Have schools offered flexibility on boarding school offer and deposit deadlines?

[CavT]

Has anyone ever asked a school to provide feedback (acceptance/rejection) earlier, or asked a school to extend the deadline by which you must accept and pay a deposit, in order to align the timing of two schools? (Versus accepting and paying a deposit at one school whilst waiting for the other, then potentially withdrawing and forfeiting the deposit.) Have schools shown any understanding or flexibility of that situation?

No. They’re a business. They won’t assist in you preventing another child from taking up their place at their school whilst you see if a better offer comes along for yours. How would you feel if the shoe was on the other foot and it was you waiting for a place for your child at the first school as it was your first choice? Holding places only adds to the anguish at offer time and forfeiting deposits is the only tool schools have to try and discourage parents from doing this.

Yes, I went back to two schools and asked for an extension to the deadline as my DD was awaiting acceptance from a 3rd school and we wanted her to have all the info before making a choice.

Both schools were happy to agree and one even offered an additional familiarisation day prior to making the choice. All very friendly and understanding.

Thanks for your response. What would you recommend a family do then if a child will not hear back from his first choice until early July but must respond to his second choice by late June?

I think in that circumstance if 2nd choice is marginal or acceptable you need to hedge your bets even if this means losing a deposit - although you could try timing so that the 25 day cooling off period applies?

I preface my response with the optics of a competitive 11+ london girls day schools market alongside a competitive top tier girls boarding schools market - all of which had deadlines which allowed all offers to be considered - although at the time one school had an ‘exploding offer’ which meant take it up asap or lose it. (Fine if it was your first choice) i assume the July offer is a sought after school as opposed to the June one? Which country are you in? It may help your responses.

I’ll add that even with the deadlines, all schools were prepared to up scholarship awards even if they couldn’t move a deadline.

@CavT We had this problem with Harrow and Eton. We accepted the earlier offer (Harrow) before we found out the results of the Eton exam.

*14 day cooling off not 25!

Yes, we were asked to pay a large deposit after the offer of a place for 13+ boarding entry when our daughter was in year 6.

It felt too early and too large, and we just couldn’t commit at that point. We had a conversation with them and explained openly, we only had that school and one other as options.

They understood, held the place for us for another 9 months and we didn’t have to pay the deposit. This was a big name boarding school with competitive entry.

They explained the deposit was mostly to focus the minds of parents with ‘7 or 8 school options’

We phoned the boarding school and they told us the outcome of our place 2 weeks early so we could make an informed decision about the move we had to make before attending that school. They were very understanding and swore us to secrecy which we upheld. We accepted the place and asked to pay the deposit over 9 months which they also accepted. If you don’t ask you don’t get.