Juggling school offers - can we ask for extra time to decide from a private prep?

[chipmunkswhereareyou]

This is driving me mad.....we've applied to two private schools and are considering the local state primary too and it's confusing enough (see my other posts) BUT the fact is the offers are made at different times so we are struggling to know what to do.

Private school choice no. 2 made us an offer of a place that expires next week but choice no.1's asssessment is on Tuesday so who knows whether we'll hear back from them in time.

Can we tell priv school no.2 that we want to wait until after we've heard back from the other school' and ask for a few days extra. It really would be only a few days.

And beyond that we might not even want to go private yet if we wait until the state school places are allocated we will miss out on the option of private and then if we don't get the state school we want we are stuffed.

ARGH!!

They do it on purpose so that you have to pay the deposit then lose it if you choose the state option
We had to do this and lose the deposit when dd got the state primary we wanted

Tis life I'm afraid

In South London there are seven prep schools that know exactly where they stand in the heirarchy, so they offer in a very precise order. It is not unknown for some parents to lose four or even five deposits as they go through the offer process.....Sorry, but its the law of the jungle I think.

What jan said
They know their local rivals all too well
Prepare to surrender a deposit

we did this last year, they offered a place a week before we found out about state.they agreed to keep dds place open until we found out. she got in at good state.

I think I'm going to ask for an extra few days - it seems a reasonable request. Also I could say that DH wants to go to their open day which is 4 days after the acceptance deadline, and because it's such an important decision he'd just like to see the school himself for peace of mind (he hasn't seen it yet and they know that but were fine about it).

It's worth a shot
Good luck with your decision-making

All you can do is ask - the worst they can say is no, they can't withdraw the offer even if they think you are being cheeky!

How much are the deposits?

£1000 a time - too much to lose!

chipmunk
that is too much for a deposit. My DS's school is in top 10 independents and we only had £100 deposit. Big fat rip off IMO.

If ytou DH wants to see the school you should just phone up to go in. My DCs schools welcome new parents with an appointment at any time.

Wow that's so much cheaper - just the application deposit was £100 at one of the schools and £50 at the others!

Chip..
It still bleedin mounts up though doesn't it

Actually DDs school was much more of a deposit but still only about £400 from memory.

(although thinking about it I think DS was close to scholarship so perhaps we were offered a sympathy deposit...hmm. Perhaps my deposit was the odd one?)

Anyway do just phone for a looka round for your DH as we had to do that with DDs school. Actually had a tour the day before we had to choose. The school were really cool about it.

sure they will be fine with you askin that.
Round here deposits are £750 ish.

Ask for another week

I'm amazed at the deposit sums, here it's up to £2,500

Blimey - I thought £1000 was a fortune. I'd love to see how much they make each year from people cancelling places. And there's the first term's fees if you don't give a term's notice.

I know that if there are places left unfilled that they'd lose money but I doubt many really go unfilled when it comes to September....

Gosh, our children's only charged £100 and £150 deposit. £1000 seems a fortune, and really off-putting.

A lot round us charge a term's fees!

The one dd was down for was £350 IIRC

Message withdrawn

Gosh £1000 is huge amount to loose! Def worth ringing to see if they will extend the date. Our registration fee was £100 and the deposit £400, we thought that was a lot!

Oh good grief, I thought circus schools had started specialising

ROFL, surely juggling school deposits would be cheaper!

Well you'd hope so, wouldn't you, but on the other hand it must be a job for life

That is outrageous. We lost our deposit for a catholic public school and that was not £1000. The cheek of asking for that deposit would put me off tbh.