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 I was surprised to receive an email today from City of London Girls that their offer to DD is now withdrawn.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

Telegraph article about it
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/16/leading-girls-school-criticised-first-come-first-served-offer/

What lame reporting to base that article on the comments on this thread. At least do some proper journalism

Our school (not London) had an acceptance date before state school offers, but I called and asked them if we could hold the offer until offer day and they agreed. They didn’t even make us pay the holding deposit. We got the state offer but picked our school anyway - a very flexible and family-friendly process!

I think there is a good case for boycotting schools that behave like this. I suspect many parents want to see all the options in front of them, both state and private, and make the best choice for the child in the light of possibly fluctuating family finances. I think that schools that undermine the process of doing what is best for the child are not worthy of considerations. We live in West Oxfordshire and crossed off our list one school that decided to bring its entire admissions process forward a couple of months.

Mumintraining78, could I ask what it was about CLSG that was so attractive?
It must have been a massive decision: an hour's commute on the Central line twice daily, instead of a two minute walk to NHEHS (which is by all accounts a great school) ...

P.S. Could you share which grammar schools your daughter applied to, from Ealing?

P.P.S. If CLSG just made fewer offers, and honoured them (like the vast majority of other schools), wouldn't this farcical process be avoided?
They would still have their waiting list!

Also can someone who actually received an offer confirm if it’s indeed possible to accept and pay electronically vs turning up in person to secure a place ? Wouldn’t make it totally right but at least would be a bit more palatable. As “transparent” as they claim this process to be - expecting people to fly back or postpone holidays is ludicrous - only just less so than being able to foresee this type of “run on the bank” ahead of time and not plan anything just in case . On another forum they seem to think there was no way of accepting electronically and many with city as genuine first choice were caught out having just arrived at their ski holidays only to get the “we are full” email .

So let's take the defenders of the policy at their word. Imagine this scenario:

You are lucky enough to KNOW that CLSG is your number 1 choice. The offer letter comes on Friday 9th Feb and you immediately get the forms signed cheque together etc etc. Then you set off at 6:30am (or whatever) on Monday 12th Feb to go and hand in signed forms etc.

You arrive at the school and there are, say, another 90 parents who are ahead of you in the queue.. some of them maybe queued up from the wee hours.

So even with the best will in the world... doing everything that you could, the school explodes your offer.

I suspect it would only be then that you would understand how utterly reprehensible and dishonourable this practice is.

No one (i don't think) has mentioned that City's fees are significantly cheaper than the other London independents.

I wonder if this causes them to get the numbers "just right" - not over and definitely not under.

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

well applying for 9 schools - that's the real problem in this whole process surely? How on earth do admissions work the numbers these days.

Time for heads to stop writing references for more than 4 schools and advising maximum 3.

All paperwork and payment could be returned via email/bank transfer if parents had checked. No time off work for any parent was necessary to gain a place.

Not all parents have access to email and online banking at work, Prada. Some employers forbid use of those for personal communications, and for some it simply isn't possible. Why should a child lose out purely because her parents work in something like a busy A&E and are moving from emergency to emergency?

Prada, I understand that now that your DD is at City you are very defensive of the school. But you should be mindful that had the offers exploded in this fashion last year as well your own DD may have missed out too, as I recall you acted post the first reminder from the school on filling up of spaces. How would you feel then?

So far as I can see, all that they say in the admissions booklet about his process is "The specific deadline date will be published on our website when the admissions process begins in the Autumn term. The precise details and conditions of the offer and the acceptance process, including how the school would deal with over subscription, will be contained within the offer email that you receive."

So you put your child through the tests and interview process, but don't find out about this extra hurdle until you get the offer email. Is that correct?

School say they prefer you to attend. Not sure why. And I had a particular question I needed to get answered and although I called on the Friday pm there was no answer so I ended up going anyway - and I intended to anyway since that’s what the school said they wanted. . The question was about parental signatures so somewhat essential to the process.

LetBygones, to answer your questions-

DD applied to Tiffin (grammar) school for girls, awaiting results. We wanted to apply for Henrietta, but felt that their exam timing was just too early for us.

We loved the energy levels of CLSG - the competitions they participate in, their music and gymnastics programme - we thought it would be the right 'fit' for dd (who is very exuberant by nature). Also the Head spoke just the right 'language' for us, in terms of ethos and her ambitions/expectations from the girls.

Since we work in the City of London (as in the place not the school) the commute does not seem excessively daunting.

We also found clsg more competitively priced than certain other top schools, even in their deposit amount.

We paid the deposit online, though submitted the form in person.

The school has a choice - run the traditional offers system, which gives parents 3 weeks to choose and then sees large numbers decline because somewhere else amongst their 5 or 6 choices is their preference. They can't significantly over offer in this scenario because a bulge class absolutely isn't an option due to space constraints, so if they use this approach and only slightly over offer, they will always have to go to WL and bearing in mind that due to location, they are often not top choice for many of the 800 applying, they will have to go far down it.

Or they can do what they have and have certainty of numbers from girls they are happy to give offers to.

From the schools point of view, it seems simple and clear which is best. They have decided to put the school and it's current pupils first, rather than a lot of parents who apply and want 3 weeks to decide and who then mostly decline anyway.

Seems entirely sensible to me.

Most of the objectors to this are not people who desperately wanted a place. They are those who would have declined at some point anyway, but feel annoyed at not being given the 3 weeks to choose to decline.

This is a parents forum. Many people struggle to see this issue from a school perspective and to understand the unique circumstances of City in terms of location making it a possibility for many, but probably not top choice for large numbers of the 800. They also don't realise what being in the Barbican means for space and planning - there is no putting a temporary classroom in the playground here. Many also don't want to see it from a school point of view or to accept that there is always a balancing of school interests against those of prospective parents, and schools must make judgements about where the balance should lie and things like locations and physical space might make that balance different for different schools.

Why shouldn't it be first come, first served for those who have met the required standard? Why shouldn't parents get on and decide beforehand - perfectly possible if they hold sensible rather than daft numbers of offers following applications. Why shouldn't parents accept that like many things, if they want to spend longer choosing, some of the options might have sold out? A different system isn't necessarily wrong - it is simply different and a response to circumstances that schools find themselves in - this all arises because parents want to apply to lots of schools for insurance - but the reality is that each child can only attend one. It is schools that are reachable by huge numbers and successful that then find that perhaps 3/4 of the applicants aren't actually very serious. Yes those other 1/4 are far more than needed, but how to get the offers to the right people before they have gone elsewhere and without overfilling? It's impossible with the current system.

The main problem is that no where on City or Channings application information pack or on their open day, do they make it clear to parents who are looking to apply that offers will only be accepted on a first come basis. If parents knew then perhaps they would not apply if they wanted to ponder all their offers including grammar offers together. If they indeed want less girls applying, then making this key point crystal clear would discourage many. It seems to me that they want as many to apply and then slip in a new condition on the offer letters, which is dishonest. Both schools websites indicate 6th of March as the deadline for acceptance on their websites! Either take this off their web or they need to honour the date. To add a new conditional date after the application has been made is dishonest to those parents who have applied believing they had the full time to consider.

I seem to recall Highgate starting this distasteful practice of exploding offers back a few years ago, and it appears more are willing to use this crude form to allocate spaces but what grates me is they do not explicitly reveal this as their method PRIOR to parents applying and for new parents potentially considering City and Channings, no where on their websites is this CRITICAL information made clear. For this reason, to my mind they lose all their "arguments" moral and otherwise.. limited space etc..

If that is correct, mumfortwo then it is appalling.

And when the school has a choice of what it does, it could of course choose to run a system of honouring offers competently just like nearly every other school does (all schools with same constraints and potential difficulties, btw)

Both open mornings were essentially a marketing exercise and none of these schools clearly explained this point, nor did anyone ask. But why would they, if they looked at the school's website and the deadline is clearly stated in March.

The "conditions" are included in the fine print legal T&Cs which accompany the offer letter. This is too late and indefensible from these schools.

“Most of the objectors to this are not people who desperately wanted a place”.
Which evidence do you have of this?
We are local, we wanted the school but got caught out last year because:

• we came from a state school with no advice from the headteacher
• we were not reading these blogs and unaware of this exploding offer concept
• last time (4 years ago) someone from my DD primary applied for City and got in, they did not find themselves in this situation and attended the offer holder meeting before accepting, so the timeframe was clearly very different just a few years ago
• we read something in “we look forward to seeing you and your daughter at the offer holder morning ... and we encourage you to hand in acceptances by hand” that clearly was not there

"Why shouldn't it be first come, first served for those who have met the required standard?"

• because they are creating a dangerous precedent. What next? People queuing from 5am in the morning? What if 90 people show up before 9am and there are 75 places? Fist fights?
• because there will be people who can afford to "buy" a place as an insurance and then still decline afterwards. This system favours people who are better off financially. I can guarantee that following this year's mess the number of people securing their place and then forfeiting the deposit will triple.

"Why shouldn't parents decide beforehand?"
Many reasons actually. All perfectly valid. For instance, we did not want our daughter to have a firm favourite school in case she does not get it. I always told her: let's see what offers come in and then make the choice. Some people are still waiting for grammar school replies - again perfectly understandable.

"Impossible to get the right number of offers"
I am going to say it for the Nth time - it is perfectly possible and achievable with analysing statistical data. It is 21st century we live in, no need to use tea leaves to predict % acceptance by each school. Other schools do that perfectly well.

"It was not people's first choice anyway"
Not necessarily. I know at least two girls in our year who wanted it as their first choice. Parents went skiing and did not send in electronic forms on Monday because they could not even fathom 9 hours acceptance frame - in the end of the day, in the previous 2 years it took weeks for the books to close and notifications were sent all the time.

I don't see any justification for what they did. They simply messed up and need to accept it. Hope they figure it out by the next year.

I wonder if this causes them to get the numbers "just right" - not over and definitely not under

No matter, they are charging £100 per girl just to apply. It's a terrible practice, many many other schools manage to get it right, what's so different about City?