Music Exams: Is LCM less well regarded than ABRSM or Trinity?

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DS1 is showing musical ability. Plays the guitar to Grade 3 and has recently taken up the Saxophone. His music teacher thinks he could be a candidate for a music scholarship when he applies to secondary school next year.

He has his sax lessons out of school, and his teacher prepares her students for LCM (london College of Music - which is part of Thames Valley University I think?) rather than ABRSM or Trinity Guildhall. His school music teacher was a bit when I mentioned it and I got the impression that LCM might be less well-regarded?

Wondering if I should change music teachers for the sax?

From my experience of scholarships, they will ask him to play at an audition anyway, so the level he's got in grade exams won't be the main thing they are judging him on. If it concerns you though, you could speak to the admissions people at the school(s) you're interested in and ask what grades they are looking for as a starting position for asking people to audition, and whether they make a distinction between the different ones. I expect they'll say they're not concerned.

Not sure if it's still the case but when I was at music college (many years ago) the ABRSM exam board was definitely the most highly regarded with Trinity/ Guildhall coming in a close second.

The standard that you needed to be in order to be accepted into the LCM was always much lower than for the RSM or RAM. Not sure if it's the same for the exams.

Having said that his ability to be offered a scholarship will be on the strength of an audition not his exam grades so probably won't make much difference.

Definitely at the dc's school they don't take much notice of exam results for music scholarships, but go on the audition. I know a couple of kids who got scholarships without taking any exams at all (they were good players, but hadn't taken exams for one reason or another). But, although I'd be very surprised if it did matter, it's probably best to check with the school if you are uncertain. I'd be very reluctant to switch teachers if your ds gets on well with the existing one & is making good progress if there isn't a really good reason to.

Yes, there is a ranking but ABRSM and Guildhall are more or less on a par at the moment.
Some schools ask for copies of the certificates etc at application time and there is definitely some snobbery about. We had to give details of my DS' music teachers for some of the music scholarship applications.
During the auditions they also asked for examples of holiday courses he'd been on, public performances that he'd made etc.
It's all quite full on going for a music scholarship at secondary (at least for the schools with good music departments).

At DD's school we had to provide copies of certificates, but it didn't appear to matter which board - they were just looking for minimum achievement of Grade V (it was a sixth form scholarship) Auditioning well and having other music experience (orchestra, performances etc) seems to tip the balance for scholarships ime.

Oh, and start getting him up to scratch on aural and sight reading well in advance in case that is a requirement during audition!!