The Trinity-Whitgift thread of 2013

[hardboiled]

I thought I would start this tradition once again while we all wait? DS only sat Trinity...

Canon Boswell certainly does teach! He teaches Theology & Philosophy (unsurprisingly!) - ds thinks he's a fab teacher and he's never heard him raise his voice but even so everyone's always very well behaved in his lessons ..

suz747 - ruuude! Never mind probably as you say interview fatigue. As we all know cant read anything from anything so all done now. Good luck!
are you applying for scholarship also?

Suz - exactly the same experience here! Also interviewed by Canon B, also absolutely none the wiser.

Ds couldn't have been in there for more than 5 mins... is this good or bad?!

He had one (v simple) maths q and was asked to read a poem. He said it was fine and he wished it could have lasted longer!!

That's good that he teaches, help him to see if my DS would fit. He might have told me so but some confusion as he actually started my son's interview with the wrong boy! He and another (who was older) had the same first name so the poor other child started the 10+ interview before he realised the error. All a bit manic and ate into time so maybe that's why he was rushed!

I'm glad it's all over fatal, I wouldn't take the length of time as a positive or a negative indicator...ha, not that I'm an expert in these matters!

I'm sure the masters, teachers, Canons etc are very experienced at reading application forms, school reports and generally making a skilled assessment of the boys they interview.

So like Suz and the rest of the already interviewed parents and ds's, sit back, open a bottle of wine and forget about it...at least for a couple of weeks!

No, we're not going for scholarships, he loves his sport but not excelling at any and I didn't think that route was worth the additional angst although filling in the bursary application was a huge task.
Fatal - yes, sounds like we had v similar experience. Was odd as he kept writing and little eye contact and I kept my answers brief as I felt he just wanted to get on. Definitely didn't give us elavated hope.

We had Cannon B- I got no indications from him regards positivity of interview. I left feeling rather deflated

Well at least a few of us seemed to get a similar response, just one individual's style so shouldn't read too much into it....but I'm sure we will!

Hi. Now it is about different interview experiences and length of time, etc.

From personal experiences of giving interviews at work and as a alumni interviewer for business school and also considering the fact that they are dealing with children, I think for the interviewers themselves, they already must have tentative offer list with some borderlines. Probably by exam scores giving more weight to balanced scores. They will just try to see if the boys "look and behave" normal in the case of boys with good exam and investigate further (takes more time) in the case of boys with weaker exam.

Normally at interview, just one minute talk makes whole impression and this rarely change over the course of the interview.

So maybe short interview would be better than long ones.

These threads get me over thinking my ds didn't get asked any Maths or English questions good ..... Or bad... Not sure he apparently did good in the tests and expetionally well in one !!, god roll on the 15th

wjchoihk I think I love you .

Seriously though, am trying so hard not to read anything into anything but my god, it's difficult not to overthink this whole process!

Have had a large, cold g&t and am now getting into bath - early night for me I think!

Suz I wonder if you and I were there at the same time?

Cant be many of us left to go now?
Kylep - they probably felt that he knew his stuff so didn't need to ask.
My Ds had questions about his essay, which we were expecting but only to check if he knew what some of the words he had used meant (might not have been asked if he had actually used any of the three words from the paper)
We have all had such different experiences but hopefully with the same (happy) outcome.
The thread last year was reinvigorated around the offer date.
We have decided to go away around the offer date (booked without thinking) and will be flying on the 15th so will not have a clue of the outcome - unless we call??
What would you do:

1. Go without calling enjoy ourselves and act as if we don't have a care in the world?
2. Go but call to see outcome so either:

a) have a miserable weeks break b) Have the most fantastic time ever, feeling on top of the world and partaking in lots of wine/beer (but CHEAP winebeer as watching the pennies now).

They tend only to ask probing subject-specific questions if a boy was weak in either maths or English, you can't put any weight on length of interview, who does the interview or when your ds got called for interview. As far as I can tell, performance in the exam counts most highly, as does the current head's report (which doesn't have to be 100% glowing - in our chat we got told that they took more notice of the good bits in ds's report because it also mentioned things he found tricky too), and really importantly what they think a boy can bring to the school, be it sport, music, art, academic etc. I suspect the interview merely confirms a decision one way or the other - although it also obviously weeds out seriously socially disturbed families

Both schools also want boys who will be happy there, who will fit in and be a good advert. Unfortunately there are limited places, and limited bursary/scholarship funds so not every boy who could benefit from a place will get one.

For the poster who was convinced their son had been offered a place in the interview only for no offer to materialise it might well have been a subtlety of emphasis which maybe a non-native speaker could miss. They are quite likely to say something like "would you start him in September or stay another year in prep school?". That doesn't mean they're definitely going to offer a place, but they do like to gauge the likelihood of an offer being accepted IF one were to be made. When ds went into Y7 they had over-offered and far more boys than expected took the places meaning that his year is a bulge year, so they don't want to get burnt like that again!

Burntoutdad--- that's a tricky one I guess the holiday will be well earned and needed after the STRESSFULL months but then again it will be killing you to find out maybe call mid holiday ;-)

There is absolutely no way that I could not find out! The wait until 15th Feb will kill me as it is, but that's just me. I used to hunt down all my Christmas presents as a kid, so that tells you how good I am with suspense...

Good call - ill be up a mountain so will have something to jump off of!

Out of interest, just having a quick look back over the thread (so I can do a bit more over analysing) and I can't see that anyone replied to Popcorn's question about whether there was any truth in the rumour that potential academic scholarship boys at Trinity have an interview that lasts about an hour and everyone else gets 20 minutes? Our email about the interview (10+) said it would last 20 minutes but you could expect to be there for 40mins so I'm wondering if that means he definitely won't be in the running for a scholarship. Anyone else get any different wording?

Inneedofwine - Have been told that at T if parents have a separate interview with Mr B, the HM then in line for Scholarship, or they are thinking about it. If in the general room where HM mingles then not an academic scholarship but obviously this would not rule out Sports/Music etc. can anyone else verify/vouch?

Inneed, our wording same, so I can't answer question. Maybe people from previous years who successfully secured scholarships at T can shed some light on that one.

Burntout, if that was me, I'd be phoning on the Friday if possible, or on Monday, explaining we were away on holiday and would like to know please. It's hard enough waiting until the 15th.....

Inneedofwine-- we also got the same letter but nothing was mentioned in interview and my ds was about 20 mins in his interview

Burntoutdad - I've also heard that they will in certain situations !! Tell you before letters are sent out

kylep - I wouldn't normally be bothered about calling but its not the kind of news (if bad) for some reason that I would want over the phone 'No sorry DS hasn't been offered a place. Anything else I can help you with?' could you imagine!

Post 500 yay! Half way to starting a new thread.

hello hope you don't mind me joining this thread - I've just stumbled upon it whilst googling info on how many W take at 10+. Fantastic to discover that I am not the only one agonising and stewing over all this!! My DS had an interview at W just yesterday. His exam scores were pretty average (in fact quite underwhelming), but they seemed to be disproportionately positive about him at interview despite this! Don't get me wrong, I'm not disappointed with my DS - quite the opposite - but I was surprised that DH and I both left with the impression that he may receive an offer despite average performance. Some of you have indicated a similar experience at W - but also perhaps higher scores than my DS. I do hope that there isn't a cunning plan to whip parents up into a frenzy of hope and excitement, simply to let us down with a bump mid Feb!??

Good luck all