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 I was surprised to receive an email today from City of London Girls that their offer to DD is now withdrawn.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.

The other schools will get quicker decline of offers, if parents follow up their City acceptance by declining the others fast - City has sent emails encouraging that. Many parents will, but some will still sit on other offers - it isn't entirely rational, but people often find it hard to turn down other good offers until they absolutely must, even when they have no intention of accepting them.

I'd imagine a 2 tier system will develop. Very popular schools like City will use systems like the exploding offers one, ensuring they fill quickly, the first choice applicants. Parents will just get used to it and be quick off the mark if they want a place, as they would be, if they wanted a holiday or flight on the first day they are available, before they sell out. Other schools who are not so popular will have to stick with the old system because they know and accept that they are not always first choice. They will have to go to WL with all its problems as they have in the past.

The thing is, next year if all dparents know about this, then even getting there the first day may not be enough - you may arrive at the school/e-mail your acceptance the same day (or 9 am the following day if that's when the period for acceptances 'opens'), only to find you've been pipped at the post.

Then, if the other highest in the league table schools have all adopted the exploding offer approach, the dparent turns to the second choice school - but may have already missed it. In fact, you could end up missing all of the exploding offers if all the 'top' (ie highest in league table, though that is a contentious definition I agree) schools adopt them. But perhaps they will not!

Somehow (to name a few) G&L, Latimer Upper, Forest, CLSB, KCS, SPS, Westminster, Alleyns, Dulwich, Whitgift etc etc manage to get by without issuing fake offers (a term I prefer to use for schools issuing offers that they will not inltimately honour). Only Channing & CLSG appear to doing this and my personal view is that it reflects a lack of confidence, honour and integrity.

The good news is that the vast majority of brilliant girls and co-ed schools do offer real offers.

Thankfully I cannot imagine any/many other top schools doing this as routine practice.

I highly doubt many schools will follow the City example. Their systems are working just fine. We called the other school our DD was interested in to make sure the offer was safe and they said they would never go to a system of exploding offers as it goes against the core values of the school.

And it’s not just state schools families are waiting to hear from, it’s international schools as well and those offers are not out until the end of February.

As for sitting on offers, or Head encouraged us not to make deposits and hold places we aren’t truely interested in for the current students applying but also to consider the reputation of our current school’s prospective students. By taking advantage of the system and holding on to many offers it can leave a bad impression on how our school advises us to handle the process.

For many Paying a deposit to hold a space does not mean they are taking the place, it means they played City’s game well this year.

I think as knowledge about this practice becomes more widespread, there will be a decline in numbers applying to City. In my experience, not many people have an out and out first choice at the start of the process and unless you were very, very sure it was the school you wanted for your DD (or had money to burn) why would you bother to apply there?

It's perfectly natural for one's preferred order of schools to change as the process progresses. We applied to 4 schools for DS. He got offers from all 4, two with scholarships (and this can certainly change the order of preference). We decided on the school for him as a result of their offer-holders evening, which gave us a much better feel for the school than the very overcrowded open day had done. On offers day it would have been our second, or even third, choice.

Thankfully we won't have to do 11+ again but if we did, having been through it twice, I wouldn't touch City with a barge-pole.There a plenty of other equally good (or better) schools to choose from which don't use this ridiculous practice.

I think City will be glad if fewer people apply. They would rather have fewer of those who have already decided than loads of people who have applied to 6 schools and are still so very uncertain, that the chances of their top choice being City is small.

Why are people applying to so many? They cannot possibly want all of them equally. Why can't people visit on open days and make a close to definite choice, narrowing to just a couple? The idea that it's impossible to know until later is simply not true and if people were given an 8 week acceptance period, many would take the full time to choose and claim they needed it. People will take all the time given to them to make a choice, however long or short.
When people apply to state schools, they must make their preference order at the point of application. They visit the schools before and they choose. That's it. It's done. If they want to change their preferences later they have to go on waiting lists.
The only reason I can see for why people cannot decide, is they have applied to so many schools that they haven't been able to visit before or not to visit sufficiently to choose, which is due to having to visit far too many, to get a proper idea about the serious contenders. This large scale hedging of bets is at the root of all these problems because it leads to multiple offer holders who then feel overwhelmed by choice and feel making a choice can be left until after application rather than before it.
Post offer open days are marketing exercises, aimed to persuade people to choose a particular school - quite what someone gets from those, or why they cannot ask their questions before this point, is beyond me. I think some people actually enjoybtheblomg drawn out process and trailing round multiple schools to visit numerous open days and marketing events, becaue somehow they feel they are being wooed, and finally selecting is often some kind of a wrench, when you have all the goodies in your hands but ultimately can only have one.

I know it's a fine line and parents are paying customers. Schools clearly do go out of their way to put on a good display and sell their schools. There is a line however and schools need to have some control over numbers and who they want. Schools that say they manage fine with offers under the usual system, clearly don't want to tell parents how nightmarish it is to decide how many offers to make and about the nail biting days when they wait to see how many accept or over accept and if they will go to WL. Schools are very careful to never give very exact numbers of offers made or percentages accepted - parents would be shocked if they realised that even the most popular schools face lots of declines, but if you think about it, if people have applied to 3 top schools, any of the 3 could be first choice, making the other 2 declines.

I think I actually admire City for having the balls to address the problem, for the benefit of their school and its future, rather than feeling the need to suck up to the many prospective parents who are never going to put City as their first choice. It might be unpopular, but at the end of the day, they will be more full with first choice applicants and that is their key concern.

I could buy the argument that City “has the balls” if their email saying the offers were being withdrawn didn’t say “we apologise for this happening, it’s not a situation we set out to be in”. So are they lying to us then if this was such a bold move on their part? If not then it’s another example of how terribly managed their admission process was/is this season.

I think they can both think it is the right policy for them and also recognise it might not be popular and apologise for it. Perhaps it shows more humanity to say it's necessary but to acknowledge the difficulties of it too.
As they say 'it's not a situation they set out to be in' - ie the many many applicants who have no real intention of choosing the school, which then make it almost impossible for them to correctly offer without either over or under filling.

The point you are missing is that no other school feels the need to do this

I know a few girls who sat city without really thinking they would get in. The offer holder day would have been invaluable for them. Doesn't mean they aren't right for the school because they wanted to make a well informed decision.

I guess it depends how seriously parents take the decision of where their DC will spend their next 7 years ChocolateWombat. And what they will be spending upwards of £100k on.

I agree that in most cases there is no need to sit for more than 3-4 schools. But 2 is too few. Kids of 10 or 11 can easily have a bad day for whatever reason and it's very difficult to gauge exactly where a DC sits in the cohort, especially if they're not coming from a school with a lot of expertise in the 11+ process.

Sometimes it's easy; my DD had a very clear first choice, was offered a place, and we accepted quickly with no need for offer holders days. We certainly weren't going to trawl round schools again for the sake of it.

With my DS it was less straight-forward. He did better than we expected. He's dyslexic and we weren't sure how he would do/what schools were really looking for and what they were prepared to overlook. We wanted to be sure about things like SEN support, which we hadn't been able to properly ascertain at open days. We went back to 2 schools, having released his other 2 offers. I don't think that's unreasonable and we're more than capable of seeing through the marketing, thanks.

I disagree that City will be happy if applicant numbers drop substantially. If that happens I suspect they'll abandon exploding offers. Time will tell.

Completely agree with Firefox regardless fake offers issued by schools low on integrity . Of all the schools dd sat for 7+ we found city to be least pleasant wrt to attitude and communication.
Seems that City’s loss of top girls is SHHS’s gain as I know some very clever girls taking SHHS instead of City as a result .

I feel so sorry for all kids and parents caught up in this. I can't help feeling that the children's best interests are not being served.

And Channing has exploded too now...

Ironically I thought we might opt for it over the more prestigious SHHS because I felt it might be gentler, kinder, more pupil-focussed.

And perhaps over the (potential) hefty scholarship at another school that we’re waiting on.

Slightly off topic, so with apologies, would anybody mind explaining the scholarships to me? We could love to send our dd's to City, to the extent that it's probably the only independent I would apply for, with our local outstanding girls-only comp being our other excellent option (SHHS is a bit far, and I'm not convinced about Channing), but we would only be able to manage it with assistance.

How do they award them, and are you notified when you get the offer? DD1 is only yr4, so we're not there yet, but it will creep up.

"As they say 'it's not a situation they set out to be in' - ie the many many applicants who have no real intention of choosing the school, which then make it almost impossible for them to correctly offer without either over or under filling"

So, no different a situation to any other central(ish) London school. But the others manage without exploding offers. They are not in unique difficulties, and that they face the same issues as all other schools is not a justification for choosing to tackle it in the way they have. It is a rare policy choice, unpopular with parents and not adopted by others who manage processes without rescinding offers.

Lotsofsighing for what it’s worth I think cdstandingnow is spot on wrt to the type of candidates the exploding schools will be getting ( those where the school in question is their strongest / only offer ). I think Shhs is a no brainer here . Their behaviour has been considerate and kind, their fees are extremely competitive, results fantastic and the heads ( both senior and junior) extremely impressive. We had experience w them for 7+ and they were extremely accommodating to us when we had an interview conflict and also to a friend’s dd who was ill during the first round . Contrast that to our experience with City ( unanswered emails, complete disregard for prospective parents anxiety and wellbeing of prospective pupils ) and it seems like a very good decision has been made for you .

"How do they award them, and are you notified when you get the offer?"

Scholarships are awards for merit, whether academic, music, sport, drama or art (or occasionally all rounder, and there are probably others). For academic scholarships, it is usually assessed by highest scores on the regular entrance exam, and you do not have to apply as such as all entrants are assessed, followed by interview. Some schools have an additional exam/assessment for academic scholarships, and this should be clear in the entrance bumf.

For the other scholarships, there is typically a requirement for some sort of additional assessment day, audition or portfolio. You need to fill in an additional form to apply for these scholarships and need to give more details of the activity (teams, club references, orchestra memberships, etc)

You would be offered the scholarship at the same time as the place is offered. (Another reason for waiting for all offers to arrive before deciding!)

Do bear in mind that the trend if for scholarships to have a lower cash value - indeed some have only a nominal amount or are entirely honorary.

If you need financial support, you would also need to apply for a bursary.

This year's offer email mix up aside which seems pretty awful, in prior years only girls who met the required standard received an offer. Outside of the school itself, no one knows which girls had the 'best' scores nor who were 'the brightest' (whatever that means). They all met the required standard to receive an offer from the school. Therefore, on the basis that no one knows for certain if there is indeed any marginal difference between those who accepted a place early and those whose parents went to mull it over and missed out, it is not correct (or fair) to suggest that City somehow loses the 'best' candidates and other schools gained them. The only real measure will be the league tables 5 and 7 years from now. A bit like finding the perfect house/car/ any other 'big ticket' item, some people are happy to commit quickly. They get the house/car car that they wanted. Others need time. But if you accept your need to take time you must accept that there are others able/prepared to take the decision ahead of you. You cannot somehow blame the school for that - as mentioned upthread there are many reasons why the school takes this approach.

There was a suggestion earlier that the previous (excellent) registrar had to leave after last year's exploding offer. This is not the case, she accepted a promotion to become a Bursar elsewhere.

Good luck to all girls starting year 7 wherever they choose. As a pp said, there is life outside of this one particular School but no need to denigrate the achievements of successful applicants to City this year or any other.

I have seen the other side of honouring your offers where a school made too many offers which were all accepted and bulge years 3 years in a row meant cramped locker rooms,
confusing alternate timetables, insufficient facilities etc all because the head didn't want to get stuck with " low quality candidates " from lower on the waitlist when others took offers elsewhere.

I agree that exploding offers means you will get more girls for whom that school is first choice. We visited our schools once or twice on open days and on the exam and interview days. That, and geography, is ample to form preferences.

Cdstandingnow you were very down on SPGS this time last year I seem to recall! Wondered what changed your mind!

Giardiniera - I also remember cdstandingnow posting that her DD had not gained a place at SPGS last year

"where a school made too many offers which were all accepted and bulge years 3 years in a row"

That really is a major fuck up by the head and registrar. A school might be unlucky one year, but three in a row is incompetence and is not an inherent feature of honouring offers.

I disagree that 3 years of needing to run a bulge class is always because of a big fuck up in admissions. It might not be this at all, but precisely due to the need to honour offers under the traditional system.

So schools look at past patterns of acceptance rates to offers given when deciding how many offers to make. Some schools see more patterns than others. When there are lots is similarly ranked schools in a small geographical distance, there are less likely to be patterns that can easily be used to base offers on. As the no,s of schools families apply to have increased, these patterns become even less easy to see or don't even exist as the no,s who have a given school as their first choice vary significantly year to year.

So it's perfectly possible to have 1 year when you are a bit cautious with your offers and don't fill. So the following year you are a bit more generous and not only fill but also need a bulge class so you can honour the offers accepted. This was unpredicted. Given tight space, timetabling becomes more difficult and some classes have to be taught in less than ideal rooms. So the next year you are a bit more cautious again to avoid a bulge.....but guess what, you more than fill, because that particular year you were first choice for a much bigger percentage, although that was impossible to know given the applications were the same. Given the building restrictions and space, that bulge class starts to create even bigger difficulties. So the next year, sensibly you only offer very slightly more places than you actually have. You've looked at the numbers carefully and can't believe there will be another bulge with the careful offering.....but guess what....it happens again. Very serious problems fitting them in now. So the following year, exactly the right number of offers are made - there really cannot be a bulge this year as it simply won't be manageable.....and guess what, this year loads decline their offers and go to the other schools they applied to, although the same numbers applied. And the school has to go to its WL.

I read an article in The Spectator today from a couple of years ago, which talked about the difficulty of WL for schools. Parents don't really see the issue - for them, WL is just another chance for a possible place at perhaps 2 or 3 or 4 schools they didn't get offers from - one might be their top choice, but it could be that none were. They don't really think about actually using a WL to fill a school or what's involved and the implications. As The Spectator said, schools can find a sizeable WL delivers very few people who would actually say yes to a place, because WL get used after the deadline for offers - this is the key thing. So some of those phoned never wanted the school which is now offering a place anyway, and the next few would have been interested but have already accepted another offer which they've totally come to love now, so by the time someone is found to take a place, they are actually significantly lower in ability than the last person offered to originally. And if you have to take quite a few of them, well exam result in that year group will drop. And worse can happen, a school can't fill from WL but has to start ringing candidates who never even got interviewed. There are threads here at the moment about top schools doing this last year - of course they keep it very quiet, becaue it doesn't fit with the image they want to project. But it happens.

So if you were that school which had loads of applications but 5 years of a roller coaster of bulge classes and not filling, might you not just look for a way to regain a bit of control - probably reluctantly because you know it won't be popular, but because it is better for the school.

If CIty hadn't used exploding offers this year and last, perhaps they would be facing more bulge classes, despite very careful offering.....and it's just not possible to accommodate them. Don't they have a duty to existing pupils to make sure they don't end up with too many pupils that have a negative effect on others already in the very space limited and restricted school?

There is more to this than parents having 3 weeks to choose between schools.

Surely - I am outside this syetem, so am looking at it from a dispassionate angle - if you are going to go for 'exploding offers' you MUST have the exploding AFTER the offer holders day?

So it is fine to say 'we have an offer holder's day on 20th February; after that day we will ask you to confirm your place within 3 days'. That is asking for a firm commitment on the basis of full information.

(If they genuinely believed in themselves, they would of course have the offer holders day on or just after the state school allocation day, as that would then allow parents to choose where they genuinely felt was best, rather than feeling forced down a potentially unnecessary private route - but that's another matter).

Sending fake offers, with an offer of a further visit to the school, then withdrawing those fake offers before the visit date seems, from the outside, cowardly and bizarre.