Public schools gurus - Eton?

[carltonscroop]

This is more a fond dream than an actual plan. Yes, I've done some reading up, but wanted to ask any parents with recent(ish) first hand knowledge.

What's it really like? What sort of boy does it suit? Is it really worth the additional expense. (not the fees themselves IYSWIM but being at the high end - and on the same theme, are many things billed as extras) How hard is the scholarship exam? Has anything in particular surprised/pleased/disappointed you/your son/s?

I feel a bit of an ingenue on this whole troll thing but I assume that on balance it's best not to be a suspect, especially a usual one (which sounds a bit jaded).

I was about to return to thank posters for contributions.

I don't know what to make of the troll comments.

I posted because I thought people here might know about the school - MN seems to have expertise in just about everything, and I remember seeing user names like "floreatetonia" and I had hoped for a range of comments that might help me sort out my thinking a bit.

It's more of a "fond dream" than an actual plan as I am not sure about full boarding for DS as an individual (even though I think it's a reasonable thing to do in the teens), and if asked now he would say he didn't want to do it. But I was trying to sort out whether to keep the option open.

?all I would say is that it's not the most academic?

Eton had never in living memory claimed to be ?academic? as far as I know. For that matter, Eton had never claimed to be anything at all. The talking is left to those who have been there and those who have never been anywhere within a 10-mile radius of the school but seem to know a lot about the school.

As for how ?academic? Eton is, like I said before, I?m only interested in hard cold facts and figures and not hot air that?s constantly being blown here which does the OP absolutely no good at all.

Just for the record, this is how The Financial Times rate Eton academically over the last 5 years out of the nation?s more than 2000 top schools. Ranked 13th and under 10 in the preceding four years it?s a damn sight better than almost 99% of the nation?s 164 ?top grammar schools?.

?I still wonder how even Eton with all of its vast resources can develop any boy beyond his full potential. Can you at least answer that? (I suspect not).?

Parents send their child to the school hoping as a fundamental expectation that the child?s full academic potential is realized at the end of his school career. Eton delivers this fully as their basic duty. Full potential as expected by parents is therefore realized.

Along the way most boys discover through the initiation of the school, they have a hidden talent (or two) that they never realized they possess. Eton develops that talent in the boy to a highly accomplished level thus acting beyond what is generally expected of the school.

DS?s dad played international rugby (many moons ago) and therefore, expected DS to play rugby at Eton. This he did with flair (like father like son?) with great coaching from the school and was a permanent fixture of the school team. In the process, Eton discovered DS had a far greater talent in football that neither DS himself nor the family realized he had, and developed this talent. Much to his dad?s annoyance, DS ended up as a greater footballer than a rugby player ? top scorer in successive years, ?pillar? and captain of the house (house was beaten finalist out of 25 houses).

Certainly a case here of developing a boy?s potential beyond his fullest!

"he loathed Eton, moreover Eton had no playing fields at the time."

It's ironic how anyone would ask for 'scientific research' to a gesstimate whilst coming out onto the worldwide web with a bold declaration like the above. It's laughable!

?Can't remember where I read about the Duke and his misery at Eton/ no fields. Some scholar, can't recall which.?

Let me remind you where you read it, no, not from ?some scholars? but from some funky site they call wikipedia.

If you want to talk about playing fields of Eton, you really ought to read something like this.

I didn't think the origional post was a wind up. We too had never thought of Eton as somewhere our son might go, even though with limited state school options (in the end the Local Authority failed to offer us any place at all) we expected to go down the private route.

We were quite surprised to see Eton have a stall at a senior schools evening at my DS's not very posh south London prep school, as like OP, had never thought of it as an option. We realise now, as we know several boys who have gone there, that it probably was. Even though like my son few of those boys would have got a place at, say, Tiffin. One thing though is that many of the boys we know who have gone there are part of London's international (mainly banking) community. It seems that it is British people like us who have not come from "traditional" Eton backgrounds who have reservations. If you come from elsewhere you look at the school, decide it offers an amazing education and go for it.

We never looked round. It is stonkingly expensive. I also suspect it would not have been the right school for my son. One think I do hear is that year groups are very large and that if you are not the sort of boy who embraces school life you can get lost.

pete you are getting dangerously close to personal attack, though I have broad shouders.

Given how fond of "hard cold facts and figures" you profess to be, it is somewhat surprising that you claim the school admission procedures have 'foresight' simply because you can picture an Eton boy in the uniform of the Chief of the Defence Staff in c. 30 years time. Besides, you've shown on another thread that you dislike facts and figures if they wholly undermine what you say.

The fact that Eton doesn't make claims to be the most academic boy's school is probably judicious. It's not exactly a well kept secret that Winchester, Westminster and St. Paul's are more edgy in that respect.

Not for the first time on this forum, you appear to have issues with grammars, or more specifically with other posters having children who've achieved highly at them. There are many shades of grammar school within the 164 remaining and the top ones achieve pretty much exactly what Eton does in essence, with rather less exuberant uniform and vastly less resources and with children from vastly less privileged backgrounds, so it might be elegant to stop all the . I thought you said your DD went to one in N. London anyhow, so I'm a bit too.

I'm afraid your example of Eton realising your DS's footballing skills is still merely an example of developing potential to the full. That is not a case of developing your DS beyond his potential. No school is capable of developing a pupil beyond his full potential.What you claimed for Eton is logically impossible was the simple point.

pete I've no idea why anyone on MN should be so gratuitously rude to another, it's bang out of order. You've no idea who I am or where my interests lie but I can assure you that I don't get a love of History from Wiki. A large swathe of my books have disappeared from the house and taken up residence in a pretty Oxford college where one of the DD's is reading History (I saw them there on Sunday) and what little I know about the DoW comes from one of them. If you think I'm going to bother her to trawl through the books to satisfy your pique, you're much mistaken. She's got enough on her plate with Hobbes and the other things that students do up there to fill up their time..

To the OP, Eton is a school that is sui generis. Clearly it suits some boys immensely well and they thrive; by contrast, a close friend's son, who has just left, didn't enjoy any of his 5 years and came out with significantly less good grades than he might otherwise have expected. Many thrive but not all, so be careful.

Oh dear, Eton has started another debate! Don't ya just luv that school!

colleger I think pete's rudeness to me has little to do with Eton.
There's no particular debate: I've nothing derogatory to say about Eton as a school, it just wouldn't be my own first choice.

I hope that the school still manages to instill in its pupils better manners than displayed by some of the parents.

OP, we have 2 nephews at Eton who stop by for the occasional pigout Sunday lunch as their parents live ways up north. Both delightful, down-to-earth lads who we enjoy having over.

From my own observations I would say that the school best suits the extremely academic, though; that?s not to say that the averagely bright won?t enjoy their time there, I just feel that the really intelligent thrive more.

I had a tour (not as a prospective parent-couldn't possibly afford it) and I have to say that I was very impressed.
I was also pleased that you can't put names down at birth and get a place just because your father and grandfather went there. They all have to pass the entrance exam.
It is suited to the highly academic DC-because that is what they screen for.

erm Prince Harry, anyone? :o

I think Royalty is different!

Exoctic - yes, quite - just look @ Prince C getting into Cambridge...

DS2 keeps telling us he wants to go to Eton ( he is desperate to board....) We just point out to him that it is well known that those boys who do not get high enough marks in CE to go to his school that have to make do with Eton instead

What about all the exceptionally clever boys who do not even apply to Eton who are languishing in other schools around the country?

I refuse to believe that Eton has all the Cleverest Boys Ever in the World, as has been suggested by one person on this thread on another discussion. :o

Send your boy to Eton if you so desire but do not make the mistake that there are no other boys equally as academic/clever/bright/sporty, call in what you will, anywhere else.

Of course they are cleverer/as clever elsewhere. Having the money and being clever enough is something the majority can manage.

Sorry-I meant the opposite! the majority can't manage!

There are 3 state grammars without the vast resources of Eton ranked higher in the financial times tables. I suspect people who send ds to schools like Eton also do it for the cachet and the connections as there are schools which are better academically or more sporty and a darn sight cheaper

GuyofGisbourne, the CE process would mean that a failed boy at your son's school could not get into Eton...

What is interesting is that everyone talks about Eton, even those who have already made a choice and sent DS's elsewhere. Of course at Eton, it's boys don't bother to talk about other schools!

Who said Eton has the cleverest/sportiest boys and if that what one thinks makes a school good then Eton really wouldn't suit! FWIW I know 40+ boys who failed the Eton pre-test but got into Winchester and St Pauls.

It was pronounced suggested on another Oxbridge thread that the boys from Eton were all bound to get places because they were the most intelligent boys in the country or even, world!!

I am merely pointing out that there are many equally intelligent boys (and girls) who are not in a position to even apply for Eton (despite not having foreign holidays, flat screen tvs blah blah blahi, all those things people have to give up in order to pay for the fees, yup they still can't afford them.....). Fortunately money doesn't always = intelligence......

Agree with mumzy a lot. If these other schools can achieve what Eton achieves with nothing like the resources Eton has, financial or human, then which is the more dynamic or better school?

Isn't the notion of 'connections' is a bit antiquated too, especially with Eton becoming increasingly variegated as the decades have rolled on? My father used to tell us stories of the idiocies of Old Etonians with whom he worked in the City. At university and in the City myself I met a more mixed bunch. With new money and international money and a need to perform in league tables the school must be evolving again.

Do any parents with boys there now feel there's a loss of identity or do they feel that Eton has adapted perfectly to the state of thinking in the contemporary social, educational and vocational world? Just asking. For my own DCs I'd hate that feeling of clinging on, if that's what it is.

I can still see that the education it provides is far richer than anything most parents can aspire to in their wildest and most extravagant dreams.

One set of parents said to me a few years ago that they felt Eton was 'losing the plot'. Didn't quiz them so not sure what they meant.

mottledcat 70% of Etonians fail to get places at Oxford or Cambridge each year, in spite of their awesome educational and environmental priviledge.

privilege. Pardon the 'd'.

Yellowstone, could it be that 70% don't bother applying because Oxbridge has no lure to many public school pupils as it is not seen as the creme de la creme? And, could you imagine the uproar of 100% getting into Oxbridge? As it is Etonians are already discriminated against at Oxbridge and although most could get in the Colleges take the top 30% at the selective independent schools because the discrimination would be too obvious as these boys were exceptional before they started senior school and are evenmore exceptional when they leave.

But a good percentage of Etonians have no interest for English universities and once the fees match the Ivy Leagues' then the brain drain will begin.

As for "losing the plot", I suspect it was becoming less aristocratic and more meritocratic and the Establishment don't like that!

I?ve been called ?deranged? and ?crass?; my posts are ?incontinent drivel? and I have ?paucity of grammar and logic? and now I?m ?rude?!

And you have no idea why anyone on MN should be so gratuitously rude to another? Well, I suggest you go back to school.