What are the reasons given to parents whentheir sons do not secure a place at CVMS OR London Oratory

[MANT]

I have read the application forms. What are the chances of a boy from a devout catholic family attending weekly mass, baptised before 6 months living within 3.2 miles from CVMS with excellence priest references of getting into one of these schools ?

If there are only 120 places do non musical boys actually still get in?

Can anyone who has recently applied and succeeded please bear some light on the new criteria

why do you think you will be given a reason?
once you meet the criteria isn't it then based on distance?
yes plenty of non musical boys get in at yr7. it is only the prep school which is mostly choristers afaik.

Thanks amidaiwish. We are new to this as our children are still very young.

I just wondered if any parents who were actually rejected a place for their son (despite meeting all the criteria) asked the school for a reason.

The LA application form will ask you to choose 6 schools, and rank them in order of preference. You will then be informed which school has actually been allocated to you.
Individual schools will not enter into correspondence with you; you can assume that if you don't get your first choice it's because the school is over subscribed and others have fulfilled the criteria which you haven't (eg. distance - it's impossible to say you fulfill this criteria without knowing the address of the children who were allocated places; being in the catchment area is different, that just entitles you to apply for a place, it certainly doesn't guarantee you one).

Thanks Floggingmolly for your answer. We will be looking at various options for our boys.

I think the distance criteria for CVMS is now very important once the other requirements are fulfilled. So if you get points for all the criteria, existing Catholic education, Holy Days of Obligation, weekly attendance at Mass for five years for both one parent and child, Baptism within 6 months etc, it all comes down to distance, as they have no other way of differentiating.
The Oratory is slightly different, ime, I know boys who with an excellent reference explaining why Baptism over 6 mnths who have got in, but it is also out of a hat, once you have fulfilled all the criteria (maximum points). Anecdotally, in our school only a few boys from each year got in, for no good reason so I wonder whether they were also operating an unofficial quota from each school. So for example 4 boys with all the points for Oratory, did not get places and were low on waiting list, whereas two boys who had no siblings got in, with same points, same distance, and one boy with a sibling. So 3 children out of 60, when about 20 had put it first on application form.
In our school, 6 boys out of 60 usually get in to CVMS and Oratory, 8 will go to another excellent Catholic school and 8 to another. There is no automatic feed to CVMS or Oratory, it really is more difficult to get in. We are 2 miles away approx.

oh yes, and none of those 3 boys who got into CVMS got music places. This year, there has been one music place.

Thanks so much swanthingafteranother. The information you have provided is excellent and really has given me an idea about the selection process.

I know you mentioned that there is no automatic feed- are you referrring to feeder primaries ?

Does anyone know if St Vincents Marylebourne London primary ( state school ) has a linked secondary ? I heard something about an independent School in St Johns Wood- totally out of our league.