City of London Girls full and withdrawing offers - anyone heard similar and advice?

[NL2016]

Admissions office of the City of London Girls school is now saying that they have had the target number of girls confirming acceptance and are downgrading firm offers to those who have not yet accepted back to the waiting list, all before 6 March deadline!!! any one heard anything and any advice how to handle this situation is appreciated!

Empress, I'm sure lots of people will feel like you.
There will also be some people who are put off by what has happened this year if it becomes widely known....and these things do get about. However, there will be others who are so panic stricken by the whole 11+ thing that even thought they don't like the approach taken by City still go for it out of panic.

PSmith,I agree with what you say. Actually the info is also on the admissions page of their website, but I bet it's never mentioned in any of the bumf sent out with the application form, the info about the exam day or as you say, isn't mentioned clearly at open mornings or events. Quite simply they don't actually want to put lots of people off, because some of them will be fantastic candidates who they hope will choose City and they know that not everyone is as certain of their first choice until later in the process.
With all this school application stuff, it really is 'buyer beware' - it's so important to carefully read all of the terms and conditions about deposits and cooling off periods and dates. Its easy to get muddled if you've applied to several schools and that could be costly in money terms and other ways too.

On one hand the schools suck up to the potential parents and try to win them and on the other hand they can engage in these cut throat practices which won't be popular.
I agree it wouldn't be in the interests of the independents to issue their offers on the same day as state schools. They definitely want people to become keener and keener on their school and to turn down any state offers they have....and the more times you visit a school to go to an offer holders day, or to a play or one of the other events you might get invited to, the keener the kids and the parents are likely to get and the harder it is to turn down the school with its swishy facilities, if the alternative is a state option.
For those choosing just between independents, I agree that parents could do a bit more of the research a bit sooner. Visiting the schools before applying seems a good idea and getting a firmer idea of preference could be achieved by some....although the scholarships and bursaries issue works against this because they are key drivers for many people. And it is true that once you have an offer the way you think of the school does become a bit different - people definitely need some time to mull things over and schools must allow that. For those with only independent school offers to consider, I guess most must know by now or could have pushed themselves to know by now which is their top choice. Perhaps those Offer Holder Open days need to brought significantly forward.
It's the people choosing between City and a state school option threat they don't know they have yet, that I feel most sorry for in all this.

We might sit for City next year - this thread has been very informative as to their approach
I have a Y7 child and we waited until the state offers before making our decision with him

Dancer, the schools don't want to go down their wait list unless they have to. People on the wait list have got lower scores than those offered places immediately. Those on wait lists might be very clever still for the big name schools, but for those that are a bit less selective and not quite so popular, there can be a big difference in ability between the top performers and those they may have to offer to if using a wait list...and that will affect results in the future. Scholarships are largely used to entice the top performers to choose that school instead of another. So it's not just about bums on seats, but getting the next bums, if you know what I mean.
The indies know that often it's harder to get the state school offer to the super selective than to themselves, plus of course lots of people can only afford the indie with huge sacrifices, so given the choice will go for the state school. If the offers came on the same day, the indies would lose a number of those fantastic candidates who go for the free option. Some of those fantastic candidates who might really have preferred a state offer and for whom City will be a struggle financially for 7 years will have been drawn into City by the early offer, perhaps a scholarship, the pressure to accept and the uncertainty of getting the state school offer. city wants them to feel that 'a bird in the hand' is really worth something.....but the bird can be withdrawn and you could be left with nothing.

Best bums, not next bum so!

Yes, I think the next iteration in this process must be that many dparents accept on day 1 next year.

And as a pp below said this might actually give the most utilitarian outcome - those who are keenest will accept, and "those who don't accept straight away knowing that they are risking their place can't have liked it that much anyway" - sort of thing.

As long as everyone knows the position - including the first time applicants, those without prep school advice, etc.

But this utilitarian analysis doesn't take into account the dparents waiting to see if they have a state school place. Not sure how you factor that in.

Meanwhile, Eastlondmum (and others affected), I hope your dds are happy with their other options, and looking forward to the weekend!

The people who this will hit hardest are those who cannot afford to lose a deposit.

And that might not be those hoping for a state school offer (as the expense hits now, but the savings over the secondary career make it possible to reframe it as a necessary cost of having a fallback).

Clearly , the school while overoffering should be prepared all that accepted the offer. Latimer Upper exactly did this few years ago ending up with 136 pupils instead of 120. Surely experienced school like City could have prepared better for this eventuality particularly given that it is owned by the a City of London Corporation which ample real estate. Having narrowed our choice to offferes to two family similar school we have been waiting for open morning which as City implied is part of admissions and de ision making process. If they are full why keep the open morning?! Rather pathetic...

ChocolateWombat: T£C state that in case of remote acceptance there is effectively a 14 cooling period, the choice of language is somewhat ambiguous, they may return instead of will return... I would think they will rather than tarnish their reputation further....

mixed bag there in my opinion

obviously, this is an another layer of unneeded stress in a process that's already really painful to go through, and I understand the frustration of parents who felt they needed more time to make their decision

on the other hand, if we are all being honest with ourselves for a second, the 'juggling with offers' thing has gone a bit overboard on the parents side, and I don't begrudge schools for trying to do what's right for them. Going into the process, we made sure we went into the process knowing beforehand which schools had our preference, and accepting on that basis (exploding offers have been happening in a few schools before this year, City and Highgate IIRC)

it's not great practice, and they could be a bit more fair-play about it, but as long as the school is transparent about this, both in writing and at the various meeting points, it doesn't strike me as particularly egregious that they seek to reduce the cost to them of endless dithering on the parents' end

just my 2c

Alejandro - it's not dithering that has caused this but overoffering on what seems a very large scale. For dithering, they could just have a shorter decision time, but then they'd have to make fewer offers.

but the overoffering itself is result of explosion in number of exams sat by children (five, six, seven in some cases) and subsequent number of places held after results are out. From talking to admissions at a couple of schools, lots of people sit on these places and never even bother to respond they won't take it even when their choice is made

don't get me wrong, I agree exploding offers are not great practice. But putting myself in their shoes, selecting on the basis of who really /wants/ it as a priority choice doesn't sound this ridiculous

the state offers deadline is another issue, but we know first hand someone who was able to recover their deposit in that case (although different school than the one discussed in here)

I have a dd at City and it is a great school. Eldest dd who has left achieved 10 A at GCSE and As and A at A'level. Any child offered a place should accept immediately and not wait until the end date.

"Any child offered a place should accept immediately and not wait until the end date."

Only if they want the place! (Obviously if they don't, they won't mind when the offer explodes.)

But I imagine that is what dparents will do next year -but what happens if they still get 'over acceptance' on the first day?

I'd love to know how many places they over offered. But, I am sure they will never tell.

It's easy if you are just looking at private schools and know your personal ranking. Much harder for families waiting to hear on scholarships or state schools. Of course, hefty scholarships and free state schools would mean that it would still make rational sense to just walk away from your deposit as a sunk cost.

I don't think it is harder for families waiting on bursaries. We waited on a bursary and the equation is simple - dos we get a big bursary offer or not, if we didn't then we can't accept the place, if we did then we accept it ASAP. I agree that waiting on state school offers is more of an issue. Up here in the north you do have some idea whether you will get the grammar school place based on your child's test score and any other relevant criteria so that helps a little. We are fortunate though that the state school offers and independent school offers all arrive within a couple of days of each other and as far as I know there are no exploding offers. We still made our decision straight away and informed the schools so that other children were not languishing on waiting lists whilst we greedily hold onto three offers.
Even waiting on a bursary alongside state school offers it makes sense to discuss with your child his order of preference and explain that you will only be able to accept certain offers if you get a big enough bursary, so what is the back up plan. Children of that age and ability are capable of understanding that.

I think the number of candidates to all schools has risen. This is what I understand from every admissions tutor I have spoken to.

Parents are aware that the competition for places has risen because the number of people looking for places has. The effect is magnified because then parents feel the need to apply for a larger number of schools to ensure they get one. Many of the London schools we're talking about did not have any where near 10:1 candidate:offer ratios 10 years ago.

The admissions process has become an enormous effort both for parents, students and schools. Imagine organising 1300 student exams to get 150 students.

The issue here is that schools can choose how to deal with the issue and they can choose a policy that makes their process easier, shorter and more certain for them. That is exactly what City has done, in the full knowledge that their results will continue to drive more high quality and able candidates to them than they need. They don't need to keep the wider offer holder community happy and so they don't bother.

Other schools have higher standards which they apply to students that may well choose other schools as their final choice. They have higher moral standards, in my opinion.

"Imagine organising 1300 student exams to get 150 students."

True - which is one of the advantages to schools of the consortium I suppose. Though does each school in the consortium still mark them separately? - yes, that must be a huge effort even if you don't physically have to have 1300 students on the premises on one morning.

I can see why dparents apply to so many schools though - if student numbers are increasing (which I think they are in that age range) and the number of private school places is stable, it is becoming harder to get a place in any private school. So dparents aiming for private feel they have to apply to more schools to be certain. Particularly if they haven't got prep school advice on where their dc should target.

The numbers sitting exams are indeed huge, but schools do not have to resort to rescinding offers to cope with that.

Some do indeed run vast exams (Alleyns actually shut the school that day except for the year group that acts as stewards), others (eg SPGS) use a computer-based test as an initial sift and then invite only the top however-many to a written exam. And others simply guillotine the registration list at a certain number (eg Emanuel)

Not honouring offers does not seem to be a particularly good way of controlling numbers registering for entry.

People have mentioned bulge classes upthread as if they are an unusual occurrence and a result of recent increased numbers - but actually I think they happen quite often. DD's school year had 5 forms rather than 4 when she started in 2007. My ds's year at LU was 7 forms of 24 so 168 a couple of years later. My other ds's school said in his admission round that they were being particularly careful that year because the year above had an extra class. So I'm pretty sure it happens quite regularly in most schools and has done for many years, it's not a new phenomenon, but one that most schools take into their stride. City obviously can't or won't.

I've been told it is a can't not a won't. Their spare capacity has been taken up by an earlier bulge year and until that year graduates through, there is no slack in the system.

-The building is Grade 1 (not two, one) so they cannot move walls around.

-There are rules about how much square meterage there has to be per child in a classroom.
-City owns no outdoor space, so temporary portable classrooms are impossible.

Even with a can't , there are other ways to manage numbers than by not honouring offers.

With hindsight, it's always easy to make the most most appropriate and timely decision.
We, like NL2016, had two independent schools, among our 4 offers we very much liked more than the other 2, once in the lucky position to be able to pick. We saw the offer holder mornings as an important part of the decision process and replied straightaway to reserve our place there. Had this happened last year, would have we behaved differently? Possibly.
I would like to think not many people hold on to offers for the sake of it, but then again may be wrong.
Now due to what happened, we are still holding on to two offers till national offer day. We would have already released at least another one had this not happened.
As for the comments regarding all the advice you get from your prep headmaster, or admission tutors etc. Well not everybody come from that background

Given who City is owned by I.e. City of London Corporation, they surely can fine a solution to accommodate extra 20 or so kids who did receive firm offers. If they can't it does indicate of the issues that have and will certainly dent their reputation as refusal to come up with a solution is very indicative of the attitude, not to mention impact on welfare of those girls who wee told inwriting that they did very well and City awaits them in September...Schools aggregate a nice pot of money from those who apply but not receive a place, imagine LU normally has 1200-1300 applicants for 120- 135 places, they do exam over one day and interview another and effort is nearly the same whether 300 applied or 1300 as they shit the school on exam day and do interview of some 400 kids in one go on Saturday. Registration fee is £125 per head so it is north of £130,000 in extra revenue from those who applied but did not get the place so no reason to be sorry for them...

I agree with Eastlondonmum: we kept two offers out of four because those are for similar schools and want to see them again as suggested by schools themselves as the previous viewing was over a year ago alongside some other schools and DD was a year younger, as some on on the tread said, you need a choice to choose from within the allowed time and shouldn't be blackmailed by the school as City did...Again, while over offering a school should be prepared to the scenario when all accept and to honour all offers .