Winchester 2025 13+ entry bursary / admission questions

[parent1709]

Was hoping someone could help us. Our DS gave the 2nd stage assessment / interview at WinColl on 1st March 2023. We had applied for a bursary at the end of January 2023. We understand from blogs that results are due May 2023 but I don't have the patience to wait

Today we received an email from an independent company requesting a bursary appointment next week (they have requested the usual documents, all totally normal). Is this a good sign? Or am I reading too much?

I have two questions for parents who have gone through the admissions process at WinColl and/or similar schools:

1. Is the WinColl admissions truly "needs blind"? (regardless of what the school says in public). For example does a boy who needs 80% bursary need to clear a higher admissions hurdle to be accepted Vs. a boy who needs 20% bursary Vs. a boy who has not applied and does not need any aid at all.
2. Is the fact that we have been called for a bursary appointment mean that DS has essentially made it through from an admissions standpoint? He has faced a string of disappointments so I am hoping I can give myself him something to cheer about (although we have no intention of telling him until we know for sure in May 2023)

I am conscious WinColl is highly competitive and the interview process is/was intensive. I also hope that the right school will find the right child as long as its my child 🙂.

The key question is is the admissions hurdle set higher for bursary applicants at WinColl?

Thanks for your inputs

@parent1709 , I will dm you.

May be worth calling the admissions team directly and asking. They seem to be quite helpful.

HexagonalHatbox - thanks for your insights which make total sense

Roses81 - I called admissions, but only to ask for unofficial feedback on my DS performance. The lady who picked up said she was new and was (understandably) unable to give me feedback prior to result beginning of May. But she was helpful enough to pass on my message to admissions manager. I did not push it.

The question I wish to ask anyone who can help me is this - if my child was good enough to secure a provisional place (e.g. good ISEB, good 45min housemaster interview, good reference etc) but due to demand exceeding supply, not quite high enough on the preference list to be awarded a bursary (i.e. not Scholar and not Exhibition material currently) then will the school not even make him a provisional offer?

Do any former parents know if Winchester offer provisional places in beginning of May with the bursary decision to follow later (by end of May)? Or do they always make the 13+ provisional offer and the bursary at virtually the same time / in the same letter?

My theoretical research would indicate this is the case, i.e. there are different milestone dates for offers (beginning of May) and bursaries (end of May) which would imply two streams. (See below from the Bursary Guidance).

But keen to know from parents how it works in practice at Winchester.

"Please note that the school makes its decisions to offer provisional places in the school before parents’ need for financial support with school fees is assessed. Parents who will need bursary support should be aware that the offer of a place at the school does not guarantee bursary funding. If it is unable to offer parents a bursary, the school reserves the right to withdraw the provisional offer of a place where it is apparent that the school fees cannot be afforded without financial assistance"

My nephew is at Winchester and I asked my SIL if she could answer your question. She remembered the number of boys who were offered a conditional place but not a bursary in DN’s year group was 11. She doesn’t think the school is worth putting yourself under financial strain for, DN and most boys in his year group have outside tutoring. This may be the case at most schools but SIL was not expecting to have to do this.

Why do they need outside tutoring? Are they struggling to keep up with the lessons or is she suggesting the teaching is poor @Bysandyshore ?

She feels that they are left to their own devices literally. Many of the top students receive tutoring from day one. DN is average for the school but it became clear that he was floundering so tutoring was necessary, she got recommendations from other mums in DN’s house. I can’t comment on other boarding schools but I doubt they will be different.

Floundering!? The teaching is either shockingly bad or it’s the wrong academic pace for him. Either way, I wouldn’t pay for that experience and I’m a private school parent… It sounds like he needs to move.

I agree @MomFromSE , as I said SIL was recommended the tutors she is using by mums at the school….. She came later to tutoring than others. I am also a parent of DC’s at both private and grammar schools in London both have excellent teaching and any problems are nipped in the bub.

*bud

Bysandyshore - thank you for reaching out to your SIL. Her detailed note-keeping is impressive :-).

I will now proceed to exhibit my skills at tiger parenting and over-analysis...

...Stats indicate that an average of 24 boys in each year group receive financial support (120 boys over 5 years). I guesstimate this is broken down into 20 boys in each year group in the New Boys intake receiving a bursary, which rises to 30 boys in each year group in more bursary heavy the Sixth Form.

Given the bursary guidance says "Each year the school has to refuse 1 in 4 applications received, even though the applicant would qualify for support in other circumstances". I again guesstimate this is a refusal rate of 1 in 3 in the New Boys stage and a lower refusal rate of 1 in 5 in the "bursary friendly" Sixth Form. This would imply around 10 bursary refusals for every 20 bursary offers at New Boy stage. This matches Bysandyshore's SIL report of 11 boys with provisional places with no bursary offers.

The number of New Boys receiving a bursary (c.20) is remarkably close to the total number of boys in each year group that are awarded a Scholarship (14) and Exhibition (9). The bursary guidance also states that "Preference will usually be given to Scholars and holders of Music and Sports awards". So it is safe to conclude that the vast majority if not all of the New boys on bursaries are seen as scholarship and/or exhibition material.

Back to my son. He is creative, thrives in immersive boarding, makes friends easily but will never be "Head Boy", is observably bright, loves B cricket and C football, has ADHD (medicated), loves carpentry/DT, plays drums and piano (grade 1 made his dad proud), recently expressed an interest in robotics, slowly building his confidence in public speaking within his school, in the middle of a high performing top set at his prep school. Zero tutoring and near zero outside support (except for 30 min/day of Atom Learning last summer, as advised by the school). Holidays for him are about free play, sleepovers and Minecraft.He is an only child and has faced his share of ups and downs, although school for him has always been a happy sanctuary.

I used to work in the kitchen at one of the Winchester College houses. The housemistress used to regularly fish bits of meat and other things out of the ‘pig bins’ (where we chucked waste food), run them under the tap and ask us to make sandwiches for the boys from it. I always wondered if the parents knew what they were paying for

Nothing surprises SIL at this stage , can you imagine if this were happening at a state school.

@SmugglersHaunt That’s an interesting story given that Winchester has never appointed a housemistress.
My son is in his second year at Winchester and loves it. We have found the teaching outstanding and I’m not aware of any outside tutoring.
He takes his academic work seriously but spends a huge amount of time playing sport.

Feedback from successful parents indicates that it is indeed possible for a provisional offer acceptance but a bursary rejection. I am intending to phone admissions when they open in April and have a heart-to-heart with them - essentially convey to them that if my son were to have a provisional place but no bursary, to please do not reject him outright as I would be prepared to accept the provisional place without a bursary (and briefly explain why).

When I worked there, each house had a housemaster (who was usually married) and his wife was the housemistress. She would manage the kitchen of the house, the staff, the food budget etc. This was in Kingsgate House (Beloe's).

@SmugglersHaunt Fair enough, though technically they were known as housekeeper and it wasn’t universal.

In my view, bursary kids are in their own league.. there would be no bursary offer for a (slightly above) mediocre performance, but the more academically selective a school is, the sooner an gifted child will be prioritise for a bursary. This is however entirely in the HM's hands, he is the main opinion leader when it comes to the wants.

When it comes to needs, the bursar is the backstop and the two processes run consecutively but also in in parallel. If the HM earmarked you son as "wanted" then the bursar will see whether he can make it "needed". Not sure if there is a scoring system in case of over, but I am fairly certain that the bursary is independent from academic or music scholarships, as those are decided years later. Mind you, grade 1 at that age is fairly average and will not attract much attention.

I do not have a child at WinColl (yet), but I did go to super-selective a boarding school myself and the claims laid by @Bysandyshore re tutoring are a complete joke in my view. WinColl is a full boarding school for starters, no-one can seriously think that parents who barely see each other at terms' beginning and end (if at all) will really share that insight, let alone exchange that sort of information. And how would tutoring go exactly... these kids live, eat and sleep together in the same rooms 24/7. Tutoring at night, or during hols? Picking out stuff from the trash is real rock bottom... check out the kitchen at Beloe's, you'll see they have several choices for breakfast. Don't buy any of this.

OP, if I were you I would just relax and take it all in. It is all down to the HM's wants and the bursar's limits, so if the HM sees something special in your child and the bursary is convinced, he might have a shot. But I wouldn't bank on it, there is no reason for any school to go out of their way for a (slightly higher than) average child. Those awards are reserved for the most wanted, which in case of academically selective schools like WinColl are often also the most gifted.

@SmugglersHaunt makes no sense. Why would anyone throw away food in a house full of starving teenagers?

This reminds me of my boarding years in the 90s: kitchen staff used to collect the leftover food in their so called waste bins, which they carefully kept in a bag as in reality they were stainless steel canisters used to carry fresh leftover food home to their families in the evenings (we had enough time to observe). At first it was just small amounts, maybe enough for a family of four, so we couldn't be bothered. After a while this particular person started to carry obscenely larger canisters aka pig bins, which raised more than a few eyebrows amongst us late eaters.

When we were denied the chance of a repeat several times, and observed the kitchen staff pack away the extra food afterwards, we decided to collectively blow the whistle. Not entirely sure what happened after that, but the cook was let go by the end of the term...

Sorry @SmugglersHaunt if this wasn't your experience, but I thought it might be worthwhile to share mine.

Yes, @WEEonline lots of tutoring goes on (online) in the evening (once they stop doing Toytimes downstairs).Tutoring is a mix of online and in person ( Sunday is a big day for Tutoring).Things step up during the holidays and many boys come back with everything covered. Parents are quite open about it in my nephews house (amongst each other).

Things step up closer to exams of course ,many boys who didn’t return to school for a long time after the pandemic make particularly rapid progress 😀. University admissions takes things to another level , particularly US admissions. Things have changed dramatically since you were at school. The pastoral care in my nephews house isn’t great so he could literally spend hours on his device if he wished. His roommate runs everything by his tutor (SIL”s budget doesn’t run to that). It clearly works as the boy is always among the award winners .

The pastoral care in DN’s house is not good, if he never showered or changed his clothes he would not be asked to. Luckily he does, some others don’t bother. Many of the events SIL hears about are too outing to say on here but she wouldn’t choose the school again. She would freely admit that she eulogised about it before DN started.

I not sure why everyone is so shocked by what @SmugglersHaunt said, SIL wasn’t surprised. Nothing surprises her now though. We had a place for DS at Winchester but chose a London day school in the end , the results are higher than Winchester, although that’s not why we decided on it. We find the pastoral care top notch. As you said you don’t have a DS at Winchester (yet).

My DS was advised to sit election if we decided on Winchester and DN did sit it. So both are bright boys.

@Bysandyshore All I can say is that this is very far from my experience as a current parent.
The boys finish their prep at 9. Perhaps lots of them are then having online tutoring before bed - I couldn’t say. Our son isn’t, and I think he’d have mentioned it if a lot of his peers were.

We’ve not had pastoral issues, but again my experience from talking to other parents (whom we get together with once a term or so) is that staff are good when there are problems - homesick new boys sleeping in the matron’s flat, for example.
As for devices - the school isn’t as strict about access to devices as we were led to believe. There are boys who don’t do much in the way of extra-curricular activity and spend a lot of time on devices - I doubt whether it’s more than they would at a day school though. Many of the boys are just too busy to be heavily reliant on their phones though.

This is so unrealistic, teens will say all sorts of things to get out from under a parents' thumb. Please don't take this the wrong way @Bysandyshore but to me it sounds more like a bunch of silly excuses of an underachiever.

You obviously have no experience of Winchester College @Rockhall.

Holiday revisions with the help of a tutor are not entirely unrealistic at any school, as a desperate attempt after a particularly poor term report. It is probably a shameful affair at a school like WinColl though, so I would be genuinely surprised if parents boasted about this.
Agree with @Rockhall though that the rest of the smears are v much suspect... I especially loved the idea of pig bins, and nighttime tutoring😀