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?

What has Jesus Christ got to do with it Yellowstone?

And why would you encourage DC to read a mumsnet thread about Eton when she is a girl?

Colleger if it needs spelling out, Jesus Christ is an expression of frustration at your mean mindedness about a DC you don't know whose life doesn't impinge on yours getting a place at Magdalen and knocking out a few Etonians on the way.

I've no need to encourage DD to read MN, she's completely sucked in by the stupidity on this forum (her word, not mine), plus it means she can get out of revision. Bit arcane to suggest that girls have no reason to read an Eton thread, how incredibly unforward-thinking. Besides, she says she wanted to do some 'background reading' - apparently she's only going to Oxford to snag an Eton boyfriend.

Obviously I could see your uncouth frustration but I find blasphemy distasteful and as it really has nothing to do with Jesus, maybe you could keep him out of it!

Why are you acting like a victim and your poor kids must be left alone? I don't know your DD. I'm sure she is a very nice, articulate, intelligent girl but you seem to be overly defensive about, well...nothing! I am very .

Uncouth Colleger? Outrageous. My mum is massively posh. And I mean massively. Always has been.

You're right that it has nothing to do with Jesus, it was just a turn of phrase. I've seen far worse on MN - that's as an occasional voyeur. Perhaps you could leave him out of it.

Thanks for saying that I'm very nice, articulate and intelligent. I think you flatter me. More importantly, is your son? Even more important than that, where is he at uni and is he fit?

Lots of love,
#*%!@$

Son too young for you but I hope one day he may marry a Magdalen girl, which I deem to be the very best College in the country!

Good luck with degree and tell Mummy to have some pimms and watch ome cricket - always works for me when I'm getting vexed....mwah x

Blimey, love - get a life.
Girls of your age should be out having a laugh on a Friday night...

word she was out until 3am the night before and she's doing A levels next week! She's confident enough and independent minded enough not to think she's got to go out by rote!

God word, you're so bitter, it's there in so many posts! (I think others have said that before).

What exactly does your post have to do with Eton?

What has God got to do with it!!!

Oh dear carltonscroop - it's all gone a bit pear-shaped!

"This thread hasn't been remotely what I'd expected, but has been very illuminating, nonetheless."

Oh that?s for sure, carltonscroop, it?s always been like that. Y?see, ETON is a 4-letter word to those who can?t reach it.

Don't be daft. It's statements like 'for those who can't reach it' that get me slightly irritated. Lots of us have children who could go/have gone to Eton, had they applied, but we didn't make that choice - for perfectly valid reasons. I'm sure you made the choice to send your children there for equally valid reasons.

I used to know a couple of boys at Eton when I was at school in the early 80s - they were perfectly nice but not terribly bright.

Ds has a friend who's just had his second year there and who is absolutely lovely - just what you'd want your teenage son to be like - however he's always been lovely so I don't think the school can take much credit! He's very clever, sporty, enthusiastic etc

On the evidence of the Etonians I know/have known, the pupils seem fine, but if this thread is anything to go by I wouldn't like to meet many of the parents , and surely Eton teaches its pupils that there is nothing remotely classy about being a crashing snob

It?s most absurd to see someone who?s been acting all lofty and mighty at MN?s educational forums belittling all and sundry, should suddenly cry ?Foul? on others and playing the victim.

"pete with the greatest respect, bugger off about where my DCs are at uni."

Oh really? That?s a sudden change of heart. What?s happening here? Did I inadvertently step on a raw nerve? All along you?ve been insinuating and dying to tell MN given the minutest of a chance where your DC go to university. The trouble is, for far too long you?ve been treating posters here and on other threads like complete imbeciles thinking that we cannot read between the lines. Look at what others see:

"You seem to have a huge chip on your shoulder. Full of vitriol towards some posters and gloating about how amazing your three children are . . ."

"In fact, I've seen you mention how many of your children are at Oxbridge lots and lots of times on many many threads. To say you don't is utterly disingenuous."

Other posters are right. This is MumsNet and by definition is meant for parents. Your DD shouldn?t be involved in your affairs ? my DS walks in and out behind my back and doesn?t give a monkey what I?m doing here let alone speaking for me. But yes, I?m gracious enough genuinely to wish her the best in her revision in spite of her wasting her time spying on me and my posts.

I only asked because I find your posts full of holes and discrepancies. On another thread you boasted, "the older sisters are reading Law, History, Law, not medicine. Though all at Oxford so quite high pressure."

In less than an hour you said, "I've currently got DD1 doing Finals, DD2 doing Prelims, DD3 doing A2s, DS1 doing AS . ."

I?m confused. Make up your mind and say which is which if any is true at all.

And just for the record, perhaps you too should bugger off in the first place as to which medical school my DS is going . . .

"Where did he choose? I'm trying to steer mine clear of Imperial because I read somewhere recently that rents are crazy . . ."

"pete I'd ask that if you wish to launch another unprovoked overnight attack . . ."

No, I don?t do unprovoked overnight attacks, Yellowstone and I only post when I think it?s necessary. You may have all the time in the world hogging the lap/desktop days on end but I can?t afford the time. What free time I have on weekdays is usually well past midnight and I?m not about to change my lifestyle for your sake.

I can?t help but to say it is very very silly for anyone to taunt somebody about his or her academic ability and/or intelligence without having the slightest clue about the other individual.

If Colleger is who I think s/he is, and her/his DS is who I think he is, then anyone with an official IQ of less than 150 under the Wechsler Scale will be made to look like a fool next to this genius.

Back to discussion proper.

?moreover Eton had no playing fields at the time."

?. . the playing fields/ Duke things gets more interesting the more one finds out, maybe you should check it out in more depth).?

I just didn?t have the time earlier in the week but I have two other references to prove the playing fields were there, this one at least a couple of hundred years before the Duke was born and also organised competitive sports like cricket were played there some 30 years before the Duke attended Eton.

It is known throughout Eton?s history that boys frequently had personal differences and that fierce fights often took place sometimes resulting in death. It is not unreasonable to assume that many of these fights took place at the playing fields. Could the Duke be involved at one time or other in some of these fracases, I wonder?

Then that statement doesn't apply to you, singersgirl.

OP you may wish to look at an OE's review of another OE's (Nick Fraser's) book in 2006, which is about the time the current B block/ year 13 joined:
www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3654669/What-makes-Eton-different.html
"Fraser has a serious purpose. He wants to know what the point of Eton is - to put it crudely, what people are paying their £23,000 a year for. He's right to say that Eton remains 'a primary symbol of class and privilege in Britain'. But the nature of the privilege has changed. It used to come with birth, and had nothing to do with intelligence. Now the dimwits are out, and the brand is for sale, if you can stand the bill."

Like the other public schools, it's developed into an international offering which may entertain some DS better than others for five short years. Check it suits your DS before you buy, there are other brands. [And their governing bodies give thanks that their parents appear more discreet.]

Wow pete, a tour de force!

My posts are completely internally consistent because I've no interest and no need to say anything which isn't true.

OK, DD3 has an offer only so far but she only needs a couple of A's so she's nearly there, having a perfect score already in her English A2. Perhaps slightly arrogant in counting her as 'Oxford', but she's within a whisker of there.

I'm sorry I did make an assumption that your DS was going to Imperial because it seemed a good fit. Does it matter that it's KCL? Both med schools are London and both are great. Well done to your DS.

DD3 has became mesmerized by your posts over the past weeks. The language! The grammar! The arrogance! The hatred! (of a complete stranger and her DC on an anonymous forum). Surreal.

None of my DC's took your DS's son's place at Cambridge, please understand that. They go to state school not to Eton. They work hard and they play hard. They applied to Oxford and for different subjects, not medicine. Please don't use either myself or them as outlet's for your understandable disappointment on behalf of your DS.

You're welcome to distort my posts since they can all be read back in context, I'm sanguine on that.

When DS1 applies for medicine next year he knows now that if Eton scholars with 12 A*'s can't walk in easily to their four universities of choice then he needs to be very humble indeed. His sisters were and got lucky, so I'm hoping he will be and will be too. He's gentle and clever and will make a great doctor and I hope a positive difference to the lives of others as well.

I think other posters on other threads have warned about the dangers of arrogance. In my university days too many Etonians were arrogant and without just cause. I'd assumed times have moved on as society has. Surely the liberal intellectual education that Eton provides ensures that Etonians come to an understanding that they aren't inherently superior to anyone else? It certainly should.

DS's (not Ds's son's). Sorry. Late. Just got in. Stupid.

Sorry to have to say it, Friends, but this is just the weirdest Mumsnet thread yet!

Why don't the main "playas" (P, Y & C, from what I can tell) just PM each other, find a hotel, get a room & sort it gal2gal. Leave us human-types to talk about whether the place is suitable for our DS - something I care about!

Thanks,

Millie

Hotel room? You kidding? There's no way I'm getting near pete without full police protection.

OK I keep coming back (a weak trait) but the whole obsessive thing she has going on is deeply, utterly out of this world. I'm don't think I'm her only hate, just the main one for the moment.

Yes Millie, that's what I care about too. But if you have posters regularly coming in to hijack a thread just because they see that 4-letter word, then I'm afraid you're not going to learn much. To me it's very simple, if they're going to be negative about it then just play the game according to their rules.

Me hating anybody? Nah . . .

It's another of your misguided perception again, as usual. Really, if you had met me in real person, you wouldn't have written a single word of your long list of degrading insults about me.

Strange idea that the name Eton engenders envy! I, with others, have commented about the school from personal knowledge and been positive, on balance. Fabulous education for those who can afford it; hopefuly the old unmeritocratic arrogance has been educated out; it's no longer a licence to the plum unis or plum jobs (good thing too).