Conditional offer from 2 private schools 6th form A levels

[motheru]

Wonder if anyone can help please? My son got 2 conditional offers for A levels from private schools, for a better one he has to achieve better GCSE grades. We also applying to state schools just in case. My questions are: 1. Can he accept both private school offers and depending on results pick one of the two? (Both schools asking for decision of acceptance of the offer in January 2020). He is hoping to go to a better school but wants to have a back up just in case he doesn't get required grades. 2. Can he keeps his options even more open and accept offers from private and state schools at the same time? Thanks for your help

Yes you can accept offers from private and state at the same time. You may forfeit a deposit if you ultimately go with the state option (unless that is due to not reaching required grades - often there is a get out clause to that effect), and it’s good form to decide fast once you have all the offers on the table and are in a position to decide (don’t hang onto a place till the start of term and then let them know).

Be really careful here. If you try and hedge your bets and leave it too late you could find you are expected to pay a terms school fees which could be £10k!

Normally there will be a cut off point but please do take careful note of the date.

Yes , as long as you are willing to lose deposit and possibly a term's fees in lieu of notice if he got the better one and cancelled the other place.

You can accept as many offers as you like, but it can get very expensive. Once you accept both offers you will need to pay a deposit and most likely become liable for a term's fee at both schools (even in case you end up going to a third). The deposit should go towards the final term's fee, though.

Make sure you read the contracts you are signing.

If you agree to send your DC to a private school you will pay a deposit and commit to paying one term‘s fees. You only usually escape the one terms fees if you give notice a full term in advance - and that usually means the last day of the term before ( in your case end of Easter term and not the first day of the summer term). There is usually a clause which says that if the school refuse to offer a place the term‘s fees are waived - but schools will often offer a place even if the student has not achieved the grades requested. They lower the offer because if they do not have a long waiting list that place is likely to stay empty for 2 years at 6 th form level meaning a significant financial loss. So in a worst case scenario here if you decide to go for the state option you could be liable for two sets of private fees.

The contracts are very carefully drafted and the schools have a lot of experience of enforcing them successfully.

Thanks everyone. That was very helpful, I guess I will need to call schools as well and carefully ask questions. I didn't realise that you are committing to paying a terms fee once accepting an offer... DC is very keen to go the the private school with the high entry requirement, he was so excited to be considered and get an offer. Because they are in the top 3 schools in the city I doubt that they would be willing to offer him a place if he fails to achieve the entry requirements... he wants to accept the place there and tells me he will make sure he gets the grades but naturally as I parent I want to consider plan A B and C... but from reading it will be expensive to keep options open for both private schools.. but if he fails to achieve the grades after accepting the offer from his first choice he won't have an option of going to his second choice of private school...

It stops parents doing what you are trying to do. If they didnt it would be a horrible mess with parents accepting offers from lots of schools and then dropping out at the last moment.

We had a waiting list offer from Harrow which they did warn us would be likely to come through August (for a Sept start!). They wouldnt tell us where we were in the queue so in the end we withdrew and took another offer which has been the making of my sons looking back....

but if he fails to achieve the grades after accepting the offer from his first choice he won't have an option of going to his second choice of private school

unless they still have places available, that's the chance you take I suppose

@motheru I guess it's not the same (but similar)... my brother failed to meet the conditions of his offer from Queen Mary University and despite it being a sought after yni, they still offered him a place (although he only missed the condition by one mark) so the too school might still accept your son if he just misses the grade

uni and top school

Apologies for the typos