Winchester v Radley

[Tobstar106]

Winchester College v Radley College , any 2027 intakes reasons why they have chosen one college over another ?

Hello

I am happy to give you my perspective

We found that Radley was better suited than Winchester to boys who are really into their sport, particularly Rugby as it is the main sport at Radley. Rowing is the second biggest sport. The boys we know who are at or who are heading to Radley are smart, but not academic.

what I mean by that is that they won’t do extra work or swot up on things in the library during their spare time. They would much rather be out playing any kind of sport or just having a laugh and mucking around. Again, smart but not studious. Also all the boys we know who are at or who are going to Radley are white British, if that makes any difference.

Winchester produce good cricketers and rowers but sport is much less competitive there and the boys we know who have chosen Winchester are actually all quite non-sporty. Literally the least sporty kids in the year. They don’t even play rugby. So that automatically means all the rugby lads go elsewhere.

Essentially they are very geeky boys who are happy being on their own and are happy doing chess for their sport. They like debating and they just love academics for its own sake. They will go and sit and do maths in their own for example, just for the love of it. The boys we know who are going here are definitely more on the spectrum and also mostly a cohort of international students, mainly from Asia.

im sure there’s some overlap somewhere but we thought they were quite different schools and attract different kind of boys.

hope that helps.

@MrsHLQ thank you , this is what I thought tbh

Attracting different boys, or different parents, I wonder? There are plenty of WinColl boys who are not nerdy 'quirky' introverts, and Radley boys who prefer to avoid Rugby. I met boys in the Radley reptile club who would definitely meet the WinColl stereotype, and I knew a Winchester boy who was asked to leave his prep school for fighting. 10 year old boys probably have different criteria from their parents for the choice of senior school, and where multiple offers are held, the parental decision is generally final. I think Winchester is much more international, and from our prep the seven or eight who went there were all East Asian, and non-UK based. I'd say in that cohort parents were choosing for academic prestige and the challenge for the prep was not so much 'which school will suit him' as 'this is the target, you get him there'. I don't think Radley was really on their radar. There were white British boys who had Winchester places, but all went elsewhere (from this cohort split between Eton and Sherborne). I don’t recall many families applying for places at both. People applied for Eton & Winchester or Radley & Harrow, or any of these plus an insurance choice. But there weren't any I remember who applied to both Winchester & Radley (or Winchester and Harrow). That's one year group in one small prep so I wouldn't extrapolate too much. I'm conscious also that the Winchester co-ed issue was still v raw then and has surely settled down now, which will give rise to some different choices for the current applicant cohort.

You make a lot of good points

we also don’t know anyone who applied to both Wincol and Radley.

the two schools tend to be the DC/parents first choice or their second choice (behind Eton).

I have not seen Radley and Wincol considered together amongst anyone of our wider group

@Blastosis2 funny you should say that ! All the Asian children at our prep did all four of the top boarding schools Winchester , Eton , Radley and Harrow . I am talking about the two top sets , when my son did the Radley interview he was one of two white boys taking the exam out of about 60 children ! Their first choice was either Eton or Winchester

We applied for both Radley and Winchester. Mainly because DS really liked Winchester when we visited it. We didn’t know at the time how he would stack up academically for Winchester entry as they are so young at the time you have to apply.

In the end he’s ended up going to neither of them which is probably the right choice.

Interesting thanks

where did he go for in the end and why?

always curious about this decision making process!

Thank you

@TheCricketers where did you go in the end ? How old is your son ?

Eton

Winchester is an international destination.

Radley, while a great choice for the right boy - capable, all-rounder, not necessarily passionate about scholarship - is not a school many people send their children half-way round the world for. I think it's as simple as that. As others have said, it isn't the most common pair of school offers - though definitely people do choose between the two, and the ones I have known to have done so did so for reasons similar to above. As ever, senior school choice is about being brutally honest with yourself about your dc.

If I had a genuinely academic child, I'd choose W over R in a heartbeat. If I thought they might lag academically at W, I'd choose R. The boys who make the most of and fit in well with the environment at W are very bright.

Have you had children at either ?

@Calliopespa its going to be Winchester I’m sure , after headmasters confirmation he believes it is Winchester , it is the right school for my boy!

They are both great schools, but it's about picking the right school for the boy.

I'm sure you have it right if you are asking that question!

Win Coll is my son’s first choice it has been since our first visit . He has chosen the school and house master himself .

Hello OP,
I second everything that @MrsHLQwrote. Those were our thoughts exactly. The only additions I would add are that:
(1) There is a debate about whether the rest of Winchester will go co-ed. That said, full co-ed is probably not such an issue for you because even if the school is going to go full co-ed then it would take several years to implement and by the time it happened to the lower years your 2027 DS will already be in the upper years.
(2) We really liked the snazzy new science block at Radley whereas Winchester’s seemed a bit old. If science is your DS’s passion you might want to enquire more about that with both schools because Radley may have the edge.
(3) Less chance of a car accident whilst at Radley.

Both schools are amazing institutions in their own right (and we know happy current parents of both). If it helps any, our family’s own decision making process boiled down to a reflection on whether our DS is more sports-inclined or more books-inclined.

Adding to the thoughts above:

• Radley is a campus setting whilst Winchester is in a (small and very lovely) town. We liked the campus approach for our 13 year olds, but felt that as our sons grew easy town access would be beneficial.
• The art at Radley seemed strong and a greater focus than at WinCol.

Access and logistics to the schools are very important if you are UK based. I had assumed it would a few drives back and forth a term, but I am at WinColl almost weekly for concerts, sports fixtures and events.

@Winchie thats sounds great we are just 50 mins from Winchester .