Harrow/Eton/Radley/Winchester Entry 2028

[MrsHLQ]

Starting a thread for all those parents whose sons are currently in Year 6 and who are hoping to join one of these 4 schools in 2028

As the first stage of their assessment process, the boys are sitting ISEB exams this month

Here we can discuss anything and everything to do with the entire application and assessment process over the next 6 or so months or so. By which time we should all know if we have offers, rejections or have been waitlisted

Good luck to all the boys sitting ISEB exams!

Thank you so much, @MrsHLQ and @Ayome. I'm just trying understand the system. We did a speculative boarding school application, but it was a fairly last minute decision and DS is coming from a day school that runs 4 - 18 (and nobody leaves!) so I feel like I am navigating it all blind.

Happy New Year and good luck for assessments! Harrow changed their 1 hour test from CEM to Quest this year. I just noticed not long ago.

Happy new year and yes good luck to all for assessment! @Lilylol hod did you know about the change and how are you preparing for Quest , I have not heard of Quest before

Hi @AyomeIt is in the Harrow Test Invitation email, 2028 preparation information pdf, there is a link and answers. I heard it is quite similar to iseb. Atom and planet bofa have quest style questions.

Hi thank i got the same but didn’t realise it was different that previous years, it didn’t mention Quest either. Thanks for sharing.

your prep head should be helping you

I believe your ds has been invited to the next stage, hence you are still on this thread. I would said well done to both you and your child you are surely doing the right thing.
i would say keep doing what you are doing as it working for you . Good luck for the next stage

Prep for ISEB was very varied so I expect prep for the various in house exams to be the same

E.g. some boys we know were revising ISEB for a few hours per day throughout the summer holidays and then very intensively daily right up until the actual ISEB exam. We know a few families who even refused to take summer holidays preferring to focus on exams instead. These tended to be the more academic boys so it was not a case of “catch up”. It the brightest boys working super hard

in contrast other boys we know did hardly anything over summer. More like an hour of study per week rather than the 2+ hours per day their peers were doing. Amongst our group, These are the boys who can take or leave academics and are more motivated by sport, drama etc. They are the ones who ideally needed intense revision to catch up but didn’t bother doing it

yet those smart kids that studied intensely and those average that didn’t bother studying all got offers for interview at the same schools! Quite incredible

The boys we know who got declined by those same schools are those who are average academically and also don’t stand out from a sport, music or drama perspective. Just average across the board with nothing eye catching. It would be hard to plump out a prep school reference for those kids.

so this is why I think the prep school reports count for a lot. It would be extraordinary if The DC who don’t really like academics and also didn’t study for the ISEB exams randomly had an amazing day at ISEB and got stellar scores. I just can’t see that happening

more likely is they they did average but the prep school reports showed that they excel in one or more of sport/drama/music and are generally good eggs too so would contribute very positively to the school environment and help win the school some trophies/competitions

so the senior school thinks “ok we can accept a 4/10 on academics because this kid is a 8/10 on music and a 10/10 on sport. Likewise we are happy to have the 10/10 academic kid who is 3/10 in sport.”

meanwhile the kids who get declines are 5/10 in everything and very middle of the road and therefore potential passengers as they are unlikely to bring any accolades to the school. But that kid would do amazingly well at schools which value such consistency

My child did mock tests on Atom Learning and scored 125+ securely every time on English, Maths, VR and NVR.
He got invitations to Harrow, Radley, Tonbridge’s next stage of assessments.

Well done to your DS!

Dodnhe apply to Eton?

I’ve surprised at the lack of discussion around Eton applications on MN this year. It’s normally the most popular school on MN and is certainly the most desired destination amongst the parents at our school

This has really stayed with me. It is a bit mad how competitive the whole system has become. Kids doing hours and hours in the summer holidays, not going away with their families, and presumably now the same again over the Christmas holidays. And to what end? Ultimately they all take the same GCSEs and A Levels, and if Oxbridge is the goal, then it is absolutely not guaranteed, even for brightest kids from the 'best' schools.

Is it worth it?

(Context: I'm soul searching about whether it would be better for DC to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond, or aim for the prestigious pond possible)

I don’t think perspective parents realise how much tutoring is involved once their DS starts at one of these schools if you want a straight A*/A profile at A level.

DS left Winchester in 2024 only 29 % of boys left with a profile of A/A at A level, this year was better about 39% achieved A/ A in all subjects. We realised that tutoring would be necessary early on but only because of helpful parents from our prep school who were in the the years above. DS would not have been able to apply for the most competitive degrees in the UK or US without A*/ A.

Given the fees are now £60k per year, parents should consider what they are really paying for. As a past parent of Winchester it certainly wasn’t pastoral care.

Avoid Winchester. It's changed a lot in the past couple of years. And not for the better. We let a year after you. The results were a little better but it still lags the academic and intellectual powerhouses in the UK. The pastoral care remains more miss than hit imo.

Have to admit to being a bit shocked by this. I thought no tutoring would be one of the massive perks of boarding school. Are they tutored remotely during term time? Or is it a holiday thing?

@PrideOfLions,It was remotely from the beginning of year 11.That’s when they start to do work in their rooms and share with one other person. Most of the tutoring was during the holidays until then. The pastoral care was very poor and our housemaster couldn’t really care less about what was going on. I remember thinking as you do but it’s best avoided, I don’t think it’s the first choice for most these days.

I couldn’t agree more @JollyDog.

I think tutoring is a London-centric/southern thing.
my DC are at oundle school which is full boarding in the midlands. It’s not super selective at 13+ and certainly no one is tutored to get in.
im not aware of any of my dc friends ever having tutoring whilst at the school. Pupils have the option to go to “vols” which are voluntary drop in sessions with on duty teachers in the lead up to exams.
61% of the 2025 a level results were A* or A.
I am firmly in in the camp of no tutoring to any child at any age, save for learning difficulties which mandate extra help to enable them to flourish within themselves.
Let them be who they will be within the confines of normal school hours . I loathe hot housing in any form (hence why we chose a midlands school not competitive southern one…)

When does everyone have their interview's? seems to me boys have different dates for Eton , Winchester. Radley , Harrow seem be be the same dates .

RE: tutoring and Oxbridge

No doubt there will be parents of 10 and 11 year olds who are aiming for Oxbridge already but IMO that’s a small minority of those aiming to send boys to the top boarding schools

I’ve never actually had a conversation about Oxbridge with any parent or teacher even though it’s obvious that there’s a couple a boys in DS year who are academically brilliant

what we (and most others we know) want is not m a route into Oxbridge. Our aim is Tommy’s our son with a school

for reasons I won’t go into boarding school suits us best and we want boys only. That narrows the field substantially.

so then we are left looking at best “fit”

the same is true for those we know. Some want boarding, swine want day. Some boys only and other co-Ed. Then it comes down to location and fit to the child.

these are all good schools and super bright kids will do well at any of them. But kids who are massively into rugby won’t do well at Winchester because they are happy to accept kids who like chess and walking as “sport”

likewise Rowers need not apply to Harrow, as they don’t row.

sanding you want to take Chinese GCSE, Radely is not the place because they don’t offer it.

and if you DS does better in smaller environments with more structure then Etonbis not for him.

there are myriad reasons to choose or not to choose a school and for everyone we know it’s about “fit” not Oxbridge

In terms of tutoring, the only extra tutoring we would contemplate is if DS was quite behind in a GCSE subject, if he was on course for a B or a C we would not be tutoring him to try get an A. If he was predicted say a D or worse for maths we would get a tutor just for that.

meanwhile other parents we know we get a tutor in of their DS was “only” predicted an A rather than a A*

remember, some kids and some families are relentlessly academic. But most aren’t. We just want our DS to be the best version of himself, have a LOT of fun and be at school which matches him well. Just as his current prep does. It so happens the schools which match him well include some of the ones mentioned in this thread.

no point trying to reverse engineer by starting with an aspirational school and trying to shoehorn DS into it.

winchester would never be in our list and not because of anything mentioned on this thread (although all valid points). It’s just a terrible fit for our son.

I don’t know anyone who has a clash of dates between any of these schools.

I am totally chocked to read this from an ex parent from wincoll. I am from a state school and still getting accustomed to education system as my family and I are fairly new in England.
I don’t understand the point where unless pupils are tutored they can’t perform to their, in state schools parents believe private school is better as pupils would get everything they need with a small cohort size they would perform better in , in private school the reality seems opposite families still needs to pay for extra
what is the role of school if everywhere pupils still need extra tuition ?
i hear exactly same thing regarding top grammar school most pupils are being heavily tutored to get the straight A .
honestly this is ridiculous, where I come from tutor is not an option and am zero tolerance in paying anyone extra to teach my Dc what is expected to be thought at school, why not just homeschool, in the first place.

I wonder where is the system failing the pupil

My username is a bit of a give away as to which of these schools my DSs attend - the oldest left last year and got A star, A, A with no tutoring at all, so it is definitely not a given. These schools should all provide good enough teaching unless there is a SEN that needs extra support.

Hi ,
I’m not sure what you mean ! Any chance you could elaborate please?

So what’s your first choice ? obviously not the 4 top !

Me?