Winchester Election

[negrilbaby]

Can anyone answer me a couple of queries I have about the Election at Winchester?
Roughly how many boys sit for the exam?

What is a ball-park figure for pass marks? Are we aiming for 90%+ or lower?
Thanks

Definitely lower than 90+ ( a difficulty of some subjects are equivalent to GCSE standard). There is no pass or fail mark. What I have heard is that not many people fail. If you do very badly in many subjects then you might fail.

@Beyondthesea123

Definitely lower than 90+ ( a difficulty of some subjects are equivalent to GCSE standard). There is no pass or fail mark. What I have heard is that not many people fail. If you do very badly in many subjects then you might fail.

Thank you. However, they only select 15 boys from the Election - so that's what I meant by passing. If anyone has any personal experience of marks that got in or not it would be helpful.

negribaby

I asked the same question and Master in College said he will take the ones with the best marks. Each year exam’s difficulties are different so the ones who’s got elected have the different mean score each year.

I believe they like to have about 50 boys sitting it. Normally you are asked to visit and I get the impression that they will try to dissuade you unless your son seems to be in with a genuine chance.

We only got grades as the results by the way, not marks or %. Quite a range for my son when he sat it a few years back. I think they use discretion for those with stand-out results in one or two areas.

Remember, although 14 boys end up in College, some may also be offered house places through Election. Some boys sit it for honorary scholarships as they prefer to go into a house over College.

Thank you both.

Hi, A number of boys sit the exam as a challenge, but do not want to belong to college. They are exhibitioners. There used to be a form that was filled out, before the boys sat the exam, asking if you had a place in a house or not and if you wanted to apply to college.

My son didn’t want to apply to college, but wanted the intellectual challenge of the scholarship route to the entrance one. They will list the boys in order of the exam result, but there are more than 15, as a fair number will opt for a house.This was several years ago, but I doubt it has changed much.

It may not be the overall highest score that gets through though. If there is an amazing mathematician, linguist or scientist, they may be weak in another area. It used to be that those boys who has done well were discussed by a group of senior dons, so that college didn’t become full of generalists.

Witchlight - thanks for this. I was wondering how they made the final selection given that boys will have sat different subjects and differing numbers of papers. It makes sense not to have simply a numerical 'passmark' as such. I suppose they are also looking for the boys who will make the most of the the opportunity and give the most back to the school.