To ask was it all worth it for DD 1 to attend a super selective grammar school when she is so down on herself because she won't be going to Oxbridge like her three best friends.e

[mainstreet]

DD 1 YR 13 is hoping to get offers from Warwick , Bath or Surrey Universities. However, despite potentially having the choice of three great Uni's is feeling extremely low this evening, unbelievable i know but with three of her closet friends likely to get offers from Cambridge and Oxford is feeling 'stupid!

Do these extra selective girls schools create the idea for normally very bright girls that if you are not Oxford/Cambridge bound you are mediocre .
Out of sympathy DD 2 year 10 who is at the same Essex Grammar school as now informed me she intends leaving the school next year and will not go to University.

Problem is that if you don't tell kids oxbridge is an option, and start them thinking about it early, they won't have enough preparation for an application.I

Its a very rate student who decides in September of year 13, or even summer of year 12 that Oxbridge is their goal and is successful.

Oxbridge is apparently an achievable goal for her though, according to the school. Just one she’s chosen not to pursue. If she does well in her A levels she can always apply if she wants to go.

I do think these threads attract people with high levels of anxiety around academic performance, selection etc. (And obviously people who object to selection on principle which is fine).

There’s a surprising (to me) number of posters on MN who self-report as anxious, socially anxious, introvert etc and it wouldn’t be extraordinary if there’s a crossover with posters whose anxiety focuses also on education.

The fact is most people who have selective education are absolutely fine. It’s only a very small minority who have problems and there are equal incidences of mental health issues among teens in all schools - depression, anxiety, self harm, EDs - this is not specific to selection.

I had a very academic education from prep school to uni. I enjoyed it, I didn’t find it particularly pressured or competitive - some students were competitive - but that’s up to them.

The standard at Oxbridge is massively over-egged. Students are generally bright, some are hardworking, but they’re not geniuses. The majority get 2.1s. They’re not all Stephen Hawking.

Selective education isn't about segregating kids to give well behaved academic achievers a nice experience.

It seems to be exactly what has historically happened at CCHS, in terms of pupils’ economic background at least. They had so few disadvantaged pupils in recent year 11 cohorts that they could not provide any performance data on them. That means there will have been fewer than five in the whole year group. 2019 was the first year that they had any data at all, being presumably the first year with girls who benefited from thirty ringfenced places for children in receipt of the pupil premium.

There comes a time when friends part ways and follow their own path. They attend the best universities for their choice of course and in doing so, find their own experiences. Outdated snobbery over oxbridge has no place in today's world.
As to your other daughter, she will need to be in education until 18 through school, college or apprenticeship. Thems the rules now.

I hate the term "Super selective".
Just yuck.

This is a non-issue. Your dd has received a very good, elite education, away from all those kids who have significantly fewer chances in life and will do significantly worse.

I would work on helping your dd not to measure her own success against that of her peers, rather than worrying about 'super-selective' bollocks.

I went to an Essex Grammar and recognise how your DD feels. I certainly felt I didn't do particularly well despite mainly getting A/A*. It was only in adult life mixing with people from other schools I realised how skewed my thinking on this had been.

Sewing that can apply to any school. Our comp weeds out non achievers for a level putting pressure on them to leave. Pupils with sen got very poor support...

Dd friend at grammar has excellent pastoral support.
Dd is bored in English, history, geography because the lessons move at snails pace.

They ARE “super” selective, relative to selective schools in “full” grammar / secondary modern areas and all but the most competitive (London) private schools. High ratios of applicants to places.

DS does the whole "I'm not very bright" thing from going to a super-selective. It really can skew the way they think about themselves and not in a good way.