What's the girls equivalent of Eton & why?

[Dinaprettyballerina]

Just out of interest which English girls school is the one all sharp elbowed parents are trying to get their girls into? Eton has a reputation for having the pushiest parents with alot of overseas parents who are extremely invested in getting the very best education & getting their child in at all costs.. what is the female equivalent?

@CountryClaire perhaps don’t slander a school if you don’t want to be called a liar.

Your uncles and brother attended… so your insider information isn’t exactly up to date? You and your family have clearly benefited from private education, yet you have a dig at me for ‘buying’ my family’s?

I don’t live in Marlborough itself, but I am local. I had a good search of the local paper suggested and didn’t find a single negative article about the college.

@Prophetorwell
Firstly slander is the act of spoken words. Secondly you are over protective of the schools value, why I do not know.
I know of many cases of recent poor behaviour from students, you are kidding yourself if you think it is Utopia.
I am not going to engage with you further because I consider you are now making personal attacks.
As I said before if you are happy with what you have bought, good for you.

@CountryClaire After I comment I have a DC at Marlborough, you say you wouldn’t send your dog there, but I’m the one making personal attacks??

I’m not kidding myself it’s Utopia, but it certainly is for my DC and their large group of friends.

If you want to be pedantic, ok - libel. I can be pedantic too, it’s “school’s value”. Bye.

@Prophetorwell
I am going to assume you are a first time buyer. Your choice of school, good for you. I googled Marlborough college drugs today, I suggest you do the same!
I have no idea why you have to have chosen the Eton girls equivalent, your DC are not going to join the royal family, there are no vacancies. My family have lived in Marlborough for 600 years and we are not farmers!
No kindly naff off or consultant a therapist.

I googled Marlborough college drugs today, I suggest you do the same!

Ok, I did, I didn’t find anything of note?

Kate and Pippa went there - the family has an educational trust set up by some distant great grandparent which covered the fees. That's what gave them the big social class leap into William's social circle.

This is weird - I went to G and L in the 80s and I'm sure we thought of Eton as a posh-but-dim school. Rahs as we called them. Westminster and St Pauls were the clever day schools and I think Winchester for boarding?

Eton entrance exam has always been pretty hard. Harrow was for those who were not o bright and Eton for the clever ones (and Winchester of course). I don't think Eton was ever an easy one at common entrance. However my daughter's (day) school North London Collegiate (which is pretty academic) used to team with Winchester for some events and was probably a good fit. I certainly agree Westminster and St Paul's (boys and girls schools for the latter) are at the top too.

Yes agree with @Xenia. The boys that go to Eton from our prep all seem to be high achievers / top set boys. I believe they have one of the highest ISEB pass marks now. I had a couple of cousins at Eton 20 years ago who are very brainy indeed. Lovely guys too. Don't know if they were the norm for the time though. Winchester Is very academic obviously. Always has been.

Yup, Eton has always been hard to get into and has become even harder in the last 10 years or so. As was Winchester (for more nerdy types).

The less academic public schools were Harrow, Stowe, Milton Abbey if you very thick and Millfield if you were good at sport. Not sure if it's still the same.

This thread has just reminded me, a bit sadly, that I got in to Westminster sixth form but didn't get a scholarship and my parents said they couldn't afford the fees (they were definitely struggling but had managed G&L with GPs help) so I didn't go.

I coulda bin a contender. 😂

When I was at boarding school in the early 2000s we also thought that etonians weren't as bright as us! St Pauls, Westminster, WA etc were the clever schools.

But actually I saw an entrance paper for Eton a while ago and it looked bloody difficult so I take it all back (might have been a scholarship paper, not sure) and the adult ex-Etonians I have met are generally very smart.

On the last league table stats I saw, Eton was coming 20th amongst independent schools, so if they're aiming to get the brightest by means of very stiff entrance tests they're not necessarily adding as much value as they might.

and the adult ex-Etonians I have met are generally very smart.

I take it that didn't include Messrs Cameron and Johnson?

You might not like Johnson and his like, but he is very able in many ways. He was known to be extremely bright at Oxford and he has a huge range of intellectual interests. When I’ve met him, I’ve also found him a bit disarmingly charming (which was disconcerting as a lifelong Lib Dem). Ditto JRM who knew my late FIL and took time out of a very busy schedule to share his condolences and memories of him. He really was very kind on a personal
level. People in the news are real human beings you know, not just the cartoon characters you read about.

DH and his brothers went to Eton. They’ve all done well (Oxford etc.), but all struggled with mental health in their twenties ( as many young men do). DBIL is very wealthy and well connected but a bit of a wandering soul, and struggles with genuine relationships as he’s so caught up with the social significance of everything. It’s not what we’ve chosen for our son. I intensely dislike the idea of boarding school, or the pressure for a child of knowing they’ve had every privilege. Our kids are at independent day schools with lovely mates and local hobbies, following the village primary school. To me, that’s a much more balanced life. And interestingly, none of our friends who went to top public schools have chosen boarding for their children either. DH cousin’s kids are now at Eton and seem happy (if a little unstreetwise, they are terrified of DD14, which she plays upon slightly mercilessly!), with a nice group of (London based friends). At the end of the day, it’s just a school, isn’t it?!

My impression is Eton and Harrow are accessible to those who can afford it. You don't need to be a genius. We know some v nice, normal boys who have gone their and their sisters go to Downe House.
More academic is Winchester and Wycombe Abbey / Cheltenham Ladies college.
Hardest to get into will be the London day schools.. Westminster, St Paul's etc.

@Fudgeball123 indeed many nice boys although most would be 11+ calibre minimum. To be honest the only boys we know who went didn't make the cut at KCS, St Paul's or Westminster.

Winchester has always been academically elite.

We had them all over, they were called High Schools, even the poor and underprivileged were admitted and instead of the downgrade foisted on us, an upgrade to that level of education would have seen every child regardless of gender fulfil their potential.

Posters mentioned Glendower Prep School in London as the Beckham's daughter and Rishi's girls go there so I thought I would take a look at where they go on to
www.glendowerprep.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/2022-11-Results.pdf
interestingly they must all apply for multiple places as some schools offer to several candidates and none of them took up the place! So 34 candidates;
25 day pupils were offered approx 105 places! So each must apply for an average of more than 4 schools! And 9 boarders were offered approx 25 places so more than 2.5 applications per student.
No wonder the whole application business is so complicated and there are waiting lists etc. Wowzer!
In terms of people accepting their places the most popular boarding school was Cheltenham Ladies College (2/2) and the most popular day school was St Pauls (8/9).

That’s just how private system works. Each student applies for 4 or 5 schools and then chooses which place to accept out of the ones they pass the exam for.

Mirabai that might be how it works in London but outside of the SE people typically apply to 1-2 senior schools.
It makes me laugh- you get all these MNetters posting about waiting lists etc and now you can see how it happens!

People generally just apply for one and a backup in the SW

It probably depends on the the number of private schools in the area.

It varies. When we thought one child would not move from Habs juniors to seniors we sat her for 5 or 6 schools including one boarding (Wycombe Abbey) but then she did pass to the seniors at Habs where she did very well and it all came together. In the SE it various . My 3 sons were at prep schools for boys only where you leave at 13 (2 years older than 11+) and the school assists in suggesting which is the right next school (in particular telling parents of the not so clever boys their sons should not try for XYZ but what about ABC) and where there is a very top scholarship set (none of mine were in that set). In the case of my twins they applied to 3 schools in one case and 2 in the other and they both got into the same 2 and picked the one of those two which both got the best exam results etc and we liked. That was definitely the case at their school - having your favourite and one or possibly 2 as back up.

Eton boys are bright including those who make it into politics whether Tory or Labour. Obvoiusly for political reasons lots of people like to suggest people are not. Eg Stamer got into a grammar school which became a fee paying school and is likely to be fairly bright as grammar schools and the more academic private schools tended to take people who could pass the exam. My parents went to state grammar schools at 11+ and although it a bit of a blunt instrument on the whole it did tend to do a fair job at taking the brightest in the class. Obviously children do develop later but I think it is fair to say that those getting into schools where most fail the exam tend to be cleverer.

You might not like Johnson and his like, but he is very able in many ways. He was known to be extremely bright at Oxford and he has a huge range of intellectual interests.

Well, no. He was and is known to have a superficial intelligence but he simply lacks the application to have real intelligence. Hence the fact that he didn't get a first at Oxford, his history based books are regarded as inherently unreliable, and he couldn't work out that, say, supporting the likes of Owen Paterson was doomed to disaster.