Eton 2026

[25Green]

Thought I should start a thread on this. What stage are you up too? How are you feeling about it?

A place here too.

My son had an interview and the Eton list test last week on 2nd May. We are told we will hear back during the 1st week of June. I'm literally counting days and having my fingers crossed for him.

Congratulations 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
May I know your DS co-curriculum is very strong, right? Do you think it’s important to get a place?
🙏 Thank you

DS3 is fairly academic, does a bit of football, and a few other hobbies (sailing, athletics). I honestly think all the schools are looking for fairly rounded children who get stuck in to the opportunities at the school. We are undecided on Eton for DS3: his elder brothers are at a different boarding school and have been very happy, and we thought we’d try Eton as he is more “rounded”, but he is keen to go to his brothers’ school now he has offers from both so we’ll see.

Thanks for your reply ^^
my DS has some hobbies like taekwondo, ping pong, swimming, but not school team, and playing piano, clarinet and orchestra, do you think that is enough for rounded or not?
Eton commented that is little under-developed co-curriculum, wonder if my DS could adapt boarding life…….reassess in year 7 haha
how can I help him to be a rounded student?

That sounds really well rounded to me? Maybe your DS has to talk about their interests with more enthusiasm and dynamism. They are only 10/11 though so it is very tough on them.

Thanks @FingersCrossedAgainAgain your DS should be very smart👍🏻
Congrats again for his success !!

Eton offers places to boys whom housemasters will be happy to take into their houses. (Hence why HMs tend to do the admissions interviews). HMs are really asking themselves two things: 1) will your child contribute positively to the house and 2) will your child cause any problems.

Positive contribution is partly about personality and academic potential but they are also looking for people to play in house matches, organise house plays, lead house singing and ensembles and so on. If your child isn’t brilliant academically, doesn’t play any team sports, doesn’t do drama and isn’t quite good enough to be a musical leader, then they will be asking what their positive contribution will be, beyond just being a nice kid.
Then in terms of problems - a really basic criteria is whether they think a boy will cope with boarding. Eton has no day boys so it becomes a very big problem for an HM if someone hates boarding. The best way to convince them is if your child is already doing well at a boarding prep, but if that’s not an option then you could consider trying some residential holiday camps eg PGL, Camp Bonas, Ecoweek etc. If they love those, that’s a helpful piece of evidence to tell Eton about when they reassess . If they are miserable on camp, then perhaps boarding might not be right after all….

Perfectly put, @Ziegfeld.

@CCforever you do need to feel pretty certain by this stage that your son would thrive as a boarder and really, really wants that school experience. Sometimes mistakes are made, of course - but you can’t just amble along in the vague hope he might take to it.

Thanks @Ziegfeld for the useful tips.

Thanks all

Has anyone from tranche 3 have had any response from Eton yet?

We were told the results should be out in mid-June and that we'd be given an exact week closer to the time.

May I know what is tranche 3?

@CCforever
The third and last interviewed group of boys

@CCforever Boys are grouped and interviewed by age and tranche 3 are the youngest and last to be tested. Tranche 3 boys for 2026 are waiting for their results. Tranches 1 and 2 know already.

I called Eton admissions office and they said results for transche 3 would be emailed to parents either today or tomorrow afternoon. I have my fingers crossed for my son. This has been the longest week ever :)

Thanks for the update @Bismillah786121 ! Good luck to your son. We are in the same boat. Have most people applying here received offers or waiting list places? Wondering how this year is looking. If Eton have received more/ less applications than other years… if prep schools have been pleasantly surprised by results.

@Puttinontheritz thank you for your well wishes. I wonder if anyone else has already received an outcome today? I did some research and roughly 1100 boys apply every year and they interview roughly 600 ( in 3 groups so 200 in each tranche). Out of these 600 boys, they will offer roughly 250 boys.

If anyone else has received any response please do let us know.

@Puttinontheritz Good luck to your son. Let me know how it goes.

I am also waiting. I guess it will be tomorrow afternoon.

DS has offers from Brighton College and Harrow as well as Eton. From what I recollect, he found the test challenging but fun (as fun as these kind of things can be). It clearly made him think and he was still discussing some of the questions and how he approached them a few days later. One of his classmates was in Tranche 3 and when he went to give the boy a briefing on what to expect, he got very animated and excited so clearly it struck a chord.

On the interview, he initially thought he did fine, but it was also his first major school interview. After doing interviews at the other two, he retrospectively felt he hadn’t performed too well, but then ended up getting an offer. One big challenge from this process is that we are dealing with unreliable narrators who don’t always have context for their experiences!

Waiting list place... sniff.

Waiting list for us too. 😐

Does anyone know what would be the next steps? I guess another assessment? Would that be an interview and another eton list test?

You should ring up Admissions and ask. Also ask them whereabouts on the list your son is. They won't give you an exact position, but if he's in the top third he still has a good chance, if he's nearer the bottom you might decide to draw a line now.

When my DS was on the wait list you just had to do that - wait. They cannot give you a place until people drop out, and that might be at the last minute Of course you should try and get him involved in lots of activities that will boost your DS's profile.

@Bismillah786121 and @Puttinontheritz they retest and reinterview them all again in summer term of Y7. They don't like giving a position at this stage. my DS1 was on the waiting list. DS2 has just got in this round in tranche 2