Confused about the Bursary process

I have no clue at this stage if the school wants my child. We are pre exam and everything. Who knows.

The anticipation is a bit stressful! But try not to worry - there won’t be anything unpleasant in the actual visit.

By this stage you should already know whether this school really wants to offer your child a place. Have faith that if it’s the right school everything will go smoothly.

Thank you, that's really helpful. I'm really nervous as I want it so much for my DC

They won’t ask for proof - they observe …

That empty space on your wall where the wallpaper looks oddly unfaded, because you’ve hastily taken down your Rembrandt …

Conversely they may also want to check that your child is being brought up in a sufficiently stimulating household to allow them to interact well with their new schoolmates. They expect bursary applicants to be cash not-so-well off, but culturally rich.

👀

I know this is an old post but I'm about to go through this process. What proof is it they ask for in the visit? I have sent bank statements and mortgage and pay slips and all that malarkey already.

Yes, very best of luck to both of you!

I don't know if it's worth adding that going through this process of applying to schools and preparing for exams can only strengthen your children's academic progress and your knowledge, as parents, of what is available, what is possible and what is being offered beyond the horizons of your current schools. Even if this attempt doesn't go the way you hope, you will inevitably be in a better position, going forward, to plan for, strategise and advise your offspring on the best routes towards their eventual careers. (Well, in theory. God knows, they're not always inclined to listen ...) Maybe you'd find yourself demanding more from their current schools, comparing subjects available, or re-assessing their extra-curricular activities? (That sounds horribly patronising but isn't meant to be. Obviously if you're already at outstanding state schools there may not be much discernible difference at an average independent school. But most people find eye-opening contrasts between the best and worst funded schools of any type - and that's bound to prompt some serious thought.)

And exam prep is exam prep - it should pay dividends in all their school exams, regardless of which school they attend.

I'll have my fingers crossed for you. And would be really pleased to hear the outcomes of your applications, even though I know you're not here for my entertainment!

Hope it goes well for your DC OP and @NoToMisogny

Persephone - your message made me cry. In a good way! It was so incredibly kind and lovely. And just what I needed :-)

I do struggle with feeling ashamed re the whole thing, and then worried about the emotional rollercoaster! At least we only have the one interview to cover all 3 schools. But if it’s a clear no, I hope they let us know at or very soon after the interview, and then we can put the whole idea to bed!

It is hard for other people to appreciate the shattering nature of filling in DLA forms, and fighting the local authority for respite, to try and move my son to a more suitable special school etc. But I’m kind of assuming the accountancy firm will look at nothing but facts and figures.

I just don’t know. I’ll be incredibly glad when it’s over! It’s very strange being in limbo - preparing for exams my son might never take!!

(Hmm, I'm thinking the biographical passage I mentioned might have been in the introduction, written IIRC, by the utterly brilliant C P Snow. That might be why it's lodged in my memory!)

fundamentally I just feel ridiculously entitled going for something we can’t afford!

Have you heard of the mathematician G H Hardy? He wrote a memoir/biography called A Mathematician's Apology. I recall handing it to a child on our way to a prep school interview. I highly recommend it - or, at least, the early section where he talks of belonging to the social class that didn't have the money to buy an excellent education, but did possess sufficient knowledge to access the necessary funding to acquire one. (I'm actually mightily impressed with myself for remembering it now, when I haven't thought of him for years.) He lived in a different era of course, but a fair proportion of human history has been shaped by men and women who could never have achieved whatever they did without significant financial assistance towards their education.

Life throws up some ridiculous extremes, doesn't it? It's not hard to imagine just how much the combination of DLA renewal forms and bursary application forms must be hurting your soul. I really wish I could say something that would make you feel better ...

Getting the bursary application out of the way before the entrance exam is novel (to me) but it seems quite helpful. I know with one of our applications a place already offered could be withdrawn by the school if they didn't feel they could offer a sufficient bursary. Which would have been brutal, weeks after the celebratory cake and champagne. Presumably the other two schools you're applying to follow the usual model of exams first?

I'm sure you've read the guidance notes very thoroughly, but perhaps yours don't include a paragraph stating that, in assessing bursary need, the school would consider how an award might benefit the wider family. (In the case of boarding this might be by enabling a parent to work further afield or full time rather than part time, etc.) But it's relevant to set this thought alongside 'feeling poor'. For every misguided MN poster with no knowledge whatsoever (and I've seen a few) who is outraged that 'poor' people might aspire to send their children to the best school possible, there's a bursary administrator somewhere, trying their very best to make a bursary award that will genuinely change a child and a family's life rather than simply decorate their lifestyle.

And it's not just about maintaining their charitable 'status' either. The best schools want to offer bursaries because having a broad intake should improve the ... ecology of the school. By sending your son you would be doing them a favour.

Thank you so much for your lovely, kind post. I guess fundamentally I just feel ridiculously entitled going for something we can’t afford! And there are so many pitfalls - one of them being offered a bursary at a level we still can’t afford. I haven’t been able to bring myself to show my son any of the 3 schools we’ve applied for because I can’t bear the idea of getting his hopes up. I felt I really had to give it a shot for his sake, but sending in the forms re our finances was shattering. I felt so exposed! And poor 😄

Please don’t be put off by the process. It’s nothing to be scared of it’s just going through facts so that they can gauge what you would need in terms of bursary if your son passes the entrance test.

It may feel intrusive but you wouldn’t have applied unless you felt you met the criteria. Remember that your child is just as much deserving as a place as every other child who sits that exam and that’s what this is about - ensuring your child isn’t disadvantaged in the entry process just because of money.

Thanks, good luck to you too Hayley!

Persephone - I’m just stressed about the scrutiny, and whether it was a mad idea to even apply for a bursary. Of course it’s totally fair enough that they investigate so that bursaries go to the most deserving, but having just done my other son’s DLA renewal and having had 12 years of hostile scrutiny from the LA and DWP I just feel like I don’t have any more bandwidth left.

If we don’t get offered a bursary we won’t even sit the exam, as we find out beforehand

Which aspect is causing you stress, NoToMisogyny?

And where are you in the application process?

We have a home visit next week - they say they are not looking at the home itself, or anything within it, in any way. But who knows?

Still tempted to cancel it as it’s stressing me out so much!

OP by talking to the home visit person you will be communicating with the bursar - just at a more focused level.

Personally I'd be more concerned about having a new person in the house during a global pandemic ...

Tiny bursary for day school? Probably not worth the effort of sending someone to fact check your application.

100% bursary for £45,000 boarding school ... Different matter, no?

Just out of interest, why do they do a home check? To make sure your application is correct?

Son goes to a private school and on a slight bursary but we didn't have a home check x

I'd imagine the comment about talking to the bursar meant speak to them before applying. It's obviously helpful, at the earliest stage, to get a better idea of the school's attitude to bursaries in general and your own circumstances in particular.

Given that you're now much further into the process I'm not sure there would be any benefit in discussing your bursary application with the bursar now. They may feel you've already had a fair opportunity to put your case via the bursary application form and the home visit.

(Well done for getting to this stage, though!)

Then they will process all the bursary forms, producing final figures (based on your income/assets, and what the school counts or disregards, and noting any relevant circumstances) and they do this for every applicant.

After exams, then the bursary committee will meet to go through the applications of the candidates who have passed the exam and interviewed well. They have to consider how much money they have to spend, how many desirable candidates there are, and balance it all out - so if they have means for 5 fully funded places, but 10 preferred candidates of varying means, they might decide to fully fund 10, or fully fund 2 and half fund another 6, or some other permutation depending on level of need.

If they have so many candidates who passed that they cannot possibly even part fund them all, then they will also be looking at what the pupil will bring to the school. Was their academic performance of scholarship level? Do they have sporting, musical or dramatic excellence? Do they have some other notable skill?

Each school does it slightly differently, but it's variants on that basic approach