Downsides to scholarships

[mumzy]

Ds is sporty and dd is musical both are also academically sound. Their current school has mentioned they may be able to get scholarships to independent schools. I know scholarships can carry a 10-50% fees discount, but has anyone experienced the downsides of having a scholarship. Will they be expected to be available for the majority of practice sessions and events. Do the children ever lose their scholarship if they slip academically, musically or turn out not to be as good at sports and how do the miss out on re: other extracurricular activities?

"Trying to weigh up whether its worth pushing dc to up their game and if so by how much!"
There is not set level. It all depends on the school. So to get a sports scholarship into a place like Milfield your going to have to be unbelievably good, ditto an academic scholarship into St Pauls.
Obvioulsy the more academic the school the harder it is to get a scholarship so most who easily get into the relative handful of super selectives could probably have got a scholarship into those with a CE pass mark of 50% - 55%.

I did try and persuade my son to go for a school like Shrewsbury that still offers 50% and he would have got but he said no. If a fee reduction is important then look at a less selective school.

So what are the superselective day schools in London/ SE which are harder to get a scholarship and which are easier.single sex or coed will be fine

Only know hard, or impossible...l

Eton
Win
Harrow
Sevenoaks
Westminster
St Paul's
KCS Wimbledon

There will also be schools that are fairly unselective but because of their notoriety and history there will be exceptional international scholars applying. Harrow for example, but to some extent Eton as they are not as selective as Winchester but have 150 candidates for 14 places whereas WC has around 60 for 14 places.

Not sure any are 'easier'. Most expect a very high level of achievement. I imagine however that the better known schools and the more popular schools will have slightly more competition for scholarships, but standard will not vary that much.

I'm no tiger mum and dc are not geniuses so will look at other schools. Any ideas welcomed

I can tell you that some papers are much easier. Radley's is very easy compared to Win and Eton.

I think you will often have a tough job aiming for scholarships at those schools that have their own junior school and/or one or two feeder preps. Westminster publish their scholarship winners and last year the vast majority are from WUS with most of the rest from The Hall.

www.westminster.org.uk/assets/Further-Information-Booklet-20112012.pdf
St Pauls don't publish (or hide it well) but CC get over a dozen scholarships and I know my son's prep (a major feeder for St P) gets anywhere from 3-8 scholarships a year.

I suspect schools like Eton, Win and Harrow draw on a wider range of schools should stop the concentration of scholars in a very few schools.

What I am trying to say is if you are considering trying for scholarships then I would go for schools where there isn't a junior school / obvious feeder school that has got teaching for the scholarship exams down to a fine art. Otherwise you are competing against children who may have had very well practiced preparation for that specific type of scholarship exam.

WUS and Summerfields are the biggest scholarship feeders to Eton. Pilgrims for Winchester, although not this year.

I should have added a caveat on my post - I am assuming that your DC are not currently in the junior school of a private senior nor in a feeder prep.

Colleger - Looking at the Kings Scholars last year there is better spread of schools than with Westminster (which is very heavily weighted towards WUS) even if certain schools like WUS and Summerfields are more successful over time than others.

As the OP said she's not a "tiger mum" and her "DC's are not geniuses" then I suspect that she has no interest in Westminster, St Pauls, Win Coll or Eton. I think she's hoping someone may be able to recomend something a bit more what shall we say; normal? And she definitely used the words day and SE/London.

I had a friend at JAGS (south east London girl's day school) who got an art scholarship and an academic scholarship. She lost the academic scholarship in year 9 but kept the art one. She got 4 great A levels and is now at art school.

JAGS, Dulwich College and Alleyn's are the obvious private day schools in south easy London. I think all have good scholarships.

Worth School

Ds's ambition is to be a vet and dd would like to do something interesting, creative and well paid so a school with solid academics and good extracurricular provision which could help them realise their ambitions will be fine. Dc not showing any signs of being a future prime minister or nobel prize winner so far.

Is it definitely day and SE?

Try King's College Wimbledon (very academic), Dulwich, Alleyns and Emmanuel as fallback.

Yes but she did as about superselectives and how hard they are to get into.

City of London Boys considers all applicants for scholarships without a separate exam - entry at 10+, 11+ and 13+. There are specimen papers on their website.

For music scholarships most schools seem to expect minimum grade 5

City of London Girls has some really good information on its website on the expected levels for entry, past papers, scholarships

Thanks everyone for your advice. Colleger, I meant SE England and London. Day is preferred but would consider weekly boarding as well

It would be worth looking at the various GDST schools, eg Wimbledon High and Putney High, as well as JAGS for DD. All offer scholarships, and the basic fees are lower than many others.

London schools will be difficult for scholarships because if the volume of applicants.

Not exactly encouraging to someone who is looking for a London school!

Don't be put off! Someone has to win them.

So London school scholarships are not difficult then?

A friend of my son has a sports scholarship and is expected to play for all the school teams (even the sports he didn't play before he got there) with the result that most of his weekends are only one day as he has to stay to tea at school after the matches.

Colleger: I merely meant that the way you pointed it out wasn't encouraging. And I didn't think OP had shown a level of ignorance that made such a blunt statement of the obvious necessary, though I realise that is my subjective view.

I had went to private school with the armed forces Boarding School Allowance. I echo what other posters have said about the psycho-social impact. I remember one of my friends accusing me of being mercenary in 6th form. What she meant was that she never had to think about money, and my family did.

In younger years there was direct teasing because of class differences. There's no point pretending it doesn't happen.