7+ entirely on merit?

[5ourgrapes]

Totally no evidence to back this up, and without going into context and detail, is the 7+ entrance exam process fully fair and unbiased?
I have heard from various parents that there are often backend deals made, influence from applicants’ prep heads, that might ultimately decide if a child gets a place or not at a particular school. Of course it may all be a case of sour grapes and hearsay, but would be keen to see if anyone here has heard or know of such potential bsh*t?

First time I hear really. Maybe some pressure / influence with siblings or through alumni parents

Schools like HH have a certain sway but I don’t know how significant it is. I don’t think the schools take candidates who aren’t suitable but they may get preference if it’s neck and neck.

We have just been through the process. In my view the process is quite fair and merit based. I know siblings who haven’t got in, kids with parents as alumni of the same school also haven’t got in so I believe it is merit only. We also didn’t make it to the second round of two highly selective school and when we asked for feedback they were very transparent what our scores were, what the cut off was and why we didn’t get in. Hence I believe it is fair. I will say though that once everything is done, some schools and head masters can be influential to see who gets on the waitlist and how far they can push waitlist also - there so influence will matter.

Yes in some areas, ie North London the prep prep masters may have a say if it is borderline.

HH is? Do you mean Highgate?

Hampstead Hill

I would echo (I guess from limited experience but we did the 7+ this year and last year for our two), that similarly we saw alumnae children not get a place (when you’re asked to disclose this) and it seems schools are quite open about the extent of their siblings policy, which all seem quite different.

I have wondered about this, having gone through the process (unsuccessfully) with my DD recently. She didn’t get to second round at two highly selective schools, whilst two of the kids she was being tutored with did. The tutor told us DD was the strongest academically in the group and fastest at doing the mock papers. She does however have insulin-dependent diabetes and I do wonder if this was why she was turned down as it would be a faff for them. No way of knowing, it could have been that she just didn’t perform well under exam conditions but they wouldn’t give feedback so we’ll never know.

I also suspect that state school kids don’t get much of a look in compared to pre-prep kids.

Before school decisions were made on our side a lot of families floated the maintained++ approach as they felt the "investment" before Y3 wasn't worth it.

We generally believed you had to be "in it to win it" and that pre prep is important for other reasons.

Even though the process shouldn't marginalise along those lines in hindsight there are parts of the process that bias independent school.

Our nursery had ties (former teacher, former students etc.) to the pre prep and regularly visited to shape learning. The nursery wrote a letter supporting the application.

Our pre-prep had similar ties to the prep and again school wrote supporting application. Notable experience was the tour where DS was recognised and funneled off with former peers that he would later join for a more hands on tour. In fact another prep we were considering had an entire day where 50% of those taking part were from his pre prep.

This is for central London but with it being such a small space the transition from maintained to independent must feel like looking from the outside in even though it shouldn't.

There are similar things at 11+ but it is also a more favourable time to switch hopefully you weren't put off.