Eton and Winchester for September 2026

[artistmother]

Good morning, my son is in Year 6 and applying to Eton and Winchester for September 2026, the schools his headmaster recommended for him which we visited and liked. My heart was set on Winchester, assuming we got offers from both schools, but comments I’ve read here are making me question the very good impression I had of the school, comments I hadn’t come across before.

I know Mumsnet is quite a passionate place and opinions should be taken with a pinch of salt but there are too many negative comments, from too many different parents, to ignore and I’m not sure why someone would go out of their way to put down a school. Unless I’m missing something?

I subscribed to the Good Schools Guide and read ISI reports, to get all the info I could about the different schools we were looking at before visiting and applying, and thought Eton and Winchester were good choices. My son loved the schools when we visited and I was happy with our decision. We particularly liked the Housemaster and House my son would go into at Winchester, we have yet to see Houses and Housemasters at Eton.

I guess my question is, why is there so much negativity around Winchester suddenly? Are things going downhill? Are boys more unhappy there than at other boarding schools? I thought the opposite. I don’t mind the mixed Sixth Form and like the fact it calls itself a “gentle” school. My son is very able academically and a nice kid and would apparently be happy at both schools (although our head prefers Eton for him) but I liked the idea of a gentle and kind institution. We know more parents at Eton than at Winchester but felt like Winchester was the safer choice... are we wrong?

We have yet to receive offers from these schools so may not have a choice in the matter but it would be great to hear from current Winchester and Eton parents who have thoughts on the above… please only share your authentic, wholesome thoughts :)

Thank you

ps. I went boarding at 13 and loved it (King’s Canterbury) and my two elder sons boarded and loved it too so we don’t have a problem with the boarding side of things.

Hi,
My son went to Eton college from a State school. We invested in lots of books rather than tuitions for preparation. We have various books including Gallor park for 11 plus and 13 plus. He passed Harrow and Westminster tests, but prefered Eton. Happy to give away all the material, looking for some contribution for charity.
Best wishes
Rose

As @Kerenwoodwardsleftearring pointed out, this statistics is certainly inaccurate about Eton. For one data point, Benedict Harvey was a King's scholar at Eton and he won a Bronze medal in IPhO in 2022. See here for approval, https://ipho-unofficial.org/countries/UNK/individual. Benedict actually ranked #30 in BMO2 in that year too (see https://bmos.ukmt.org.uk/home/news.shtml), although this is not at international level but at the national level, the Math Olympics is a lot harder than Physics/Chemistry/Biology

For International Olympiad in STEM subjects, I have a general feeling, though no scientific evidence admittedly, that the difficult level should be IMO >> IPhO > IChO > IBO, with IOI (International Olympiad of Information) perhaps in between Physics and Chemistry.

Eton usually publish a full list of exam results in late October/ early November. You can see every subject/ grade . They do this for A levels and GCSE Link.

Winchester usually publish a full list but only for the current year. This year they didn't do this.They published basic results information this week, their results were down about 10% A / A on last year but I think the biggest issue was the drop in Agrades and the number of boys that achieved all A/ A grades. They haven't published the number of A * grades which is very telling.
US is of little interest to most Winchester parents, they are not willing to spend $400,000 on university over a place at a good university in the UK. This really only applies to very wealthy students from overseas, they can apply to 20/30 US universities so offer numbers don't mean that much.

Tonbridge are very transparent when it comes to results. Their results are ahead of Winchester year after year. The school feels like it focuses on every boy , we didn't get this impression when we visited Winchester. The boys appeared happy and relaxed.The houses are also much more comfortable and well maintained. It feels like there is more energy in the school. This year 81 boys achieved all A*/ A grades, that's very impressive for a school then size of Tonbridge.

A star / A