Realistic chances on waiting list?

[Tiasmummy]

Hi

I am in London so was able to apply for 6 schools. We got our sixth choice (La Sainte Union) which I was at first devastated about as we did not even visit the school! That may sound weird but we were sure we would get one of our first 5 so put it as almost an emergency...never expecting to get it!
Anywho,after reading up on the school seems it is actually a good school with good results.
The thing is...my heart is still set on getting my daughter into our first or second choice (St Marylebone or Greycoats).
My daughter is 15th on the waiting list for Marylebone....Greycoats are not giving out this information yet. What I want to know is does any body have any knowledge of how far up you have to be for it to become totally unrealistic? I know there will be no exact number but any examples would help. Does anybody have any experience of being high up on a list and still getting a place?

Thanks

My son got in from number 25.
But a totally different school, in a different place, with a lot of students going private.

There will be some movement, the problem is that nobody knows how much even the LAs involved because it is about individual parents making decisions for their children about going to private schools, about moving house etc.
The only thing you can do is hang in there and wait to see what develops. There will be movement up until September so please do not get disheartened just because nothing happens in the next 2 weeks. I do appreciate how upsetting it is but there is nothing that can be done about the system and how it operates.

You just never know. We were 5th on offer day last year. Everybody told me we would definitely get in. Unfortunately we didn't and even our appeal failed. We eventually got a place before Christmas still being 3rd on the list. The two above us had turned the place down.

I hope you get some better news soon.

Thanks for your responses :-)

dd got in from 27 - we're out of catchment by 20 miles, it's an ofsted outstanding oversubscribed school with the best results in county (better than the private schools at A level). I have no* idea how it happened, they called us in the Easter holidays to see if we wanted a place, we also got offered a place at another school (also out of catchment) a few weeks earlier - we were 17 on that list. We declined that one & held out for the first school but we were already home educating & happy to continue doing so until year 9.

Strange things happen sometimes!

(*there was a lot of movement up and down this list - I think we went in at 16 but people within the catchment moved us down, 27 was lowest down we got)

La Sainte Union is a great school, which most people applying will have put as their first choice!

I'm slightly struggling to think how you would find 5 schools from central/north London which are 'better' than LSU, tbh, either in terms of results or atmosphere/behaviour. Unless you've applied to lots of selective schools as well, I guess.

Having said that, 15th on the list of a very sought-after school in an area with high population movement is a pretty good place to be, given that lots of parents who apply to Marylebone will also have applied to private schools, and some of those will bottle out of the state school to take up the private place.

There will be movement on the lists after 16th March, which is the deadline for accepting/rejecting state school offers, and again when the date for paying a full term's fees for the private schools come up (not sure when that is).

But there are an awful lot of people who would be thrilled to be holding an offer from LSU - if you take a closer look at it I'm sure your devastation will ease off a bit, it's a great school with lovely grounds (lots of green space, unlike Marylebone or GCH) and fantastic staff and girls.

hello sorry to hear of your dilema we are in same boat. but when i called our preferred schools not same area. they stated they dont have any control over the waitinglist and told me its random selection... is this not true?
this is so stressful. why do they bother giving us preferred choices? its a load of rubbish

Hi Gregorsama. Thanks for your response. The schools I applied for and the order is as follows: 1.St Marylebone 2. Greycoats 3. Sacred Heart 4. Lady Margaret 5. Holland Park 6. Lsu

I guess really its the fear of the unknown that's making me worried about LSU. We don't live in the area..not that its a massive journey to get there...but we are at not all familiar with Highgate. It was a question of do we leave the 6th space blank as we cant think of any more schools we would like...or do we put down a school we have heard a few people mention just so the space is filled? Like I said we never expected to get it at all.
I don't mean come across as ungrateful or anything...but you know when you just have specific schools in mind for your child?

Also, as you do, we have googled the school and a few reviews are a bit worrying...yes for every one that bothers to write a bad review there may be many more who don't and love the school...I know but the bad things seems to stick in your mind :-/

Yes 15th does not sound awful on the face of it...although its 15th in my daughters band..there are 4 bands..so effectively all 14 people would have to refuse the offer for my daughter to get a place. Though I know with waiting list things do change alot.

Can I just ask when you say the staff and girls are fantastic is that from first hand experience? Just wondered how you know as I could really do with all the information I can get about the school at the moment!

Thanks

Col12345 I know some schools do have a lottery system where is obviously pure luck ..this does not seem fair at all. Are you going to appeal?

Are you Catholic or CofE? Your list of schools is a bit bizarre. Well not bizarre, exactly, but just a roll call of very sought-after, over-subscribed, usually in some form or another selective with very very low levels of FSM and low achievers (apart from Holland Park).

Perhaps if you'd applied for a few more local, non selective schools you'd have had more luck.

As it is, I think you've been pretty lucky to be offered any of them.

Oh yes and a roll call of schools all over London. Do you not have any schools a bit nearer to where you live (wherever that is, have no idea from your preferences).

I suppose being 15th in a band of a school with 4 bands is more like being 60th on a more general waiting list.

And what's unfair about lotteries?

Yes, I know a lot of girls who go or have gone to LSU, going back to my oldest child's cohort who are now turning 20, and including at least 20 girls who will be starting in next year's Y7. It's the main destination school for most of the catholic primary schools in North London, and virtually all the girls from my sons' primary school classes have gone there.

Bright girls do as well there as they would anywhere, and averagely bright girls seem to be well-supported, as do girls with social and emotional issues. There's a good mix of girls from different backgrounds, plenty of middle-class families included. Fabulous location just opposite the Heath, and lots of lovely greenery within the school grounds, including an orchard and the Catholic-school-ubiquitous prayer garden.

It's not a school that would suit a determined rebel or rule-breaker, but that's the case for all the schools on your list, so presumably you're okay with that. The head is lovely, and there are lots of dynamic teachers.

You are unusual in mixing CofE schools and Catholic ones - most people who want their dc to go to LSU or Sacred Heart would be only or mainly looking at RC schools and putting others as backup, so would have a bit more of a connection to the schools and know other families applying, as well as dc already there. It's quite hard to see how you could fulfil the admissions criteria for both GCH and LSU tbh, given the religious practice requirements and the fact that most of the schools also have a distance criterion somewhere in the small print.

GregorSamsa Thanks so much for such detailed responses. It has really helped :-)

In terms of the mix of RC and CofE its a combination of distance, schools performance and Christian ethos (holland park obviously exempt from this) and with application numbers to schools being as high as they are it's best to fill all six spaces.. So I guess school availability. With Greycoats I applied under the "other Christian religions" criteria.

Around my parts mixing RC and CofE school applications is most definitely the norm. I don't know anybody that did not do this. If I only applied for the two RC schools on my list it would be a risky thing to do as if I did not get into any of them then... Who knows what school I would be allocated :-/

I have not physically been to the school so I am hoping if I contact them and explain that they will let us visit. I understand it may not be possible as it may be seen as a disturbance to the kids as it would have to be done on a normal school day.. But I will ask nevertheless.

It's still pretty hard for me to get used to the idea of a school that was never been on my radar but hopefully if my daughter does end up going there it will work out ok.

Thanks again :-)

Thankgoditsover my choices are not bizarre at all. As I answered in my last post where I am it's the norm to do this. I live in central London so these schools are not far from me... Hence why I would apply to them all.