to reach the Finnish National Agency for Education by the same 15:00. Studies begin autumn 2026. Names of those offered a place: school home page, 11 June 2026, 8:00. Accept on Opintopolku as soon as the link arrives; latest 25 June 2026, 15:00. New students received an electronic subject-choice card the same day. If you cannot confirm, the page names virka-apulaisrehtori Veli-Pekka Lehtinen, 050 570 7627. Be present on the first day in August 2026, or write him. Absence without contact can lose the place.
The city’s upper-secondary apply page reprints Vipunen minimum averages. For 2026 it prints 9.54 for Ressun lukio’s general programme and 9.08 for the IB programme. Those are last-admitted figures the city published, not a promise for 2027. The Finnish apply page still also prints the 2025 yleislinja floor of 9.62. Read the year on the cell.
Applicants with a foreign certificate to the Finnish line use discretionary admission through the same Opintopolku window. The rehtori decides. Attach certificate copies, an official Finnish translation, and anything else you want weighed. The city runs a centralised Finnish-language mapping for those applicants. We will not invent a pass mark.
IB preparatory year. The English apply page: 17 February–17 March 2026, Opintopolku by 15:00 on the last day. No entrance examination. Finnish-comprehensive applicants are chosen on the GPA of academic subjects. Applicants without a Finnish comprehensive leaving certificate choose “applying with a non-Finnish educational background,” then upload previous grades and the school’s extra forms.
From abroad, the dedicated page: maximum 25 places; usually over 100 applicants. Need for an English-language place in Greater Helsinki is weighed. Documents: Opintopolku, the school application form, the school’s appraisal form, and the latest report — upload or mail. Admissions coordinator on the apply page: tiina.nurmi@edu.hel.fi. The Finnish IB contact page names the same person as opiskelijaksiotto and Pre-DP coordinator, +358 9 310 82192.
Results: names of admitted students on the website the morning of 11 June 2026, plus email. Finnish-comprehensive admits accept via Opintopolku, latest 25 June 2026, 15:00. Applicants from abroad or from ISH / the European School: reply to the email and accept on Opintopolku before 10:00 on 12 June 2026 if possible; still no later than 25 June. First day in August 2026 matters. The apply page names deputy principal Pia-Helena Bär, pia-helena.bar(at)hel.fi, +358 40 821 8662, if something large goes wrong.
Everyone who passes the pre-year courses with acceptable grades, the admission policy says, can proceed to the Diploma programme. During that year they meet the DP subjects this house actually teaches, then choose.
DP1 without the pre-year. Only if seats free. First deadline 17 March 2026. The school expects 1–5 places in a typical spring; spring 2025 saw over 70 applications for DP1. Applications stay valid until August if more seats appear. Send the two forms, the latest report, and a choice of six IB DP subjects this school offers. Ask the coordinator. We will not invent a vacancy.
For most families this is still a free upper secondary under Finland’s extended compulsory education. The apply page’s own block: education and school meals, textbooks, supplies, and the first sitting of the leaving exams are free until the student turns 20 or graduates. Journeys longer than seven kilometres can be funded by Kela. The city buys learning materials centrally.
That is not the whole 2026 story.
From 1 August 2026 the City of Helsinki prints tuition fees for third-country students — students who arrive from countries other than EU member states, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Switzerland, who start studies on or after that date, and who arrive in Finland or have been granted a residence permit for studies. The city’s own table, on the general upper-secondary apply page the IB apply page points to:
| Path | Per academic year (VAT 0%) |
|---|---|
| National general upper secondary education | EUR 10,600 |
| IB Diploma Programme | EUR 14,000 |
The same page says the fee covers instruction and guidance, a free meal on days the curriculum requires presence, learning materials, and the first five exams of the matriculation examination or the IB Diploma. Student welfare, learning support and special-needs education remain available.
It does not apply, the city lists, if the student is a third-country citizen permanently living in the EEA; is an exchange student who will not complete a Finnish qualification; is receiving temporary protection; or (on the vocational page) arrives for apprenticeship training with an employment residence permit.
Ask which box this child sits in before you budget either “free” or €14,000. We will not invent a sibling discount, a lunch extra, or a 2027 figure. Migri keeps the residence-permit rules.
The English Kalevankatu page names Veli-Pekka Lehtinen as principal, 050 570 7627 / +358 9 310 82120, veli-pekka.lehtinen(at)hel.fi, and school secretary Anna-Kaisa Santala, +358 9 310 21585. The Finnish IB contact page names Ari Huovinen as rehtori, +358 9 310 20250 / 050 307 9529, ari.huovinen(at)hel.fi; Pia-Helena Bär as IB rehtori, +358 9 310 32437; Karoliina Puumalainen as IB DP coordinator, +358 9 310 32550; Tiina Nurmi for admissions and Pre-DP; and Tarja Ryan on the IB kanslia, +358 9 310 82122. The Finnish apply page still names Lehtinen as the person to call if a place cannot be confirmed. We will not flatten those lines into one org chart. Write the address you mean.
The Finnish line: the ylioppilastutkinto. The city’s own reminder: those exams can only be sat in Finnish or Swedish.
The IB line: the IB Diploma, after the preparatory year. The admission policy: special attention, for discretionary applicants, to Mathematics, English and the mother tongue / first language.
A child cannot treat Ressu as ISH with a municipal invoice. The paper, the language, and the building are different.
Ask whether this is a Kalevankatu Finnish file or a Ruoholahdenkatu IB file — those are two Tuesdays. Ask whether this child holds a Finnish comprehensive certificate, or sits in the 25 discretionary chairs with ISH and European School applicants. Ask who the guardian in Finland actually is. Ask which third-country box applies from 1 August 2026, and whether the invoice would be €10,600 or €14,000. Ask how much Finnish a shy sixteen-year-old will really have by the second spring if the classroom is English. Ask what happens if the posting ends in November: this is a Finnish school year, not a rolling international.
We are not ranking Ressu against ISH or SYK. We are not guessing a 2027 GPA floor.
Read the live IB apply page and the city’s third-country fee page before you resign a flat. This is a map. The school still has to be the right Tuesday.
Páginas e documentos oficiais que lemos. Se um número importa para o orçamento ou a candidatura, abram o link e confirmem que ainda vale.
Orientação amiga, não uma candidatura. Datas, propinas e programas mexem-se. Confirmem tudo com a escola.
Helsinki is not one international campus. It is a Finnish city where peruskoulu is the default, plus six official doors posting families name. Ask which paper the child will hold at eighteen.
15 minAs letras do diploma importam. Não são a criança inteira. Aqui vai como distingui-las sem dor de cabeça, e sem fingir que todas as portas continuam abertas.
16 minNão precisam de um algoritmo perfeito. Precisam de algumas verdades sobre o vosso filho, uma lista aborrecida no frigorífico, e a coragem de ignorar um campus bonito que não serve.
15 minAs propinas são o número da página inicial. O PDF é o que chega em Março. Aqui vai como ler o segundo, sem inventar um euro, uma coroa ou um prazo.