Godolphyn&Latymer or City of London Girls:which offer to accept?

[NL2016]

just learnt that DD got offers to both, very excited, but now need to choose, we live in west London, so G&L - 30 min commute /City - 45-60 min.

Looking for views on both schools and pros/cons.

Much appreciated!

I can see why you're cross re, withdrawn offer, but thank goodness you had two offers. I don't have inside knowledge of either, but have had DS in a secondary school 60 mins away by car/ bus for 6 years.

It has been tough...not so much the day to day commute - we had expected that and he is busy on the bus, chatting to friends, music (and very occasionally revision on headphones etc). But it is really punishing going back for after school activities, trip meetings etc, parents evening, or when something is forgotten. He either has to be out of the house 7.30am to 10pm at night and tired for school next day ( sometimes carrying spare clothes/shoes for the evening on top of school stuff), or come home in between for an hour before returning....but then spends up to 4 hours a day travelling. Opting for a school closer to home would have given him an extra hour at home on normal days and two hours when events are on. I would say this gets more difficult and more frequent as they get older with busier social life too. We under-estimated the impact it would have and have made different choices for younger DC.

Perhaps the City school has done you a favour in pushing you to the other school....sounds nicer anyway and a more practical commute. If the academic side is a concern, being less tired from travel and up to an extra hour a day to do homework might be a good thing as well.

Good luck to your DD!

I agree wholeheartedly with NL2016. This is a rather bizarre way for a school to behave. They very clearly ridiculously over offered. Why? A lack of confidence in acceptance rates? On one hand issuing offer letters with a 6th March deadline date then indirectly bringing forward the date before parents have had a chance to attend their offer holders open day. I was not willing to be bullied into making a rushed decision so just left it. City's practice is ethically questionable and only suits parents for which City is the best offer they have. The intake will now most likely have weaker candidates in it as a result. The stronger girls also have offers from the likes of St. Paul's, NLC etc that they are considering. With time some of these girls may have accepted City but by behaving like this City has lost out on the top half of their offer list. No other school does this.

I am not defending City but it is very difficult for the Heads to get the number of offers correct. Acceptances really do vary each year, so previous years' numbers don't help that much. As a previous poster said, City is in a very tight building so probably can't take extra pupils, purely from a fire hazard point of view.

Heads also know that if they only give offers to the exact number of pupils and put the rest on the waiting list, then they generally lose the top of the waiting list and end up having to accept from the bottom. The reason is that many people prefer to take an offer from a school that has 'chosen' their DC even if it wasn't originally their 1st choice school.