St Marylebone Girls School Sholarship Open Day

[jjames]

Has anyone attended one of these? I'd be very grateful in receiving a heads up. I have a slot booked for my daughter for Drama & Dance. Should we expect to be interviewed and what is the day like and how many students get picked and roughly attend?

Competition for the scholarships is fierce, with up to and beyond a 1,000 children applying for each discipline. AFAIK you can only apply for one, whether that's music, dance or drama. And this is via audition. Some of the the scholarships have more than one round. Musicians sit the MAT (Aptitude test. Some details of which can be found on other threads) and the top scorers go to a further audition. I believe the dance and drama hopefuls are auditioned in a group and separately. Individual audition pieces are learned before the day. (This can be clarified on the school's website, I'm sure.) Graded ability varies on entry, with a few on lower grades with high potential, getting through. Most musicians are L5 plus with Gr7/8 not unusual. Once in, scholars can expect visits from and to the best arts institutions London has to offer. Dancers go to Russia. Musicians linked with RAM/Royal Opera etc. If you get in there are Maths/ICT and Art scholarships as well. Also, some of these opportunities are open to the non-scholars, so don't despair if DD does poorly on the day. There's no interview. STM is a CofE academy and it's not allowed. But I would always give them sight of any special achievements/awards etc. (Copies, as I'm sure they get hundreds. And not things like swimming certificates etc.)

Make sure you warn your DD that there will be HUNDREDS of girls there. One girl I taught was not expecting this and her shock affected her performance.

Thank you for this info I've taken it on board.