City of London Girls withdrawing offers

[Leo12345]

Hello! I was surprised to receive an email today from City of London Girls that their offer to DD is now withdrawn. I opened their original email with the offer and read that indeed this is their policy: first-comes-first-gets.
We are much more prone to go to LEH or if not Kingston Grammar, and now I bless this decision as I learnt something about City of London Girls character and aptitude towards its pupil.

My question is: do other schools (in particular LEH and Kingston Grammar) practice such policy?

We would accept the offer in LEH today then, though we are waiting for the tour in there.

I don’t think it is true to say that admitting from WL will impact league table position.

Plenty of dc get admitted to selective schools from wait lists and MNetters often worry they will be bumping along the bottom. The usual reassurance is that this is not the case. For my own dc who was admitted from WL she is in the top quartile of her cohort for maths and the second quartile for English.

Also DC change between 11 and 16. They mature at different rates. Some are more heavily tutored than others. Some have been better prepared by their schools. Some may have had off days on the exam. Some will become more diligent as they get older. Some will become less diligent. So many factors are at play. I don’t think you can predict completely accurately who will do best at GCSE based on their performance in a test taken when they are 11.

@Pradaqueen

It is certainly not a 'dog eat dog' environment nor a place for girls (or Parents) with 'sharp elbows'

We attended two open mornings at City in which Ena Harrop used the exact phrase ‘sharp elbows’ in her speech to describe what is required of a City girl; literally to fight their way on to the tube each morning during rush hour and figuratively to keep up with the competition and pace of academics at the school.

I don’t think you can predict completely accurately who will do best at GCSE based on their performance in a test taken when they are 11

Excellent post qgmum and I completely agree. My oldest dd did GCSEs last summer; some of the strongest performers at GCSE were not scholarship girls or those who were high flyers at 11.

I agree with all those who say you can't accurately predict at 10/11 (let alone at these prepreps that are supposedly selective at 3). How they perform in these somewhat predictable exams has as much to do with where they've come from as where they're going, academically.

If a child from a prep school who's perhaps being tutored on top of that and attends mock exams etc gets the same marks as a kid from a class of 30 in a state school then the latter arguably has more potential. At a scholarship interview I was chatting to a lovely girl who was telling me that every week in her private primary they'd have timed mock English and Maths 11+ papers which they'd then go over to improve technique etc. Meanwhile my daughter was doing a bit of Sats spag.

Am curious how those whose offers exploded have done with their state school allocations? I hope there is some comfort somewhere!
The waitlist might also start to move soon.

Samnam, as it turns out, we have the offer of Henrietta Barnett. Very proud of DD, but I suspect we will not take it (though will be at the offer holders morning tomorrow to see again).

It does raise the slightly bizarre possibility that we release a place at HBS, which might release a place at City, which might move T up the waiting list....!

There is some movement on the City waitlist so seems some must have been happy with state school placements or people are just making final decisions in general.

Theinvisible I haven’t read all recent posts so forgive me if I missed something..but I’m curious why you would turn down HB for City. The latter being prestigious grammar academically equivalent to City (and free?)?

...and Chocolate Wombat did you change your mind because your daughter was subsequently offered a place? Easier to see things from City’s perspective if you haven’t been caught out. Seems an interesting U-Turn on your views on this matter. Of course we are all entitled to our opinions/views but I wondered.

For reasons of self-interest, invisiblehand, I think you tell City they're not worthy of your awesome daughter and go for SHHS...

Oops the former is a prestigious grammar I should have written..

User - no accounting for tastes! I really wanted to like HBS. It is much nearer to where we live, free and academically great. But there was something about the atmosphere I wasn't keen on. Kids felt a bit focussed on the ends, less the fun of learning so a bit joyless. I know that may be wildly unfair and a snapshot, so will go see it tomorrow. But City was the school I walked into and felt like DD would slot right in. Lots - that may be how it goes!

Did HBS issue offers before all the other London schools (5pm today?)

Teenmum - sort of. School emailed directly about arrangements for offer holder day before 5pm.

In response to the question about me and why I moved from being very negative about Citys exploding offers last year, to being more understanding of what they did it by this year, I never had a child involved - not this year or last.
My change of view was simply because I thought longer and harder about the issues created by lots of parents applying to lots of schools and the particular problems for a school which can only take 75 girls, with a very space limited site, whilst also being very popular due to academic success, but often not the first choice for many of those many applicants.
I think not having a child involved made me look at it differently......I think the whole system of independence to schools in London increasingly struggles to get offering right,nits just that people don't know because they keep their worries about bulge classes and about going far down the WL very quiet....but big struggles nonetheless. I just saw City as acting to minimise them.
As I've said before, the lack of crystal clear communication from the start about it all wasn't acceptable, even if the practice can be explained. And I di t think they will be able to use it in the same format again as by nature it will fill sooner and sooner and camping out isn't what the school will want.

What I would be interested to know at this point (but we will never know) is, if all the girls who applied, now they have all their offers, how many would have turned City down if they had an offer? And how many of the top perhaps 100 would have said 'no'? And of those who had offers explode, how many would have eventually declined anyway?

I'm bumping this to echo Chocolate Wombat's question.

Now that the state school offers are out, has anyone who got in their acceptance to City quickly now decided to reject the offer?

Has anyone on the waiting list been offered a place?

Has anyone heard anything about how they might be planning to handle in future (given that I think this model is unsustainable)? I've got a younger child and if I have to factor in my ability to run to the Barbican clutching a piece of paper with both parental signatures, on the off chance of getting an offer in the first place, I think it would put me off applying. It's not as 11+ isn't stressful and uncertain enough in the first place.

Applicants on the waiting list were promised an email last week but we’ve heard nothing, even after emailing them to ask for an update.

LondonUSAmum would you take a place if offered now or are you all (in the words of that song that my kids sing incessantly) ciao, adios, I'm done?

Presumably you've accepted elsewhere. If Channing were to ring us up to offer us a place I wouldn't accept (mostly because I think the school we've accepted is better) but even if it had been my favourite, I might have felt like it was accepting back a faithless boyfriend.

I have no expectation they will be offering DD a place as we were so far down the waiting list so haven’t even entertained the thought. DD still loves the school but out of principal I can’t imagine we would now.

But I am curious to see how it all plays out so am keeping in touch with the school.

Why they keep promising communication and responses and then don’t bother continues to be frustrating. But I guess they have their numbers and haven’t cared how they’ve treated anyone, especially the girls, in the process so it shouldn’t continue to surprise me.

LondonUSAmum, this is wrong. You don't necessarily have an entitlement to a place (though the way places were allocated is obviously somehting for discussion) but the admission fee ought to entitle you to a reasonable level of service and consideration. It is a service they have charged you for, but that you don't seem to be getting.

Needmoresleep,what is wrong?

When did I say anything about being entitled to a space?

No. Not at all and sorry if it sounded like that.

I was simply saying that these schools charge big application fees. They are charging for a service. People paying have a right to a service in the form of replies to emails etc. On this level alone you are being treated badly.

Btw, they have a new registrar again. The new one seemed to be better at responding to my emails. But hoping that they do deliver what they promised about waiting lists etc.

Which schools have you accepted @londonusamum, @lotsofsighing?

That's good to know about new registrar Sunbabies, I'm sure it's hard juggling admissions but they did seem to find it harder than other schools.

Dd off to GDST school in North London...