Sixth Form Enrollment Confusion

[SlightlyJaded]

I am confused.

DS is currently at RPA doing GCSE this year.

Where we live, RPA is the clear state option with a chance of Christ (just for Geographical context).

He applied to a few Sixth Forms - just to see.

We have had 'conditional offers' from

Christs
Greycourt
Waldgrave

The Christs and Waldegrave ones said things like 'Congratulations - this was a testament to your interview and grades. Well done blah blah' the implication being that if he met the grade boundary, he had a place.

The Waldegrave one said 'Conditional offer' and were quite quick to explain that come enrollment day, his place would be subject to grade boundary and course availability - with the enrollment day list following the usual order for oversubscription.

So now I am assuming that perhaps they all do that and that DS's excitement was premature - and that actually his grades don't guarantee him Greycourt at all.

The letter has thrown me - all the congratulations and testament to your interview bit, made him think that he sort of 'won' his offer but now I"m wondering if everyone gets a 'conditional offer' from every state sixth form?

Can anyone explain it for me please?

Sorry should say 'testament to your interview and* predicted grades'

Yea they're all conditional - if your dc got 8 x grade 1s for example he wouldn't be able to do A levels! So assuming he achieves their basic requirement (5 x 5s or 6s?) he's in.

Didn't go for Esher?

@titchy But even if he gets the grades, I don't think he will get a place at Waldegrave due to the over-subscription criteria - and now I'm thinking probably not Greycourt either - due to distance. THey all have to follow the same oversubscriptions criteria I think?

So i am wondering why they would bother making a conditional offer and getting him excited with "congratulations" type emails when there probably isn't a hope in hell - even if he gets the grades?

Or am I missing something?

And no, Esher not for him.

Waldegrave fill their 6th form places with their current yr 11 girls first. Then they offer to external students, but in order of proximity to the school. So someone living close by will get an appointment time to go to the school at for eg 9am (when there's more subject availability) and someone 2 miles away may not get their slot until 4pm. I went a couple of years ago with an 11am slot for my dc & at that point some more popular subjects were full already.
But some subjects would poss still have places at 4pm - maybe for eg Art, Textiles etc. So really it's a mix of what subject you want to study combined with how close you live. As long as you meet basic entry criteria, grades will not be a deciding factor. Hope that makes sense!

@picklefin - complete sense, thank you. Odds are against us - far away (DD went to Waldegrave but only after 2 years on a waiting list - and from Area B), and DS has pretty popular subject choices I think - certainly History and Economics - which are the two he cares about most...

DD seems to think they try to prioritise boys to balance out the co-ed aspect, but I can't see how they can do that if they are following Richmond Oversubscription guidelines...

They used to prioritise boys, but have been told by the LEA that they can't anymore. No idea where History & Economics stand re popularity. May be worth asking school & you never know, if they have large demand maybe they consider putting on an extra class for some subjects.

They're not actually allowed to "interview", but only to have a meeting to discuss course options.

Grey Court is likely to be oversubscribed, but maybe not Christs.

There's still time to apply to others if you need a backup. If they're not oversubscribed then sixth forms will usually accept late applications.