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Original poster

Winchester College

13 replies

isitfiveoclockyet · 23/02/2018 19:34

My DS is due to have an interview and pretest at Winchester College soon. I would love to hear from anyone who has gone through the pretest .Our headmaster feels he has a good chance but we are in a school which rarely sends boys to Winchester. He is very bright but all the applicants will be the top boys in their year group.

We don't have another school in mind so if we are not successful at Winchester we will look at year 7 pretests. Winchester seems very unique in that it is an academic school above all else. Where does a boy who fails to gain a place look next ? The chances of a place feel slim as we are getting closer and I have heard the that they have more applicants than ever in the last few years. This will mean they are even more academically selective.

OP posts:
Sixp · 24/02/2018 13:44

When my Ds did the tests at age 10 I didn’t tell him they were very serious at all. I think he just thought we were going along to see the school and have a chat! I didn’t want to prep him to get in somewhere he wouldn’t just naturally fit in. Others have been aghast at this approach. But, I still think it reassured me.

Original poster
isitfiveoclockyet · 24/02/2018 14:45

Thank you for your reply Sixp. I agree I don't think any ten year old really knows what gaining a place such as Winchester really means. Did your DS take the test this year? Did the housemaster give you any indication of how he had done afterwards ?.We don't really know what to expect on the day.

Also was your plan B , if you had one ?

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blackeyes72 · 24/02/2018 17:35

We missed the deadline for Winchester and it's a shame as I think it would have suited Ds in hindsight.

Friends with bright boys have gone for Winchester, Eton, Harrow with Oundle as backup.

Original poster
isitfiveoclockyet · 24/02/2018 18:20

That is a such a shame, I do hope your DS was happy with your choice of school in the end. I will look at Harrow and Oundle but we are too late for Eton, I have also been advised to look at Tonbridge .Our headmaster told me that super bright boys often gain a place at all of these schools so places can come up once they have decided on their first choice.

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Sixp · 24/02/2018 20:32

M’y DS did the interview 3 years ago and will be starting in September. So all went well. Fingers crossed now for the exams! We didn’t have a back up. Our head suggested Eton or Winchester and we just felt more drawn to one over the other. He didn’t think we needed a back up Hmm. I think DS quite enjoyed the interview as the housemaster ended up proving a pop science type theory which DS was probably blabbing on about to him.

Sixp · 24/02/2018 20:35

I think it was quite a while before we heard the results. They told us we’d hear by the end of May and when that date was nearing our headmaster touched base with them again and got an indication of when the letters would be sent out. He was also told the contents of the letter! But, we let DS find out himself in the mail.

happygardening · 24/02/2018 20:43

My DS went to Winchester he left in in 2016.
Like Sixp we didn’t have a back up, he did the pre test for Win Coll and one other even more over subscribed super selective and luckily got both problem resolved.
I liked Win Coll and the other school (although they were toatally different) and couldn’t find anything that even remotely seemed a good second choice if we hadn’t got either so just buried my head in the sand,. Needless to say it was a relief when we didn’t have too. People would say “have you looked at X it’s very similiar to Winchester” but it wasn’t because Winchester is pretty unique.
Harrow was suggested as it Pre tests a year later although the location alone never made an option for us, and our prep school head said my DS would get an academic scholarship into anythat would have graced my second choice list so I just left it and kept everything crossed.
Good luck.

Original poster
isitfiveoclockyet · 25/02/2018 09:22

Thank you both, it’s great to hear the voice of experience. We will keep everything crossed and hope for the best . I love the entry system at Winchester too and it’s is very reassuring to know that the housemaster has chosen your son (if he is successful). Thank you Happygardening for your insight and best of luck to your DS Sixp with the exams this Spring.

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blackeyes72 · 25/02/2018 18:02

Thank you isitfiveoclockyet he did, he gained a place at Eton which was our only choice!!!

Original poster
isitfiveoclockyet · 25/02/2018 18:26

That's fantastic blackeyes72 , Eton is so competitive .Many very bright boys don't even get offered a waiting list place at our school.Congratulations to your DS.

OP posts:
Jerm123 · 26/02/2018 16:54

Hi, DS left Winchester a couple of years ago now. We were fairly confident he would get in, as he was at a school with connections to the College. We had also applied to Eton, but decided it was not a good fit as DS said all the boys he liked least were going there. I’m sure this was just in a particular school/year-group for anyone considering Eton.

The Director of Studies in the school suggested we apply to Charterhouse as a reasonable fit. ie academic and musical. It would have been OKish, but I do not think DS would have loved school in quite the same way. It was just to have a school “just in case”.

Luckily he was offered a place in all three and chose Winchester.

One note, the pre tests are done by the housemasters - choose a housemaster your DS clicks with rather than the one you like best. Your DS is the one who will live with them.

blackeyes72 · 27/02/2018 19:28

Thank you isitfiveoclockyet, we are very proud of him.. Our second choice was to stay at his day school, which is not quite Winchester or Eton level, but looking back now it would not have suited him.

I wish you all the best for your Ds

YouOKHun · 18/03/2018 18:24

I don’t know if it’s too late to respond to this but I thought I’d add this contribution as it’s relatively fresh in my mind. My son did the pretest for Tonbridge, Winchester and Eton in 2016 and got offered a place at all three. He commented at the time that Tonbridge had a time pressured online test which was quite challenging (and it was the first one he’d done) but a very cursory interview, Eton had a test of a similar style and no harder and a slightly more challenging interview and Winchester had a really easy paper based reasoning test but a much broader more challenging interview than the others. From what we could see Winchester was looking at how nimble the candidate thinking is rather than whether they have the right answer. It would have been impossible to ‘coach’ for had we been keen on that kind of thing. Rather like PPs have said; we let our DS get on with it on the basis it was either right or wrong and WC would be the best judge of that.

My DS took the pre-test in the first few days in May and we heard by letter on 6th June so they were pretty quick. My DS knew from Y4 when we came for the open day that he wanted to go to WS and as soon as we knew he’d got through we declined the others because we couldn’t afford to pay all the deposits apart from anything else!

Now my son is working up to the entrance exam. He’s at a school that sends very few to the major public schools but as long as they communicate with the WC it doesn’t seem to be a problem (all 3 schools were unfazed by this). WC has been very helpful about supplying past papers and answering questions and I think they want to draw on a wider group of schools.

Good luck to your DS.

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