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 suppose though you may as well have big aspirations. No harm done if they don't come off.

My Mum heard on the telly that Oxbridge were the two best universities in the world and decided (when I was about five) that that was where I'd go.

She also took a photo of me outside number 10 Downing Street and told me I'd one day be Prime Minister ...

I like the way she is gradually working up to telling us that she has offered the Head cash in a brown envelope

Bwah.

I am wondering if you are a troll or just very silly.

Or, a silly troll.

Actually Crowler, I think 'just very silly' covers all the bases, don't you?

Wordfactory, are you Nick Clegg?

OP is woefully under-informed. Westminster now uses ISEB pretest (papers widely available) and if you go the common entrance route, that is standard ISEB papers too.

You can find a fair few Challenge papers online eg this one

And £2k pa isn't going to buy any advantage whatsoever.

OP is not only uninformed and complete and utter........ troll....who doesn't even have an 8 year old ...let alone one headed for Westminster...but hey, it's entertaining.

How did it work out for you Wordfactory? Did your mum having v high aspirations for you (and were you a mere girl?) give you a v helpful sense of self-confidence and ambition, or did it have any negative effects?

Drom it was brilliant. Like having my own cheer leader.

I was brought up on a huge council estate in quite hard deprivation. Yet based on no evidence whatsoever my Mum decided I was clever and special .

I was the first person in my entire (massive) extended family to stay at school past 16. And I did go to Oxbridge.

Now I'm in a position to send my son to W!

Never became Prime Minister though .

Oh, cash donations now! This thread just keeps on giving. :):):)

”Is Westminster School the best school on Earth?”

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!!

It most certainly is . . .

On your own Earth!

”Eton, a much worse school, is known by everyone.”

And it’s the only school outside the USA known by the Americans!

My son is clever, and special, Wordfactory. I decided a while ago that he is going to become Prime Minister. He has decided that it is not worth it:

"Too much stress, Mummy, too much criticism, not enough money. I think I'll do something in oil. Or be an ice marshall at Somerset House ice rink".

We can but try...

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

Only 97?

tsk! tsk! tsk!

The ”much worse school” Eton must have been sunk beyond recognition (last two sentences - middle paragraph).

Wordfactory - v interesting - and

Just when I thought this thread couldn't get any better, Eton's cheerleader-in-chief pops up. Fiiigggghhhhttt!!!!

Tbf, peteneras, from your previous contributions you are just as bonkers about Eton as statesmom is about Westminster. Though I believe you do actually have some experience of the place, so...

Anywaaaaaaay. Am absolutely at the idea of donations of 1-2k per year. Just...perfect. This thread has been a dream from start to finish.

I think it's sweetly naive and quite touching that anyone could possibly think that a donation that would be less than one term's fees by time of the pretest could have any effect whatsoever.

Or that scraping an acquaintance with a member of the non-academic staff has any bearing on it at all.

Or that scraping an acquaintance with a member of the non-academic staff has any bearing on it at all.

You must have missed the part where they are both American. So it's not naive at all.

statesmom, you'd have to up that donation significantly - like adding 3-4 0s to the end of your donation. I know for a fact that an offer of a low 7 figure donation to get a son a clear entry into the school was turned down.

Still am just as "bonkers", tea, but I don't think I've said anything like Eton being the greatest school on Earth.

Amazed how this thread has run on!! Any other OWs lurking? I have little to add. On a personal note, I loved it (girl, sixth form, mid-90s) but my three sons won't be going!

I bet £10 that statesmom is the poster who got into such a fankle about Nativity plays a few months ago.

Something very recognisable about the fervid ambition teamed with a complete incapacity to appreciate that anybody else might possibly have a valid point of view.

Ummm I'd be pretty surprised if they waived selection criteria for cash....but they certainly waive fees for the uber bright....one close friend was a Queen's Scholar but d