We are choosing between The Latymer School and Dame Alice Owen's School. We live about equidistant from both, neither is easily accessible by public transport, but by car either is about 15 minutes.
First, I should say that we would be happy with either. If we had only one admission, either of these would be a reason for celebration. In fact, we have celebrated each of them in their own right!
We are choosing Owen's. It seems to be better funded, with a £1M annual stipend as part of Owen's legacy endowment helping to cover school expenses. A school is a commercial enterprise ultimately, in order to afford a diverse academic curriculum and extracurricular activities. This is the primary reason that tips the scale for our choice. Right now, we would consider the academic curriculum on offer to be fairly equal, but there is a risk that there is a gap that will build up over the next decade, where Owen's will end up ahead.
Latymer kids are smarter, no doubt about it; it is fully selective as opposed to partially selective. But the funding of Latymer seems to be struggling, as can be seen from simple things, like IT servers being down for weeks on end (it's not working right now!), shortened school hours, and less sports options and courses for the kids. Latymer kids are sharp as anything, though, really respect their academic prowess, as well as the great faculty. Just little one can do without proper funding (part of this is self-inflicted: they had a choice to convert to academy status in order to receive direct government funding, but chose to remain tied to the borough, which is essentially one of the poorest in London).
For Music, Latymer does have an edge, mostly due to the Music department and the vibrant student community. A lot of successful bands have their origins at Latymer (currently in 2021 Clean Bandit is a good example, with their use of Cello in pop music, simply musical genius at its finest). Music is deep in their DNA. Procol Harum has to be one of the most underrated bands of the Sixties, formed at Latymer with school kids of different years (listen to Whiter Shade of Pale to sample a product of Latymer's musical education). The Orchestra has pride of place at the School, and performs in different countries.
BUT, Owen's is not bad at music. Just check YouTube for both orchestras, and you will see that both are great (Latymer would win in a contest, though). So for traditional music, both are equal; for a vibrant music community, Latymer wins hands down. We are not looking to become professional musicians, so having a good orchestra and learning mastery in instruments is good enough. Both schools have Saturday music conservatory: Latymer through its own Music department and Owen's through Herts Music Service. There seems to be more opportunity for a less committed musical kid at Owen's, to try out new instruments and musical genres.
Owen's is mixed ability versus Latymer being kids with proven exam ability, but that's actually a good reason for an exam-selected kid to choose Owen's. The exam scholars will stand out, and at the same time learn to interact in a more diverse group (like an office!).
Location-wise: Owen's is in the middle of nowhere, a vast campus bordered by a motorway, which creates its own little microcosm, and which helps to regulate the interactions of the students with street life in general. Latymer is in a bustling neighborhood that is more akin to Queens or Brooklyn than London as we know it. And there are certain interactions with street life that would be preferably avoided that you will have to engage with. I should say that this is typical in NYC; the best grammar school in NYC is in a tough hood (Bronx School of Science, with 8 Nobel laureates among its alumni), and most Ivy League universities are in tough hoods (Penn, Columbia, and Yale individually have more gunshot fatalities than the entire of the UK combined); it's just NOT a plus reason. It's something you live with. If we had only Latymer as an option, we would totally live with it. But we would prefer to have a vast campus that is more or less isolated from street life completely, which is what Owen's offers.
For Sports, Owen's is slightly better, from what we can infer from the fixtures and sporting activities displayed on their separate sporting website, damealiceowenssports.co.uk.
OxBridge admissions has to be the final clincher. Owen's sends about 30 kids to OxBridge every year (almost 60% who passed the exam go to OxBridge, that's higher than Westminster in the recent decade), while Latymer sends 30 in a good year (which is still only 15% of those who passed the exam). In a bad year, like 2020, I think they send about 15. That's in spite of everyone having passed an exam that is tougher in terms of success ratio (1/10) compared to admission to OxBridge (1/5). So I can only infer that something happens to their aspirations or confidence in the course of their adolescence, where they are basically excluding themselves from the opportunity, or the guidance is failing to put them where they rightfully belong. They should be making it. At Owen's, it seems that the exam-gilded scholars are able to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, where they keep achieving their fullest potential and end up knocking on the doors of the university dons to take their rightful place at the table, confident that nobody else is in a better position to do so.
(That's it from me: you're telling me you haven't bought the T-shirt yet?)