13+ entry independent school - trying to understand "conditional offer"

[Tandissimo]

We are working overseas and reaching the end of the road with education in our current country, so are looking at sending dd1 (12) to board in the UK from year 9 (Sept 2015.)

Her favoured school has made a "conditional offer" dependent on entrance exams and an interview, as a result of meeting her and receiving her (excellent) school reports.

Knowing that she's never been in the UK system and not receiving tutoring, we've applied to several other schools too. But when talking to a friend at a UK prep school recently, she said that 13+ is a rather different entrance procedure to 11+ (where many people apply to multiple schools) and the school making the conditional offer will be fairly committed to taking her, unless she really messes up in the exams, and at this level of entry, most families are working towards one school, not casting a wide net.

At the end of the day, it probably doesn't make much difference, as she's not guaranteed the place, so we do need to go through all the other exams too, but I wondered whether anyone else could share their experiences? Thank you.

[TheLovelyBoots]

This may be a case of the blind leading the blind, but here's how I understand it (note: I have a boy, it might be slightly different for girls).

You take an 11+ exam and then on this basis you are granted entry provided you score within a certain range on the common entrance exam, which you take at 13. I believe that the (vast?) majority of children who are given such offers go on to pass the CE, it's unusual to not meet the requirements because of the relative difficulty of the 11+.

To add some complexity to the matter, I think you are only allowed to sit CE for one school. If this school rejects you, I believe your head teacher can "shop" your child's CE results around to other schools informally.

I'd really love for someone else to explain this better.

[OwlCapone]

DSs school has their own 13+ entrance exam plus interviews etc. I think theirs is the opposite way to yours in that they have to pass the exam first and then they are interviewed. I've only ever done the 11+entry though.

[OwlCapone]

I think that boys here tend to apply to more than one school at 13 + though.

[TheLovelyBoots]

I think most do apply to more than one, but you can only "assign" your CE results to one. This is what my son's tutor told me.

I think this might be for the ring of public schools.

[jebzmum]

The normal route to indies for girls is at 11+. In this set up the girls can apply to lots of schools and sit the entrance exams (usually set by the schools, not a centralised exam) and then you can pick the school you want from the offers you receive.


The 13+ is very different. This is the standard point of entry for boys.

Typically you pick one school and will receive either an unconditional offer (rare in the extreme), a conditional offer (conditional on doing well in the CE Exam) or be turned down.

The Common Entrance exam differs from the 11+ indie entry for girls in that it is one exam which you must sit for your chosen school. So it's not likely that you will be able to apply for, and sit the CE for, multiple schools.

Your daughter will be expected to sit the Common Entrance exam (at the school which has made the offer) and then be interviewed.

If she does well in her exam then she will receive an offer. But it does happen that, for whatever reason, the exam doesn't go well and the school can turn you down at this stage. Normally this triggers a mad ringing around by the head of the prep school to sort out a place somewhere for your child.

In your case you have two issues to deal with:

• your child hasn't had preparation for the specific topics of the CE exams, and
  
• you don't have a local prep school head to help out through the process.
  

This book might help - it's really detailed on the topic of independent school entry. amzn.to/1uu4bCH

Good luck... I hope things go well for you and your daughter.

[mikulkin]

I have a boy who is 13 now and went through this. You apply to several schools but once you approach common entrance exam you need to choose one and sit the exam for that school. Usually it is very small chance that you won't pass. The current school monitors your performance and advices if any concerns early enough to choose the right school.
In you case however since your dd is overseas student most schools ask to sit their own exam since she doesn't go through general common entrance exam. In this case you can apply and sit such exams in as many schools as you want. If I were you I would have given them a call to confirm if they mean their own exam, since dd is an overseas student.
My DS was only educated in British system for 3 years before sitting common entrance exam and some schools allowed us to choose if we want to be treated as overseas student.

[Tandissimo]

Thank you all for your explanations and good wishes.

Just to clarify: we have visited all four schools. They have all accepted our applications and given us dates for the exams - and they are all the schools' own entrance exams, because as some of you have pointed out, she is not being prepared for Common Entrance.

The issue I am trying to clarify is that one of the schools has gone a step further and made the "conditional offer" and asked us to make a larger payment for her to continue with the application process. We assumed that this was just a difference in entrance procedure, but that her likelihood of acceptance was just the same as the other schools, who have just added her name to a list of candidates to take the exam.

The conversation that I had with a friend working at a prep school has now led me to understand that the conditional offer would not have been made unless they believed she had a very strong chance of being offered a place, and perhaps we are going a little overboard making her sit exams for 4 schools. I realise there are no guarantees with the conditional offer school, but was just interested to hear whether anyone else had come across this.

Many thanks for sharing your stories.

[summerends]

Tandissimo what I find slightly odd about this is that this conditional offer is not just dependent on the exams (which is normal) but also an interview. As has been said conditional offers are usually made after a pretest and require satisfactory performance in the CE or school equivalent in the summer of year 8. This does not involve an interview.
The alternative would be scholarship exams which would usually include an interview and are normally in the spring term but sometimes early summer.
Simplest would be to check with the school in question or if you named it some one here would have more info. Obviously important for you and her to clarify as it is her favoured school so as you say she would n't need to bother with any other pretests / exams if this was a proper conditional offer.

[trinity0097]

Ring the registrar and ask for clarification! They are all very helpful!

[jebzmum]

I agree with Trinity - in general the registrars are very approachable.

Summerends: if I recall correctly (it's a few years ago now) my son had a brief interview and exams for the conditional offer then another, more detailed, interview closer to the date of the common entrance.

[summerends]

Jebz I think that would be very unusual now for boarding schools unless it was part of a late pretest.