The Trinity-Whitgift-South London school 10+/11+ thread of 2014

[Ladymuck]

A few days early I know, but most of the entrance exams will be out of the way in a fortnight or so, and I'm sure there are a number of us who are in need of or or as we watch our (still very little) boys forget everything that they may have learned over the last couple of years. And there are many veterans of the process who will hopefully be around to reassure us that we will all come through this unscathed.

Wasn't it at W that he was deeply honest about his faults?! Perhaps the feud could have been part of the reason as to why W offered him a scholarship?!

Indeed. :)

I prefer to think his supreme intellect and wonderful personality made them over look everything else...

Hi all
Re DC: I must have misread letter on dress or got confused with T- sent DS in casual clothing complete with hoodie.
He insisted on showing me Shackleton's boat after the exam - consolation for the paper.
I was not planning on doing any interview practice, except telling DC not to say he was a buddhist in St B's interview (he is confirmed Catholic but actually considers himself a Buddhist)
thanks for the links Lady M

It would be encouraging to think that that had some bearing on it.

The good news for those of you who aren't in schools surrounded by others doing the same marathon is that you don't have the playground tensions as to who has had what phonecall for interviews, auditions etc.

No - but we can come here to this thread for the same tension. Can I start: anyone called by DC yet?

I know of someone last year who got offers from DC, Alleyns and W ( at 11+)
I think if they really want someone they will offer whatevs.

JustAnother was briefly tempted to post in jest that I had, but it would undoubtedly end badly.

LadyMuck that's very true. I'm even thinking of withdrawing from this thread next week for the same reason. But I fear I won't have the strength.

I would never have fallen for that one! That would have been cruel, because actually I would have

Perhaps that is Dulwich's secret selection tool - invite everyone to interview next Tuesday and see who turns up ;).

Can I check as to what everyone is expecting in Trinity on Friday? It used to be a standard form verbal reasoning paper? Anyone expecting anything else? English seems to be definitely 30mins Each comprehension and essay.

I'm assuming that the sample papers sent out by the school (on cheery yellow paper) are representative

Did they send out anything for VR?!

Tragically, in common with every other buggering school except Alleyn's, no!

Going back to the topic of how many offers per place, City in fact publish figures of %age take up of offers. They do so on the basis of "full fee" and scholarship separately. For full-fee the take-up of offers was in the last three years was 32.5, 22.1, 37.5%. Last year they clearly over-offered and ended up (says the HT's report) with 15 (!!) more boys than they had anticipated (and five classes rather than the four they wanted).

There were 41 full fee boys. And it sounds like they intended to have only 25 (yikes!!!). But extrapolating they would have offered around 80 or so for the 25 they wanted (in line with LadyM's 3 offers for every place described above).

Most of this is here if you are interested. And the previous years

Actually, my maths wasn't very good. If they had a take up of 37.5% and ended up with 41, they must have offered 110 or so boys (for the originally desired 25). So last year more like 4 offers for every place. I expect, though, they will go back to the 3 for 1 again this year.

Intriguing reading indeed, especially the comments in the previous year about how they're changing tests and procedures to reduce "timewasters".

Sadly all 3 schools that we're applying for are in some form of foundation so I don't think that I can get to read similar reports there.

I guess City is never selling itself as a sporty school but the ratios involved in the sports scholarships are interesting: over 100 applicants, nearly 40 assessed, 7 offers made, 3 accepted.

I guess a vast majority some of the 100 were "time wasters" to quote the heads report

You have me all worried- we have only applied to W so narrowing our chances, all eggs in one basket, apart from the Grammars too which didn't really 'wow' him. He is hoping for W. He has just asked if you need to 'pass' the interview??

Poozie don't worry, I think that if you convey your absolute preference for W at interview that will go down very nicely, and certainly help you to 'pass' the interview with flying colours.

Poozie - I agree with Cheeze, W are very keen on being your no. 1 so if your DS is borderline that will really help swing it for him.

I have a friend with a DS at Trinity (10% academic scholarship) who didn't even get offered a full fees place at W. She reckons it's because at the interview when she was asked by the headmaster "Why is W your no. 1 choice?" she just sort of went "Uhhhhhh...". She thinks he just crossed them straight off. Of course, her DS might not have done well on the exam but seems unlikely given he was awarded a scholarship at T.

wow went away for a few days and the thread has exploded !! Stopped the studying this week and relaxing ready for Thursday so is there a secret handshake at the gate ? .

I believe that it is traditional to wear a peacock feather...

Freshly plucked is preferable.

Mulling further over the CLB report, they are clearly viewing that they are dealing with 2 different pots of boys - the bursary pot and the full-fee pot (who still may get an up to 50% scholarship). Whilst the Whitgift foundation bursary pot is possibly much larger still, I think there is a similar approach as one of the admissions people was complaining that the one thing they hate is people asking for bursaries either at or post interview stage. Not sure what the CLB numbers for 11+ were but if they had 270 for the bursary awards then they may have a similar number for full fee, but essentially there are two different selections at work.

I wonder if in part that answers the issue over the Whitgift and Trinity candidate numbers? 500 may be sitting Trinity 11+ but only 300 odd are sitting as full fee payers... I had always assumed that the papers would be marked on a "needs blind" basis, but actually with the number of boys competing, that probably isn't practical.

I think that I need to go and find something useful to do with my time....

Rereading what I've just written - to be clear - they don't hate bursary requests (far from it!), just they don't like "late" requests (which would fit if the threshold to get an interview/offer for a bursary place was higher than a full-fee place due to more competition per place).