Declined a bursary because we earn too little!

[Gemima14]

I was just wondering how to tackle a private school that have declined a bursary on the basis they didn't want to put us under financial stress due to our limited assets and our financial outgoings and our income. I have heard of being declined because you earn too much or own too much but not this way around! Anyone else had this?

Apparently they don't offer 100% bursaries but I was wondering if I could ask them about my child going for a scholarship in year 7 and then topped off with a bursary? Or perhaps whether it would be cheeky to ask them what I would need to be earning in order to be in with a chance? I am currently self employed so my income isn't brilliant but I am in early stages of my business.

I don't really know how to handle these bursars. He has been very polite and we got the distinct impression on initial contact with the school that they would look favourably at us but now feel we have been cheated a bit as we have paid them a registration fee (which has been banked).
It was only this school we were interested in but I wonder now whether we should just find out if there are any schools that offer 100% bursaries or forget the whole thing?

Any help/advice would be really handy on how to progress this (or perhaps just leave it!).
Many thanks.

Sorry bit of deleted sentence:

"A mother I know told me about her son as he was a bright child and threatened to pull him out of his existing school. As if by magic she got a very large bursary."

We did feel pressurised into it a bit as it was implied that without the fee the application could go no further. If they had offered some sort of bursary I would fully understand the fee.

No. I don't understand your position. Everyone pays a registration fee at the beginning - it's not something you alone were pressurised into.

Everything that follows from your first contact with an independent school - arranging to visit, phone calls, hard copy of the prospectus, entrance exam, bursary assessment, costs the school money. I cannot understand why you feel you should have had any part of this for free simply because, in the end, your child has not taken up a place.

Did you tell the school right from the outset that you would need a 100% bursary or just "a bursary"? Does the schools website/paperwork actually state that they don't do 100% bursaries if it did why did you apply if that's what you needed.
Did your DD sit an entrance exam some bursaries are given in proportion to maths achieved on entrance tests eg you do unbelievably well and you get a bigger bursary.

Registration fees are non refundable. It's annoying and cheeky (schools probably make a pretty penny from these fees) but standard and terms would be clear. Plus there would be significant admin costs for them to assess bursary applications.

It does happen, for the reasons they gave. And it has always happened, it happened to me, 42 years ago.

I passed the entrance test, got good references from teachers, then family income was requested and my application was stopped as my parents could not realistically have bought 10% of the obligatory uniform, let alone topped up the fees.

And even back then there was a registration fee, which the nice man who stumped it up for me lost.

OP I neglected to say that I would feel very sad for anyone in a position such as you describe.

Is it much too late for you to investigate schools that genuinely can offer 100% bursaries? Because they do exist.

I certainly wouldn't say these things are only available to those in the know - but you do need to read everything and double check every step of the process. And only apply to very wealthy schools.

Thanks all. I think I will just write back asking them to perhaps have the bursar available for questions when they hold these open mornings and accept the fee has gone.
Yes, there is a school fairly locally that states on its website that it has been agreed that the school will offer 3 x 100% bursaries a year to new applicants so we may try there. When all is said and done its not the be all and end all but like somebody has said there are a number of factors and perhaps our face just didn't fit and it wasn't to be. The school doesn't state what bursaries are available - if it had clearly stated that 100% bursaries were not available then obviously we wouldn't have applied! We are not too late as she is in year 5 at the moment so still time for a year 7 entry.

OP I doubt many prospective parents would want to ask about bursaries in such a public way - so it's unlikely that it would be wirth a bursar's time to attend.

I feel that somewhere along the line something has been misunderstood. It's not about your face fitting (or at least it shouldn't be at any decent school) but there is a huge element of serendipity ... At a particular moment a particular school very much wants a child exactly like the one you have. Who very much wants that particular school. The moment where you start feeling you've been pressurised or scammed is the moment when you know it's not the right school.

And, to be frank, ime when one is looking for the right school it is the most important thing and takes up all your attention.

Ah okay, so this registration fee was some sort of preliminary, prior to offer fee?
Do you mind me asking how much the fee was?
The schools that we applied for didn't have a fee just to register interest but they did have an application fee -£50 per school which covered the administration costs, examination fee and costs of lunch on the day etc. that cost applied to everyone whether applying for a bursary or not and was non refundable. After submitting the application and £50 fee you then had to complete the bursary forms. If your child was offered a place following examination you would then be asked for a registration fee to secure the child's place, this was about £200 but was waived for successful bursary applicants at the school we eventually chose. Other schools required the £200 fee for all applicants but they did tell you prior to payment whether a bursary was being offered and what the level of the bursary would be.

I was not aware that some schools ask for a fee just to register interest at an early stage.

I know London schools are different, but here in the rural Midlands I have not come across a school which asks for a registration/application fee BEFORE looking at the figures and telling parents approx how much the school will offer.

Ask for it back OP

It must be a difference in terminology. I can quite confidently state that as regards (major) prep and public schools outside London (at least those I've looked at ) the initial registration fee is paid by everyone who wants to do more than simply read the website.

In general parents might pay two or three registration fees at least - giving them an opportunity to find out more about a school and perhaps have the child sit entrance exams. And a child might be offered places at all or none or one of those. There's no question of refunding the registration fee if you don't take up a place or if you're not offered a place.

I can't comment on the bursary situation. However in the local independents It's completely standard to pay a 'registration' fee which is needed before a child can be considered for entry / sit the exam. So three exams three registration fees. Once offered a place an acceptance deposit is typically required to accept the place.

We are applying for a bursary for DD but as it is partially means tested and partially academic I have no expectations. As per the form I sent off the application form, along not with the very very detailed analysis of our financial affairs in the format they requested, along with the registration fee. I had a lovely email from the school to say their policy was to waive the fee for bursary applicants and would I be happy if they destroyed my cheque or should they return it to me? Delightful but also not needed in our case as we don't need a full bursary, just a top up so we don't go off a financial cliff. They will let us know likelihood of means tested element in November and then after January tests they will let us know if there are any academic scholarships to support that bursary. Not all independents are grabbing. To me OP it sounds like the school you applied to managed your expectations badly and as a result you are rightly feeling aggrieved.

Ah thank you all, you have made me feel slightly better on the situation and yes I do think they managed expectations badly, particularly now I have gone back to the bursar who has been very kind.

He has said that he has already spoken to admissions and said that he should be available for private chats with parents regarding the bursary situation on open mornings. He basically implied that he could have told us then that what we wanted wouldn't be available rather than admissions giving us the impression it may have been and to put our application in (with the cheque).

This is not a London (or greater London) school, far from it and not over subscribed either. We were naive I think and have learnt out lesson!

The bursar I think genuinely feels bad about turning us down and said he would love to be able to help but basically his hands are tied. One schools lost maybe another schools again!

Mmm ... I also can't comment on your specific bursary experience but - a school that's under-subscribed is perhaps not the best bet in bursary terms.

It may well be a good thing that you now have the opportunity to look elsewhere. Did you research and visit widely or only concentrate on this school?

Just this school as we felt it was right for our DD! When I say under-subscribed I mean we don't live in an area that any school is over subscribed because we have grammar schools still!

I would be very wary of applying for a bursary at any school that is undersubscribed and doesn't have a clear bursary policy that can be accessed or discussed at the initial stage.
The area that I live in has several grammars and several independents and all of them (with the exception of the 1 non academically selective Independent) are hugely oversubscribed every year. There was another independent school which didn't have a clear bursary policy and wasn't fully subscribed but it closed a few years ago due to funding issues.

I think we were just naive! Lesson learnt this time!

I can see their point, tbh.

A bursary might take care of the fees, but does it cover uniform, extra curriculars, outings etc.? If not then I would imagine it's these things that they are concerned about. Private school uniform was very expensive when I went, can't imagine it's a whole lot cheaper now :(

If they don't offer full bursaries covering all expenses then he might have been trying to be kind to you in a cackhanded sort of way; but more likely it's because what they don't want is to give a bursary to a child whose parents will struggle to top up to full fees, when they can give it to some other child whose parents won't have the struggle. At the end of the day, it's going to be about their bottom line - are you a good "risk" or are you not - and if they think you're not a good risk, then they'd rather not take a chance on losing money on you.

Yes, it's certainly true that more private schools are closing these days. Two of my daughters were at a girls school which closed suddenly last year. We all had two weeks to find a new school for our daughters. In the lead up to the closure they had been using promises of bursaries to try to get new parents to enroll their children. So when the school actually did close a lot of poor kids had only been there for one year and then had to move again!

One of the thing I would advise is to look at the ISI report and see what it says about the school's governance.

The uniforms are very expensive but my daughter has just one of everything and you can get second hand clothes from the school shop. Usually the quality is decent enough for it to last.

I think the school should have laid down clearer guidlines as to the rules when granting bursaries. I think it was fair enough of them to refuse if the bursary could only meet a percentage of the fees and the felt your income wasn't large enough to meet the shortfall. But I can see why you are annoyed they have taken your money. It seems they have misled you which is wrong. I'd certainly complain and ask for a full explanation.

I get the impression from the last email back from the bursar that there is something else going on and his hands are tied. I did suggest that I could top up my business income at the moment by doing other part-time work (as my husbands salary isn't bad at all) or I could go back to work as a project manager but that fell on deaf ears. So, despite all their promises of being more inclusive in the next 5 years I don't believe that they have much to give away at all. What is an ISI report?

What is an ISI report?

Oh, Gemima ...

(I do genuinely feel bad for you - but did you do any research?)

ISI is Independent Schools Inspectorate.

Personally, after our last experience if I got even a whiff of something being a bit odd or not clear then I would not enroll my child there. If the school isn't being run properly then it affects the teaching and everything else.