7+ SJPS/WUS/KCJS

[Caps0218]

A question on offers to these schools. Why do they over offer? I heard that SJPS offer 70 for 54 places? Why don’t they just offer 54 and have a reserve list?

If 66 take up the offer, then class size goes from 18 to 22.
Do WUS offer more than 22?

thank you.

I think many parents are more inclined to choose a school where a child gets a place outright rather than off the reserve list. They don’t want their child to feel like they were second choice (even though they shouldn’t feel that way of course). And the schools know that not everyone will accept as there is going to be some overlap between the offer lists of the three schools you mention, and those families will have different preferences.

Because if you don’t over offer you wouldn’t optimise your intake. Every school will get rejections. If they tried to fill that only from the reserve, they’d need to rely on kids who’ve been offered other schools and paid the deposit they declining those places and losing the money after the deadline.

Its far less risking to assume a certain amount of rejections based on your historical data to minimise how many places you need to fill from your reserves.

Schools are generally pretty good at managing the risk of offering too many places.

Most of the boys that will get an offer from SPJ will also have one from Kings and Westminster. So they build that some will chose another school into their offers.
I have not heard of any year where there were too many acceptances so far. However the reserve list is generally very limited (up to 5 kids).

With both Kings and SJPS taking 54 and probably 110 to the 2nd round, if they offer 70, then suddenly almost a 2 in 3 chance of getting a place for kids that get through the 1st stage. Pretty decent odds. One would assume the top 25/30 from the first round should be getting an offer, unless they have a mare of a 2nd round.

Over offer is much better than reserved or WL for the school to manage.

The prep schools have years of data to basis their offer ratio on, it's the same in all private school admissions depts and then at university level, offer ratios are based on data and signed off at a high level.

I wonder now that Westminster results are out before the SPJS exam, SPJS will likely not over offer that much, simply as anyone sitting their exam will likely have it as first choice?