Rejected by Eton, Radley and Teddies - Panicking!

[Elvisthedonkey]

DS is in Year 6 and sat his ISEB tests last term. We didn't do much practice at all but his headmaster said that he was around 115 in CAT scores and is in the top half of his year at a well-regarded prep. He gets Bs and Cs in his reports - including Bs in both English and Maths. Whilst he loves sport he is not particularly brilliant at anything - although he's not bad at football and plays for a local team. No musical/art/drama talents to speak of, sadly. His headmaster said he thought he would do very well in interviews though as he's chatty and has interesting things to say for himself.

So far, he has been rejected by Eton (a long shot!), Radley (another long shot) and Teddies - he wasn't even invited for an interview at any of them. He has had interviews at Sherborne and Bradfield (apparently they interview all applicants) - and we await the results.

I am really beginning to panic - how difficult is it to get into Bradfield (his first choice) and Sherborne? If he hasn't been invited for an interview at Teddies, does that mean he must have done pretty badly in the ISEB tests? I'm beginning to wonder if we should be making some last minute applications elsewhere...

Lots of sympathy as the whole year 6 stuff is awful, both for your son and you. You need whoever deals with senior school admissions at your son's prep to talk to some of the schools your son has been rejected by and see if they will tell him how he did in the ISEBs - did he perform poorly on the day, or is it just that his standard isn't high enough?

I think you may have been poorly advised by his existing school though, about what level he needed in ISEB for those schools, as I thought most had a cut of of more like 120-125 to even interview. Everyone I know trying for schools like that has been tutoring weekly (often separate tutors for maths/NVR and English/VR) for at least a year, and the boys did daily work through the summer holidays and October half term. Total insanity, but it's very hard to compete with that if your son is just doing his usual prep school work and a few practice papers.

If he is at a prep that goes to year 8 and you are looking for a 13+ spot, don't panic - lots of kids only get their spot in year 8 after the kids who accept multiple spots finally decide where to go.

Good luck!

Thanks, @SummerInSun. His headmaster said that he didn't think DS had much of a chance getting into Eton or Radley, but as an OE DH was keen to try! I wasn't at all surprised that he was rejected by Eton or Radley but it's when we got the rejection from Teddies - without even an interview - that I started to really panic! I didn't think Teddies was that hard to get into?

Yes, we are at a prep that goes to Year 8 and we are looking for a 13+ spot - my worry is that we won't even get a waiting place offer from Bradfield or Sherborne though...

Wish I had known about all the additional tutoring and daily practice during the holidays... feel like I let him down :(

Don't worry - he will find his place. Teddies has become a lot harder to get into the last couple of years so not an indicator of anything really. You can try giving the admissions a call to see if they'll tell you your DS's ISEB score (you never know).

Fingers crossed for Sherborne and Bradfield, have you also considered Harrow, Uppingham or the Oratory?

Also you haven't let him down! He will find the right school for him that doesn't involve mad pressured tutoring to get in (which you wouldn't be able to keep up with anyway while he's boarding).

I totally feel for you, but first you may hear good news from Sherborne or Bradfield, in which case your nightmare day turns happy in no time at all. Most people would be thrilled to get an offer from those schools, which are not easy to get into.

Second, your DS is only in year 6 and can apply for another round of schools in Year 7 which would be a pain but is not the end of the world.

I am sorry that you did not get into a school yet, but there are lots of options and I reckon you will be sorted before you need to be worried about ordering school uniforms!

Don’t panic OP - and you really haven’t failed him. Not in the least. It’s a horrible process but some parents get really caught up in trying to bag the “ biggest prize” offer they possibly can, which they achieve with masses of tutoring and positioning so that their DC essentially goes in with an over-inflated profile. It might feel great as a vanity project for the parents to achieve a certain school ( and I think many do genuinely feel they are helping the child); but actually the best thing you can do is find the right fit. It’s fun to get the acceptance letter but people forget at this stage that the other side of the equation is half a decade of trying to keep up and fielding the pressure of a pace that isn’t necessarily right for them - and very often in a boarding situation without immediate support from home. So you simply haven’t failed him. 115 cats ( which is a strong score) isn’t enough to fit in comfortably at Eton or probably Radley these days. So just scrap any anxiety round those outcomes.

I don’t know much about Teddies but I do know that lots of lovely dcs with those sorts of CATS end up at Sherborne and Bradfield. And don’t feel the fact they interview everyone is not encouraging: on the contrary, it shows they are interested in the whole child not just cats or iseb profile so if you have a chatty personable young man to send along to interview I’m sure he will do well.

There are often weird outcomes in this process and I wouldn’t let the teddies rejection rattle you as a one-off. You still have S and B to go for and that’s just this round. Quite a few nice schools do year 7 iseb processes. Off the top of my head I think Bryanston and Harrow do. So there are still plenty of balls in the air. Just stay on target!

It might be worth doing as a poster above suggested and phoning the schools who turned him down to ask for his ISEB score. I understand they often will give them in these circumstances. It just helps you to understand where he might have slipped . I think they are generally a few points lower than cats ( because cats are National average and iseb is mostly sat by independents which can shunt the average). But 115 is s thoroughly respectable cats score and he won’t go un-snapped up by a nice school. To put it in perspective. Eton, Winchester snd Westminster are reputed to aim to take from 130 which is around the top 1 and 2 percent . Obviously they can’t fill their numbers only at that level but the more your cats and iseb drop the more “ extra “ things you need to show. So 115 was always pushing it even if you had gone crazy with tutoring. He’ll be fine: just keep believing in him and I hope he goes and shows himself in all his chatty charm! Al the very best.

The 3 schools you applied to are not the right fit for your son. They are looking for students who are right at the top of thier year groups getting mostly As. Try not to think about them too much they aren't really relevant.

The other 2 are much more suited. No need to panic at the moment. There is plenty of time and you will find somewhere.

I agree with others that there is no need to panic. Surely you were expecting to get rejected by Eton & Radley from the outset and with Teddies it would have been a challenge. Whilst the rejections can be hard, given the CAT scores, there were good reasons for those schools to reject your son. If they had offered him a place, he would have been out of his depth and struggled.
The other two schools have always been your son's target schools and you're still in the process with those. You might be feeling more comfortable now if you hadn't applied to Radley and had a third school of a similar academic level to Sherbourne & Bradfield or even a school who takes the majority so that you had a guaranteed place. (I sort of understand the Eton application given your husband is an OE).
Even if you don't get any offers in the original rounds, don't panic. There is always movement and your prep head will be able to make some calls and your son will get an offer from somewhere.

Really? Panicking about the most elite schools in the UK?

Also OP, I think it’s probably feeling worse than it really is because you started with the “long shots.” If you’d had Bradfield in the bag, you’d have been more inclined to meet the other responses with a shoulder shrug. I know that’s not where you are, but just trying to move your thoughts on to end of process/ big picture rather than an awkward juncture! Keep the faith! I think his chances sound pretty positive for the other two and I wish him well.

Sorry, not helpful but I do think prep school headmasters could be a bit firmer with OE fathers … It causes unnecessary angst all round when boys are entered purely out of sentiment. (And sometimes their disappointed parents are not very nice to the parents of other boys who do get in …)

But as everyone has said - there’s no need to panic, @Elvisthedonkey. If your headmaster is any good at all you’ll arrive at a happy ending eventually. S or B may well come through.

If not, is Kings, Canterbury on your list? I recall at our prep it was a welcome fallback for boys who needed one.

To be fair, she hasn't posted on AIBU, she's on the boarding school thread.

Hello. Why are you here?

Kindly if he's getting B and Cs he just doesn't sound good enough for those schools and you sound badly advised by your school.
I'm surprised tutoring never entered your mind - it's well publicised/known that most pupils use them? All you can do is cast your net wider and if you are aiming for 13+ he needs to up his grades

@anotherdayanotherpathlesstravelled Do you mean Bs and Cs aren’t good enough for all of the schools (including Bradfield and Sherborne)? Or just the ones we’ve been rejected from?

I didn’t think tutoring was necessary if they were at a prep school…

They are elite.

But OP has entered her dc into the process now and she is feeling she has let him down as they’ve hit a snag en route. She’s posting for support. We all feel bad if we think we have mis-stepped with our dcs.

And I can’t blame the headmaster here - we applied to schools before speaking to him! He gently told us he would be surprised if DS got into Eton or Radley, although he thought Teddies was a reasonable shot.

Your final sentence should be true but couldn’t be further from the truth if you’re going full on competitive.

But don’t worry: I’m sure she meant the “ long shots.” To be honest school marks don’t really factor into it so I just wouldn’t worry. That’s what the cats snd iseb are there for: to standardise their results.

don't panic - it will all work out, there is still plenty of time. the year 6 process is pretty brutal. it does sound like you haven't had great advice from your Prep school - what school did your Head recommend? which senior schools do they have good relationships with? they should have a clear idea of your son's abilities and which schools in the area will suit best, and should be able to provide clear advice to you on the admissions processes.

What did your prep advise? Did you apply to those?

It probably was a reasonable shot . It isn’t an exact science and can vary depending on the standard of the candidates that year. But you’ve still got the others to come and they are keen to interview all regardless of results, so just direct your efforts now in making sure DS feels confident and ready to show himself.

@Calliopespa Thank you, yes, that’s exactly it… I’m panicking because I’m worried that we’ve left it too late for the likes of, say, Pangbourne College, or Lord Wandsworth College, or anywhere else around where we live. I don’t really care about the “status” of the school - I just want him to go to a nice school where he’s happy (and preferably already knows some people from his current prep school) particularly because he wasn’t happy at the school he was at before his prep school, and I hated how miserable he was.

There aren’t really any nice state schools near us - and I’m pretty sure we would have missed the deadlines for applying for state schools (Year 7 entry) anyway.