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 I was surprised to receive an email today from City of London Girls that their offer to DD is now withdrawn.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 thing that frustrates me is I do t understand why parents are putting their children through what can be a highly stressful application process with multiple steps if they’re not serious about the school or don’t have any idea what their preferences are. There’s so much uproar here about clsg putting the girls through hell, but what about putting your child through a hard interview when you as the parent know you’re not that bothered but just want to hedge your bets?

Yes I’m a CLSG parent but I accepted very quickly. CLSG were always my first choice and I know someone who had turned down 8 schools this week in favour of the CLSG offer they accepted first thing on Monday... including SPGS

Its such a shame for the 10/11 year old girls whose offers have been withdrawn ....doesn't actually show them how to treat people fairly does it? There are various ways the school could address this issue without exposing children to this cut throat process at such a young age. It doesnt really matter what the school tell parents when they send out the letters - the fact is they are dealing with 10/11 year old children just about to start on what will be a fundamental part of their future.

Pradaqueen, I understand you will defend any school your DD got in. It seems somewhere ... I read that you said SPGS is what you want for your DD . Unfortunately.......

user8957365 - I assume your comment is directed at me. No justification, I don't have a say in how City is run. Nor am I a fan of exploding offers. I am however, in the spirit of debate, justified in challenging statements which are just wrong about either the Calibre of students accepted as a result of exploding offers or the school itself by parents whose children do not currently attend it.

HAHA1234 - both schools are excellent. One school required us to move house. The other didn't.

At the end of the day if you were admissions at the city would you want your school to be 3rd, 4th or 5th choice for your students it would you prefer to operate as first come first served to those who seriously consider you their first choice? It’s deeply unfair to suggest that accepting clsg quickly implies that girls weren’t smart enough to be holding multiple offers. As the only top tier independent girls school easily accessible to east London for many CLSG is the first choice above many others in London. Not all private school parents live in Hampstead or Islington.

"There’s so much uproar here about clsg putting the girls through hell, but what about putting your child through a hard interview when you as the parent know you’re not that bothered but just want to hedge your bets?"

If you sit for a prudent 3 or 4, then why on earth wouidn't you want to be able to choose from your actual offers? Place at school X or schoarshipmat school,Y? Not easy choices, surely?

I don't think those who have a clear preference really get the need for others to mull it over. But nearly every school does get it, which is why you get a couple of week's thinking time until a deadline, and certainty that you can use that time if you need to. Not what seems to be an entry ticket into a direct stampede to the school.

(How much point is there is interviewing girls, when it's going to boil down to exam result and parental willingness to dash across London within a few hours of notification arriving?)

"At the end of the day if you were admissions at the city would you want your school to be 3rd, 4th or 5th choice for your students it would you prefer to operate as first come first served to those who seriously consider you their first choice?"

I would want to have the pupils who I thought would do well in the school. And I''d have people who had thought about it, and made a considered decision between offers, rather than assuming that people who respond quickly are doing so from choice rather than The Fear imposed by this (unusual and not nice) system.

Why can't they just do normal admissions? Other schools seem to do OK with that. Still stressful, but better than this. Not really an attractive USP, is it?

Carltonscroop - interviews followed the exam. Only a successful (and tricky) interview resulted in an offer following a satisfactory examination result initially. Not all girls make it to interview/audition and not all interviewees are offered a place. So it is more than just the exam result that counts. There really is no need for anyone to 'dash across London' on the basis that paperwork could be completed by email and deposits paid by bank transfer.

Still sounds like they're assessing parental performance on an incredibly tight window, irrespective of how the girls have actually done (they don't seem to be choosing offer/WL, just sticking them all into one pot and firing a starting pistol - so less granularity than other post-exam interview schools) or indeed whether it's a genuine choice. Just trading on what's just been called The Fear.

Sorry that my use of metaphor wasn't up to scratch.

But the more that's said about the way the school does admissions, the more it seems to come up short. Very illuminating thread!

user8957365 - I don't think I am being 'too defensive' on the basis that the accusation levelled by you (at presumably both this year's successful parents relief at gaining a place amidst pretty stressful conditions and also existing parents correcting misnomers) as 'depressing' is really necessary.

“Normal admissions” implies that the current system is perfect or not stressful behind the scenes.

But making a statistical analysis of acceptance rates from previous years will never result in an exact number of offers to make. And unfortunately clsg don’t have the space. The school are already accommodating a bulge class from a few years ago. And even a wider analysis of variables like league table rankings, discussion with other admission departments and the financial stability of high net worth families may give little insight into likely acceptance rates. Is increasing affluence in east London going to mean more acceptances? Is negative publicity from exploding offers last year going to mean fewer acceptances? The reality is that for many CLSG will be a back up for many who will just turn down the offer if they get a more local school. As a previous poster has said, even going to waiting list is to place the school at the vagaries of many many students who will simply have accepted elsewhere and made the financial commitment to another school. A bird in the hand and all that.

And to be clear, I don't like exploding offers but as Chocolatewomabat and youngmum2005 point out, there are many variables to consider when making offers. No system is perfect.

Other schools don't have the space either, but bring their numbers in correctly without doing what CLSG do.

It is just plain wrong and misleading to say they face any different pressures or constraints than other central London schools.

I think 'normal' is an acceptable way to describe the system that is used my the vast majority of schools to bring in the right number of the right calibre pupil.

No one said it was stress free. Just that it's being done successfully. And there is no earthly reason why CLSG would do it worse than everyone else if they were so minded. How often are there bulge classes - next to bloody never. Do schools cope if they have seriously bad luck - yes they do. Is making offers explode the only way to deal with those stresses - clearly not.

Contrast City’s approach to NLCS (7+) for example : they followed up dd’s offer with a phone call on the day the letters arrived to make sure we got the letter. At that point I thanked them and let them know straight away that we will likely be turning the place down for our first choice school . Their response was to encourage us to think about it over the weekend and not to rush to a decision just yet. If choosing between these two schools ( rolling fields aside ) I know which I would be more encouraged to forge a relationship with and trust with the future of my child

Look, it is pretty shoddy behaviour. We were fortunate that our preferred school didn’t do this last year, but actually did not have a definite preference when the offers arrived. One school was closer and more obvious, but DD preferred the other. We did not have conversations before Offers Day about what to do as, not knowing what offers would arrive, we took the attitude that all schools were great and we’d been happy with any. Had we had to decide on the spot, we’d probably have overruled DD and gone for the nearby school. Having the opportunity to visit again was very different than the experience pre 11+ where you don’t know if it’s a real option or not. We also did a mock journey which we didn’t pre-application and can’t be usefully done over half-term. Once we visited both schools again the choice was clear but wasn’t beforehand.

City is undoubtedly a great academic school, but for many the cramped facilities, lack of fresh air, geographical spread of friends and rush-hour tube journey are off-putting.

A mickey mouse approach or a bold move by an innovative school that encourages students to think independently and not necessarily do what’s ‘normal’, even when it doesn’t work, just because others do it?

Nearer to Mickey Mouse approach, I'm afraid.

Because it only 'works' because they are outliers.

Just stop and think what the system would be like if everyone did it.

You get your first offer, but it's your 3rd choice banker school. It'll explode in less than a day. Do you take it now, and swallow the cost? Or wait and see without your safety net? Then your second choice school offers? What do you do then? Accept again, because you really do like it better? Will your first choice outcome be known before this one explodes?

It's a shit system, which they get away with only because no-one else is doing it. And I think that those who gently ask the question about integrity and referring to 'honouring' offers are pussyfooting around a bit. OTOH given that there are apparently current parents on this thread, the plain descriptions of this sort of practice is probably inappropriate here.

I used the word 'normal' to refer to the practice of honouring offers. A practice which is nigh on universal, reflects common decency in transactions, and which doesn't actually cause numbers or any other problems when administered well.

There is no reason whatsoever to say it 'doesn't work' because of so much evidence that it does.