Is Westminster School the best school on Earth?

[statesmom]

Just looking at their website and they have 97 places for their students at Oxford and Cambridge this year?!

We have an 8 year old son and want to focus on getting him into this place, just next to the Palace of Westminster. It looks amazing! Any thought on parents with children at the school very welcome indeed, especially any thoughts on the application process. Thank you for someone new to London.

I don't know about subject specific, since the undergraduates I talk to are mostly reading a fairly limited range of subjects - Economics, Politics, Engineering - the things that French people (or English people brought up in France) want to study.

The Oxford students I know are fantastically hardworking - their parents go to visit from Paris and they only snatch one meal with their DC . Said DC seem perfectly OK but not exactly the life and soul of anything other than the library.

No, but I think she was a bit pissed off at homosexual prejudice towards female undergraduates that she wasn't!

Oxford must have changed.

Is there always so much sanctimony on these sorts of threads?

I didn't think it would be so hard to have a discussion about one school. Sorry, I personally don't have all day to be on an internet chat site, but each time I come back here I get more tired by the affected holiness of others.

Thank you, but for some to say "you should worry about your son's happiness" assumes I don't. I asked about one stellar school people, get with the program and leave your insecurities off this thread.

Why can't you ask sensible questions then. Rather than witter about the queen and be fairly offensive about state schools.

If you want to have a sensible conversation then do so.

Don't worry, statesmom. You have unwittingly tapped into middle-class Londoners' worst insecurities about foreigners stealing school places that should rightly go to their DC . And broken unspoken MN rules too .

I spend some time there and that isn't currently my experience, although I think most people get snowed under sometimes no matter where and I think some subjects are more stressful and some Colleges try to be stricter than others.

OK Littlebear, I am sorry.

I should have phrased my question in accepted euphemisms, pretending that all children are above average and averring that each school (especially state schools!!) is special in its own way. Nothing is better than anything else.

Is that a "sensible" way to communicate? Maybe I need to buy a dictionary to help translate our common language in a local nihilistic bookstore.

It does take a while to understand the culture of Britain towards schools. It's a stormer of a school, along with some others, if you get in.

No, a sensible way to communicate is to ask questions.

It is clear from this thread that there are many posters with children at Westminster and its peers, plus poster whose children previously attended. There are also Oxbridge alumni.

If you truly want information then ask. Don't post obnoxious comments as you will generally get pointed replies and people pulling holes in your inaccurate views and opinions.

But let's face to you aren't interested are you and you certainly aren't like any US lawyer I have encountered. I pity your clients, if indeed you have any.

statesmom thinks we have a common language you can't be long here. I worked out I had a whole new culture and language to learn within a couple of days of my two year stint in the states. I have got quite good at that process in various cultures since but it takes time, open mindedness and sensitivity..............

This thread is hilarious!
Great trolling statesmum

OP

OK let me know if this is sanctimonious.

I don't think anyone has said that Westminster is anything other than an excellent school.

What I think , and some others seem to me to as well, is that Oxbridge entrance is not the only factor in deciding whether to send your son to a school.

You said "if all else is equal why would you not? "

IMO all else is rarely equal in these circumstances. You need to see whether the environment is one in which your son , if he were to be given a place , would thrive . There are other factors than the bald number of Oxbridge entrants.
Many other schools have great success in Oxbridge (and other top university) entry. A school where your child will work to their their best in
its culture , I would have thought, would have given them the best post school options . This is not wishy washy 'well as long as he is happy' speak.

If you have circa £165k to spend on his secondary education then you have other options which merit you both looking into. Westminster is fabulous , there are other fabulous schools.

If Oxbridge is your main criterion then I think people have just tried to point out it isn't quite as straightforward as you seem to say. IE there are 60 excellent and able girls entering at 6th form. So getting a place at Westminster is not just like lottery with a % of success , you have to be able in the first place . A more relevant comparison for you might be (excluding 6th form entry pupils) how many of the original cohort of boys got a place .

You say you are new to London , and good for you for asking , but if I were you I would ask around as you get to know people. You will find people who think Westminster is the best school in the world . You will find people who think it is not right for their child , you will find people whose son was offered a place and didn't take it up in favour of another school. You will also find people who think e.g. Eton , St Paul , KCS , Winchester , etc etc are the best school in the world ) 5 years of his life is worth more thought than whether it's near Westminster Abbey and the raw Oxbridge data. (OK that last sentence might be sanctimonious

If Statesmom Jnr is able enough , likes the school and gets a place then fab. Just have a look at some other options as well would be my advice .

The short answer to your question in your thread title is - It depends

statesmom the problem is that every time you post you manage to be pretty rude and patronising to other mumsnetters. I'm sure you think you're just defending your point of view and that others have been rude to you, but I think there is something of a cultural divide here - 2 nations divided by a common language. People on here are always willing to give advice but this thread has moved way beyond that largely because of your opening comments (now deleted) about dunces and state schools and how great it is to be able to see the Queen and your inability to accept that others may judge"best" in a different way to you.

In other words it is YOU that needs to "get with the programme"

Also as was pointed out much earlier on, there is political and societal pressure to increase the numbers of students from state schools and those from poorer backgrounds at universities. This means that those given a privileged education are likely to be expected by the universities to have done their best to avail themselves of the opportunities they have been given and are less likely to be given leeway if they fall short.

I'm sorry mateysmum.

As I told you, I now know there are no dumb children; they are all above average. Westminster is no better, and no worse, than any state school in the realm.

It must be some weird American thing to think that some kids are brighter than others and that some schools are objectively better than others. I will disabuse myself of these mercenary notions.

I was not aware that Stepford-like I am supposed to imbibe the story of Harrison Bergeron as Gospel.

We are all the same!! Nothing is better or worse than anything else!!

...and Mumsnet is the Handicapper General.

Statesmom you are doing it again!!

You are now being very sarcastic ref a post in which I was trying to give you some tough love. Every post you have to include some high faluting reference which you may or may not expect us to understand.

If you look at other school threads you will see how helpful this site can be id dealt with appropriately.

Yes some kids are brighter than others, yes some schools are objectively better than others, but brilliant as Westminster is, it may not be the BEST for every bright kid for a whole host of reasons. This is what you do not appear to accept. You stated in one of your earlier posts essentially that any kid who went there stood a 50% chance of going to Oxbridge. You would not accept that that may not be statistically true anyway and that the sample is self selecting due to the admissions procedure.

If Statesmom junior is bright enough and Westminster suits him then I am sure he will do well and good luck to him but that doesn't mean it is absolutely the best school on earth.

HTH.

It must be some weird American thing to think that some kids are brighter than others and that some schools are objectively better than others. I will disabuse myself of these mercenary notions.

Best not .

Oh can we get irony over here ?

statesmom are you going to be in the UK long enough for the choice of Westminster School to matter and if not are you planning to leave him here boarding? If boarding is a possibility that would be a more practical issue in your choice of the best school for your DS.

Yes we will be here long enough for the choice to matter. I wouldn't send my son to board at a school that is not 100% boarders.

CountessDracula !! Where the hell have you been?

Mateysmom said: "Statesmom you are doing it again!!

You are now being very sarcastic ref a post in which I was trying to give you some tough love."

I am sorry but I am trying, and failing, to, through tough love, imbue you with a sense of reality.

We could have easily had a conversation here, sans personal vitriol, with the question: "Is Oxford the best university in the world?". There would have been a back and forth, cut and thrust, to and fro, and so on. No hysteria. No false holiness, no petty comments from the peanut gallery.

For some reason of which I am unaware, a few manifestly insecure mothers, who probably work and let their children watch a whole lot of TV, hence the insecurity, cannot engage the question in my original post.

Oh my.

For the first time ever I truly want to know just how many lurkers are now staring, open-mouthed, at their screens.

This is why I don't need TV.

oh at least this has given us in the peanut gallery all a laugh....keep trolling I say...hilarious thread...

OP if you are real and going back to the US one day, sorry but hardly anyone would have heard of Westminster (though you can always mention "it's next to the Palace" bit to impress) ....but dropping the occasional "my old Etonian DS" at cocktail parties would.... at least to to a US audience.