City of London Girls withdrawing offers

Also can someone who actually received an offer confirm if it’s indeed possible to accept and pay electronically vs turning up in person to secure a place ? Wouldn’t make it totally right but at least would be a bit more palatable. As “transparent” as they claim this process to be - expecting people to fly back or postpone holidays is ludicrous - only just less so than being able to foresee this type of “run on the bank” ahead of time and not plan anything just in case . On another forum they seem to think there was no way of accepting electronically and many with city as genuine first choice were caught out having just arrived at their ski holidays only to get the “we are full” email .

P.P.S. If CLSG just made fewer offers, and honoured them (like the vast majority of other schools), wouldn't this farcical process be avoided?
They would still have their waiting list!

P.S. Could you share which grammar schools your daughter applied to, from Ealing?

Mumintraining78, could I ask what it was about CLSG that was so attractive?
It must have been a massive decision: an hour's commute on the Central line twice daily, instead of a two minute walk to NHEHS (which is by all accounts a great school) ...

I think there is a good case for boycotting schools that behave like this. I suspect many parents want to see all the options in front of them, both state and private, and make the best choice for the child in the light of possibly fluctuating family finances. I think that schools that undermine the process of doing what is best for the child are not worthy of considerations. We live in West Oxfordshire and crossed off our list one school that decided to bring its entire admissions process forward a couple of months.

Our school (not London) had an acceptance date before state school offers, but I called and asked them if we could hold the offer until offer day and they agreed. They didn’t even make us pay the holding deposit. We got the state offer but picked our school anyway - a very flexible and family-friendly process!

What lame reporting to base that article on the comments on this thread. At least do some proper journalism

Telegraph article about it
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/16/leading-girls-school-criticised-first-come-first-served-offer/

I used the word 'normal' to refer to the practice of honouring offers. A practice which is nigh on universal, reflects common decency in transactions, and which doesn't actually cause numbers or any other problems when administered well.

There is no reason whatsoever to say it 'doesn't work' because of so much evidence that it does.

Nearer to Mickey Mouse approach, I'm afraid.

Because it only 'works' because they are outliers.

Just stop and think what the system would be like if everyone did it.

You get your first offer, but it's your 3rd choice banker school. It'll explode in less than a day. Do you take it now, and swallow the cost? Or wait and see without your safety net? Then your second choice school offers? What do you do then? Accept again, because you really do like it better? Will your first choice outcome be known before this one explodes?

It's a shit system, which they get away with only because no-one else is doing it. And I think that those who gently ask the question about integrity and referring to 'honouring' offers are pussyfooting around a bit. OTOH given that there are apparently current parents on this thread, the plain descriptions of this sort of practice is probably inappropriate here.

A mickey mouse approach or a bold move by an innovative school that encourages students to think independently and not necessarily do what’s ‘normal’, even when it doesn’t work, just because others do it?

Look, it is pretty shoddy behaviour. We were fortunate that our preferred school didn’t do this last year, but actually did not have a definite preference when the offers arrived. One school was closer and more obvious, but DD preferred the other. We did not have conversations before Offers Day about what to do as, not knowing what offers would arrive, we took the attitude that all schools were great and we’d been happy with any. Had we had to decide on the spot, we’d probably have overruled DD and gone for the nearby school. Having the opportunity to visit again was very different than the experience pre 11+ where you don’t know if it’s a real option or not. We also did a mock journey which we didn’t pre-application and can’t be usefully done over half-term. Once we visited both schools again the choice was clear but wasn’t beforehand.

City is undoubtedly a great academic school, but for many the cramped facilities, lack of fresh air, geographical spread of friends and rush-hour tube journey are off-putting.

Contrast City’s approach to NLCS (7+) for example : they followed up dd’s offer with a phone call on the day the letters arrived to make sure we got the letter. At that point I thanked them and let them know straight away that we will likely be turning the place down for our first choice school . Their response was to encourage us to think about it over the weekend and not to rush to a decision just yet. If choosing between these two schools ( rolling fields aside ) I know which I would be more encouraged to forge a relationship with and trust with the future of my child

Other schools don't have the space either, but bring their numbers in correctly without doing what CLSG do.

It is just plain wrong and misleading to say they face any different pressures or constraints than other central London schools.

I think 'normal' is an acceptable way to describe the system that is used my the vast majority of schools to bring in the right number of the right calibre pupil.

No one said it was stress free. Just that it's being done successfully. And there is no earthly reason why CLSG would do it worse than everyone else if they were so minded. How often are there bulge classes - next to bloody never. Do schools cope if they have seriously bad luck - yes they do. Is making offers explode the only way to deal with those stresses - clearly not.

And to be clear, I don't like exploding offers but as Chocolatewomabat and youngmum2005 point out, there are many variables to consider when making offers. No system is perfect.

“Normal admissions” implies that the current system is perfect or not stressful behind the scenes.

But making a statistical analysis of acceptance rates from previous years will never result in an exact number of offers to make. And unfortunately clsg don’t have the space. The school are already accommodating a bulge class from a few years ago. And even a wider analysis of variables like league table rankings, discussion with other admission departments and the financial stability of high net worth families may give little insight into likely acceptance rates. Is increasing affluence in east London going to mean more acceptances? Is negative publicity from exploding offers last year going to mean fewer acceptances? The reality is that for many CLSG will be a back up for many who will just turn down the offer if they get a more local school. As a previous poster has said, even going to waiting list is to place the school at the vagaries of many many students who will simply have accepted elsewhere and made the financial commitment to another school. A bird in the hand and all that.

user8957365 - I don't think I am being 'too defensive' on the basis that the accusation levelled by you (at presumably both this year's successful parents relief at gaining a place amidst pretty stressful conditions and also existing parents correcting misnomers) as 'depressing' is really necessary.

Still sounds like they're assessing parental performance on an incredibly tight window, irrespective of how the girls have actually done (they don't seem to be choosing offer/WL, just sticking them all into one pot and firing a starting pistol - so less granularity than other post-exam interview schools) or indeed whether it's a genuine choice. Just trading on what's just been called The Fear.

Sorry that my use of metaphor wasn't up to scratch.

But the more that's said about the way the school does admissions, the more it seems to come up short. Very illuminating thread!