rejected by marlborough, sherborne and teddies oxford?

[foikjsb]

hello everyone,

is it normal to get rejected by all these schools,i am completely new to the private school system so i dont know the admissions process that well, any people willing to tell me how they select?

Is there not an entrance exam?

You should ask the admissions teams for feedback, @foikjsb. Is your son in a prep school? If so, they should be advising you on the most suitable senior schools for his strengths and then advocating for him with those schools.

I suspect you are trying to do this without any guidance. These schools are not easy to get into. Are you in the UK?

These schools all do the ISEB exam prep and it is quite a lot of pre pre work in advance. They all have a mix of what they are looking for combining ISEB exam results, interviews and Head of School reports / recommendations. Some schools put less emphasis on the exams than others but your prep should be guiding you through the process. Good luck and remember, you’ve chosen schools with a lot of demand. It may be that its not the right School for your child and there are some great schools out there. We were advised to remember that whatever the school, they all get similar grades and go to the same Uni’s. Its helpful advise to keep you positive :-)

This is really dificult but if you are in the UK or US, that might help you out.

I am so sorry your DS did not get into any of these schools, but as others have said, we need more information to help.

What year is your DS in now? Did he sit the ISEB pre-tests? Did he get invited to attend an assessment day? If he is in a UK prep, then your HM should have been preparing him with ISEB and interview coaching. Are they clear rejections or just waitlist offers? If he is on the waitlist then he may still get a place.

If you applied to Marlborough, does that mean DS is still in Year 6? If so, I know Sherborne is happy in some cases at least for a boy who is not selected in Year 6 to re-apply in Year 7, but I am not sure if that is by invitation only (my DS is in Y5 and I asked the question at an open day).

Good luck! Apparently there was one child at my DS' prep school who got no offers in Year 7, but there were still multiple schools that still had openings for him to continue to apply in Year 8. The recent announcement of VAT on private school fees may also make some schools more open to making offers, if they are seeing some parents moving to the state sector.

Count yourself lucky to be rejected by these schools. There are far better ones out there.

Where would you suggest?