Winchester College - supposing you're not at all quirky?

[justlearning2017]

Hello
I know there is a lot of conversation (all relative but there is more here than anywhere else I can find) about the quirkiness of the boys at WinColl. My son has just been offered a place and isn't quirky AT ALL. Not one little bit. He's pretty bright (decent IQ but would rather play sport than do too much extra work), loves sport, enjoys music and likes taking part in drama. In other words, he's a classic all-rounder, or just a fairly normal 11 year old boy.
Everything I hear about Winchester suggests you need to be exceptionally bright, with a quirky personality. Supposing they accept you but you haven't got those things? Are you going to fail to fit in and should you head off to a more classically all-round boys school (Radley, Marlborough, Sherborne etc)? Or is the fact they've offered you a place enough to suggest they think you'll thrive there?
Many thanks

@Battleax

I disagree and have absolutely no idea why you would call me disingenuous. Crass, inept and thoughtless - yes. Disengenuous - no.

What happened was that I described a personal experience at Wincoll from earlier this year in detail.

The moment OP's told me the description related to a medical condition, I was completely mortified and unreservedly apologised.

Usually, I am able to 'read between the lines'. On this occasion though, I had not realised that 'quirky' was the way OP's were describing a specific medical condition.

I have apologised. It was not a back handed, pathetic apology. It was full and complete.

Sorry to all those offended again.

In the meantime, due to the furore here, I really did wonder if I was the only person wondering about this and trying to get to the bottom of it.

Turns out, I wasn't.....

Interested in Winchester College but many people seem critical (8 Posts)

Tansie Fri 15-Aug-14 12:45:32

I know a couple of boys at WC. Both are academically, 'off-beat' brilliant- but frankly, quite odd; Socially a teeny bit misfit.

I gather that WC suits them down to the ground but neither are likely to end up doing anything 'mainstream', shall we say!

My DS is without a doubt "quirky" but has never been diagnosed with any SEND. We were told he would be a good fit for Win Coll but he and we chose Harrow for him. I know Harrow has a name for being a "robust" sort of school but we felt it would be good for him to mix with a more diverse group of boys (a bit more out of his comfort zone) with some boys very very different to him, as that tends to be what you find in life. As he was boarding it allowed him to learn a great deal of tollerance for boys completely different to himself but he was still able to seek out and find boys in his house and other houses that he rubbed along with really well. He had 5 great years there as an academic scholar. He might have fared equally well at Win Coll and met an equally diverse group of boys, who knows, but he has no regrets, it just felt like the right fit for him. All these schools are fabulous. I don't get the whole nastiness about other people's choices to be honest.
The higher number of English as a second language at Harrow could be to do with the Harrow School in Hong Kong?
There were a lot of nationalities at Harrow, it was something my son loved about it. He has wonderful friends from all over the world and a tollerance of all different cultures as a result.

DS hated rugby with a passion so he did football. Had lots of opportunity to do many of the "geeky" things he enjoyed and spent many an evening in lectures by visiting speakers like politians and philosophers.

Saturday nights though were for ordering pizza in to have with his mates and often some 5 a-side.
Good luck to your DS whatever you decide

Wormthreads your first post on this thread said Based on the report (from ISI), I'm beginning to form an idea (rightly or wrongly) about the quirky comments. The movie 'Rain man' springs to mind

Since the film Rain man is a portrayal of autism you were clearly associating that condition with the label 'quirky'. To claim that you only thought of that 'condition' because of others' posts is intellectually dishonest.

'Quirky' is not a description of those with a medical condition, people like Boris Johnson spring just as much to my mind as some with ASD traits (that you were inferring your friend's DS had) or a passion for some subject that is not mainstream conversation.

The staff at Eton, Harrow and Winchester (they tend to move between the schools) will in the main all attempt to deliver an all round education including tolerance and appreciation of others. Boys at all these schools are bright enough to achieve highly academically and do at least one extracurricular activity well or indeed extremely well. BTW I do not know of a single boy at Winchester from all that I have heard of including at College who just focuses on academics.

Your DS will I hope enjoy any of those schools and Eton is as good a choice as any but please do not ruin a good education by restricting his future friendships (either at school or later) by the sort of prejudgements that you have exhibited here.

Wormthreads your first post on this thread said Based on the report (from ISI), I'm beginning to form an idea (rightly or wrongly) about the quirky comments. The movie 'Rain man' springs to mind
Since the film Rain man is a portrayal of autism you were clearly associating that condition with the label 'quirky'. To claim that you only thought of that 'condition' because of others' posts is intellectually dishonest.

Yes, this.

Thank you @Motherstongue for that insight and to the OP's who took the time to explain your various positions.

@Sendsummer

Not sure how successful you've been at restricting or even influencing your DS friends set? Our DS knows his own mind and makes these decisions for himself. Having said that, his friends are all from his pre-prep and prep, which tend/ed to 'release' boys that are/were disruptive.

As this thread has becoming diluted with comments from OP's that do not do help prospective DM's or DF's understand W, H or E further, I will not waste OP's time going over and over my earlier comments.

What may help OP's to know is that DS now has a choice of schools. We will visit them in order to establish which he feels suits him best.

Simply, in order to give some basic info (help) to other MNers who's DS's are on the waiting list at H, W and E, the decision will be made having met HM's at E later this year. By then, we will have met HM's from all three schools and in order to keep the options open will have have paid acceptance fees to all three schools (W = £500, H = £3000, E = £2.1k)

As DS will only go to one of the three schools, two places will become available towards the end of the Autumn term. I hope that info is helpful to OP's.

Wormthreads wise move for you to avoid further digging yourself into a hole.
In case it helps for future threads OP means something different to how you have been using it. Here is a link to MN acroynms www.mumsnet.com/info/acronyms

Thanks for the correction sendsummer. Will be more careful to read the rules next time.