Why is Harrow School Out of Favour: What Am I Missing?

[MrsHLQ]

First off, I’m well aware of the epic “diluted brand” thread about Harrow here. An interesting read and I’m not seeking to duplicate it.

This question comes from a different perspective: A positive one! I really like Harrow!

Following a number of visits, my family (including my DS) all think Harrow would be an excellent fit for my DS.

We have no prior connections to the school and yes the local area (outside the immediate “Hill”) is very far from being genteel, but that isn’t a deal breaker for us. Key for us was that we were very impressed by the ethos of the school. The fellowship and community is very strong and they seem to be interested in boys with a range of skills and interests, not just bookish whizz kids.

But strangely amongst my son’s friends (spread across two English prep schools with boarders), Harrow is very much out of favour.

By number of applications, Eton is the cohort’s number 1 choice (by a very long way), followed by Radley and then Winchester. All three are excellent schools and worthy of praise. Many boys have applied to 2 or 3 of these schools. But they have not applied to Harrow!

In fact, we do not know anyone else other than ourselves who were impressed by Harrow or who thought it would be a good fit for their son. A few people have said they were underwhelmed on the open days and others were simply disparaging without providing good reason.

But Everyone is being very coy about their own experiences/impressions of Harrow. So we are not getting any great insight or detail from them. Even one former Harrow pupil has put his son down for Eton and isn’t applying to Harrow but won’t say much about why! So frustrating!

We have visited a dozen senior schools, many of them at least twice and we thought Harrow was fantastic and right at the top of the tree in terms of fit. But we are clearly outliers.

Very strange as I thought (especially amongst this rarified group, there are no many prep school boarders) that Harrow would’ve been first or second choice for most boys. Definitely not the case at all. Typically fourth choice behind the other 3 boys schools I mention or even more commonly, they are just not applying to Harrow at all.

The views of others are not dissuading us, as “fit” is a very personal thing and Harrow seems to be a brilliant fit for our DS.

But why are so many boys (and their parents) who we know well who we think would be a good “fit” for Harrow now not even applying? They won’t tell us directly!

So the big questions for Mumsnet (where perhaps people can speak more freely) are:

Q1. What are we missing about Harrow that others have seen?

and

Q2. Why is Harrow so much out of favour right now with what would traditionally be considered its most eligible potential pupils?

I’m wondering if Harrow stopped publishing exam results in detail when they got really low (perhaps embarrassingly low for the school) and it was at that point they also decided to spread the net wider and improve the average exam scores by bringing in more highly academic foreign pupils?

that pupil recruitment policy in turn would have an impact on team sports, particularly rugby which is not played to any high level in Asia. That would explain why Harrow are getting thrashed across many age groups and team abilities at Rugby this year.

meanwhile exam result have now improved and are very good indeed. but they can’t suddenly just start publicizing them again like other schools do

just a theory, I could be miles away from the truth here!

This was a very long time ago, but my friend was in a relationship with a ex-Harrow pupil in her 20s. He was the most charming and lovely person. One afternoon we were at his house and two of his friends were due to come over as well. Nearer the time they were due, the boyfriend ‘warned’ us that they’d been to Eton. We were a bit confused but they turned out to be two of the biggest wankers I’ve ever met in my life. Their behaviour was apparently quite typical of the school, which is why he felt the need to warn us.

Just food for thought…

We were both at

I know quite a few old Etonians and they are all lovely people. Ditto ex Winchester College folk and former Harrow pupils.

I think in any school you will get good guys and some absolute pains in the butt. Same with any workplace .

These elite schools are not immune to that.

I think they all have lots of foreign students to be honest - and I don't think they always don't integrate well. The world is becoming more global and I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing to integrate and understand this from an early age. There is much to be learned from other cultures - which is part of why the UK is attractive to them.

Often as a cultural strength, the Chinese students are very diligent and with excellent work ethic will learn exam syllabuses very thoroughly, so they will naturally be very attractive to schools looking to boost their published results..

A couple of thoughts:

I think schools, like everything, go in popularity phases and Harrow is going through a less popular phase at the moment.

The fact it has the most international students might be off putting to some, and as discussed on the Diluted Brand thread, it may make ‘traditional Boarding School UK families’ less keen to send their sons there.

This is only anecdotal but every old Harrovian I’ve met has had quite severe involvement with drugs.

DS left Winchester last year, circa 30% of pupils left with a profile of A star/A at a level. I was actually surprised the number was so low.They didn’t publish the complete table of results. This year results were a bit better mostly because they limited the number of A levels that students could take , 40 percent of students left with A star / A grades.

The results would be much weaker without the international students who are more than willing to tutor outside school. They also reported 47 students received offers to US universities. It was 47 offers
(pupils can apply for up to 20 US colleges).

At Tonbridge in 2024 just under 50 percent left with A*/ A grades, it was obviously better than Winchester but I don’t think either is worth the £60 thousand per annum fees.

All the parents that I know who were in the Winchester 30% in 2024 used outside tutoring (including us). All the most competitive courses at university will require no less than A*or A in all subjects, I don’t think that parents ask the right questions when they visit schools.

we will not apply to Winchester, it’s not the right school for my son

we do know quite a few who have though

Amongst those that we know (so a small sample) it tends to be the non sporty, fairly clever ones who are also a bit socially awkward. Not sure why this is the case.

The more socially outgoing and very clever boys (who are also good sportsmen and good musicians!) have applied for Eton. Amongst them, Radley is the back up destination.

that said, the former WC people we know are all super impressive. Lovely people and very successful. Talk about being good ambassadors for the school.

but as I say it’s not right for my son, so we won’t apply to WC.

as an aside I am so confused by all the thread son here where pork summit linkage applied to all these boys schools. I mean, they are so different.

Do people not realize that, and just carpet bomb the schools and hope something sticks?

Just so you know, you are not alone, we also turned down an Eton offer in favor of Harrow.

‘as an aside I am so confused by all the thread son here where pork summit linkage applied to all these boys schools. I mean, they are so different.
Do people not realize that, and just carpet bomb the schools and hope something sticks”

My apologies I don’t understand this part of your post.

@Saladday what questions should parents be asking when they look at schools?

I think she meant focusing on outcomes as measured by results? That's how I took it.

TBH if I only wanted top results, I'd send my dc state and pay for one to one tutors.

But a school can be about so much more - social and sporting obviously, but also styles of learning and enrichment around the syllabus itself. ETA even styles of interaction can be determined by a school - something that even affects their relationships for life.

Apols, I should’ve spellchecked!

what I was saying (or attempting to) is that as an aside, there are some threads on here where people seem to have applied to 5 (or more!) top boys schools

which is confusing for me as the schools are all so different, surely they don’t really match up with all these kids.

yes they are boys schools (except WC which is going mixed) but that doesn’t mean they are 5 identikit schools

yet people on mumsnet seem to carpet bomb them all and see what offers they get

in real life, virtually everyone I know applied to 3 schools: a first choice, a second choice and an insurance policy (easy to get into) in case first and second choices don’t work out

and the first and second choices make sense

for example, IRL it would be weird to have a bright but not studious boy who is massively into rugby to put WC as his second choice after say Radley.

but here, some people just apply to them all!

Interesting, thank you both

think you’re right in saying most choose Eton over harrow

Can I ask though why you both applied to Harrow and Eton?

they are very different schools

I can't speak for boys public schools but I can talk about girls private schools.

There is most definitely an element of fashion involved, certain schools become 'flavour of the month' and parents don't even visit to check them out. We visited 3 local private schools with DD - 2 were definite favourites with other parents, and we were the only family who went to the open day of the 3rd school. The school was a good local fit, neither too expensive nor too cheap and yet simply not considered. And yet this was by far and way the best fit for DD.

She went there, with a scholarship, thrived, aced her A levels and went on to the uni of her choice, so was totally the right decision.

You can only make the best decision for your child - sod everyone else. Don't go somewhere siomply because that's where everyone else is going

Good advice

this is what we are doing and was in fact the motivation behind the original post

we really like Harrow because we think it’s a great fit for DS for a very wide range of reasons

yet there are a lot of naysayers in our school and social circle who are bizarrely snobby and dismissive of Harrow and aren’t even bothering to apply

on top of that there is the “diluted global brand” mega thread on here which just heaped extra curiosity on the situation we are seeing IRL

I’ve just left university to give you an idea as to my age, but multiple friends I had at Harrow both my year and below experienced truly horrific bullying at Harrow. From what I heard it seemed pretty endemic within the school and the school didn’t do much to sort it out. Boys in one house also bullied out their house mistress (first female housemaster at the school) by amongst other things targeting her two young daughters and beheading their favourite stuffed animals, with no one facing any repercussions.
Anyone that didn’t fit the mould of what a ‘Harrow boy should be’ was really bullied, to the extent that friends who did fit that mould ended up being targeted as well when they tried to stick up for people. Now it may be that the school has done a 180 since then but I’d certainly ask lots of questions about pastoral care and anti bullying before sending someone to school there.

Even 40 years ago harrow had the reputation for being the well to do school for the less intellectually able boys.

I live local to the school and have friends whose children attend there. It’s an amazing school- the pastoral support is second to none, they really get to know the boys and almost tailor make the curriculum to help them succeed. The bit I’ve heard people aren’t too keen on is that the school is ethically very diverse and they’re worried little Tarquin/Oliver/Rupert/Xander won’t have much in common with or learn much from the likes of Arjun, Mohammed or Huan Li. It’s snobbery/racism in my eyes but people vote with their feet based on what’s important to them. Also, re: the surrounding areas- they’re amazing. Harrow is an outer London borough so comes with its fair share of problems but I promise you the rest of us plebs aren’t living in slums! Harrow council, on the other hand, is shit- the less you have to do with them, the better!

@MrsHLQ
Well I’m sure the residents of the Harrow area except those on the Hill) would be delighted to know that their area is far from genteel.
Are you Hyacinth Bucket reincarnated?
By the way Harrow has the 3rd lowest crime rate out of the 32 London boroughs.

OP. You are definitely doing the right thing not just going with the crowd.

However I don't really know how you can visit a school and know for sure it is the right or wrong school for your DC. Schools show you only what they want you to see.

I think that's why other parents apply to lots. They are also apprehensive they won't get offers.

I think you can tell pretty quickly if it’s not the right school.

Certainly at a couple of schools we have visited (that friends absolutely loved) we felt strongly it was not the right place.

ensuring it is the right school is much harder and there is an element of hoping for the best

meanwhile threads like this are helpful to me and hopefully to others too!

Honestly - the ‘snobby naysayer’ vibe would have the exact opposite effect on me - I’d be happy they weren’t applying and would be looking forward to getting away from that group!

In our part of North London the default path is overwhelmingly day school — St Paul’s/Westminster are the usual north stars — and even mentioning boarding tends to elicit surprise, and occasionally a negative reaction.

For us, the daily commute of ~45 minutes each way to the top day schools felt like lost time, so we became mildly “boarding-curious.” When we raised it with our prep head, he suggested a very short list of sensible options that he felt would suit our son, and we dropped any that were too far away. That’s how Eton and Harrow ended up on our radar — simply the practical choices to explore if we were going to look at boarding at all.

We chatted to a few parents with boys at each, which gave us useful colour, but we tried not to get swept up in the wider noise and mostly relied on our own visits and how our son responded to each environment.

We knew they had different cultures, but we felt our son could potentially thrive in either and wanted to understand which school suited him more. Once he had offers, it was really just a case of choosing the place where he seemed most at home. We also had some idiosyncratic priorities that helped us sort.

OP, following this - dd is in an all girls which has a similar rep for unknown reasons, suspect decades ago intel when posters were at school themselves. It frequently does better than others touted on here and yet has a far higher proportion of SEN than most, so clearly is nurturing as well as academic, which perhaps be the issue here too? I haven't looked into Harrovian SEN cohort at all but sometimes it seems that % of SEN is overlooked in schools for Progress 8 figures, when I suspect it is similarly as difficult for teachers to adapt to.

My advice is that if you like the school go with your own assessment. You know your child.