Eton College or Harrow School 2019

[Wornthreads]

There are some out of date threads about this subject . Can anyone help identify the current positives in either or both schools? D.S will be going to one of them next September. New Head Masters e.t.c?

For example, Eton - is eat in house or Bekynton the way forward? Or, is that completely irrelevant and should we only consider the House Master?

Harrow, what sort of cohort are we likely to expect?

Thanks in advance for your kind assistance.

"Was he a scholar that lived in a house other than College, Pete?"

Sorry about the confusion and the ambiguity, InertPotato. Let me rephrase it:

DS was a KS i.e. King's Scholar and lived in College where all the King's Scholars live. So they are also known as Collegers. There are 70 Collegers at any one time and they have the letters 'KS' written after their names each time the individual is mentioned or referenced to in any Eton connotations - even long after they're dead: e.g. John Maynard Keynes KS (greatest economist of the last century whose ideas fundamentally changed economic policies of governments worldwide; or Eric Arthur Blair KS (George Orwell to you and me); or Harold Macmillan KS (Prime Minister - 'You have never had it so good') etc.

College is the original and oldest Eton house and is the only house situated inside the School itself and therefore, has many advantages e.g. next door to the famous playing fields; a few seconds' walk to College Chapel (not to be confused with School Chapel); College Hall where all Collegers dine is at your back door - the food served is said to be of the standard of a Michelin Star hotel (and I'm not going to argue about that); the Provost's and Head Master's offices are on the same corridors where your room is, as are the Admin Offices downstairs; the classrooms, theatre, swimming pool, etc. are just a stone's throw away across the road. And as far as I'm concerned, parking my car each time I visit is a breeze - wait till you go and collect your son from any of the other 24 houses during exeat or end of term holidays.

Okay, so I'm not comparing like with like but College is not like the rest of the other houses. It IS the foundation itself! But other than the aforementioned differences all else are the same - they wear the same uniform (an extra gown over for Collegers and they hate it); have the same teachers, depend on subjects obviously; play the same games and have equal access to all facilities, etc.

DS liked to visit his friends at other houses and vice versa. In fact, it was quite difficult for me to get hold of him at College even late at night because he'd be all over the Eton village and elsewhere, e.g. with his private tutor, attending a meeting of one kind or another, still on the road at 0115 hrs in a school coach returning from an away match at heavens know where, etc.

Like I said, his room at his 'house' is where he goes back to sleep and to have some privacy like doing private work. The rest of his waking hours are spent interacting with other human beings. And they tell me why it is preferable to live in a dorm with your friends rather than in your own private room. Or maybe it is - what else can you say when you don't have the money to build each boy his own room?

"Where were you educated, peteneras ?"

Again, HopeClearwater, you're asking the wrong question at the wrong place. This thread is not about where peteneras was educated, rather, where is Wornthreads' son going to be educated.

In any case, judging by the number of peteneras' messages having been deleted by MNHQ over the years, it is clearer than crystal that I am totally, utterly, decisively and absolutely uneducated!!!

Thanks for the info, Pete. My son is sitting the scholarship (I doubt he'll actually pass, but he's well beyond the CE at this point) and according to the emails I've received, the scholars can opt to live in a house other than College. Hence my confusion.

My oldest is at another public school and he's completely talked my youngest out of even considering to board at College based on theirs.

Again, HopeClearwater, you're asking the wrong question at the wrong place. This thread is not about where peteneras was educated

I can ask, nevertheless. Clearly you’re a little ashamed of wherever it was.

You’ve slipped into referring to yourself in the third person. Never a good sign.

What's your point here - are you trying to tell us how superior your 'Oxbridge' education is without anybody asking whilst suggesting I'm "ashamed" of my education?

Let me remind you once more as you don't seem to get it, this thread is not about your education or mine, it's for a young man more important than you and I.

Well, Oxbridge or not, ashamed of my education or not, all within your first couple or so postings here, l've easily put you in your right place where you truly belong by pointing out your intelligence in the questions that you asked.

"My son is sitting the scholarship (I doubt he'll actually pass, but he's well beyond the CE at this point). . ."

No, No, No, InertPotato, please don't say that!

Please, please, please don't say anything negative like this to your child. Sometimes the child himself/herself may think they're not good enough to achieve anything higher or exceptional. Take my DS for example - when I first told him about the Eton Junior Scholarships scheme when he was 8 or 9 years old and there were four places available for the nation's youngsters to compete, he immediately shook his head and said 'No, I can't win it'.

I asked him why he thought he couldn't win it since there were four scholarships available and he said but there would be many thousands of kids nationwide going for them. I said that may be so but you could be one of the four who might succeed; it's not easy, I know, but you won't know unless you try and you got to work very hard for it and I would help you get it as best as I could. In the event, he emerged as one of the four successful candidates (2nd overall) and his place at Eton was guaranteed at age 10. The KS that followed three years later was just a bonus in addition to the Junior Scholarship.

About the King's Scholarship, they have recently changed the procedure slightly due to increased numbers of boys applying both from home and abroad. Applicants got to make clear in their application forms whether they're competing for the King's Scholarship proper and therefore enter College if successful (therefore no choice in choosing House or Housemaster) OR, they are competing as an honoris causa candidate whereby they can choose to go to one of the 24 oppidan houses.

god I love an Eton thread... how the other half lives eh! OP it sounds like you boy is going to do brilliantly wherever he goes, just choose the place he likes the most - and perhaps consider the implications of full boarding on the whole family?

Yolofish - yes this , if you have the opportunity and the mindset this "just choose the place he likes the most"

I do think it is a little unfair to ask Peteneras where he went to school - it's not entirely relevant is it ?
What I would say is that these schools are 5 years in a life. May be more or less important but just 5 years. Then there may be university etc etc. I would just say wherever the DC feels happy is probably the right school ( given the choice) . Post school things may be more important. That will probably not sit well with some for various reasons but I do think worth thinking about. I would choose a school where the DC feels happy and content because I think then they will then do as well as they can. ( I say this in the context of being able to have some choice re school , obviously)

I would agree with BasiliskStare - where is the child going to be happy, and therefore thrive?

I would also, where possible, talk to people who have attended recently, but maybe not too recently. Most people I speak to about their experience of single sex education think it was fairly awful, and would not want it for their children. I was at a single sex. It was fine at the time, a bit meh, but with hindsight there's plenty about it that was really just toxic. But then circling back to BS's point, I'd give my child my opinion, and if they still wanted to go for it, I'd support them in it.

I can't quite share Peteneras excitement at seeing the assistant Dame walking along the High Street with her arm on the DS's shoulder or the DS himself being especially thrilled with the attention. These 5 years fly by so quickly - surely life after school must be quite an anticlimax for the average Etonian especially if they dont make Oxbridge.

Some Etonians and non Etonians liead farily exciting lives after - remember that one who had his own mercenary company and ended up in jail in Equatorial Guinea?

@Xenia

peteneras l've easily put you in your right place

Ouch!!! I’ll stay in my pleb school educating the plebs.

You mean Simon Mann, Xenia, - and Harry Windsor too - who went to Sandhurst like the other 70% of Old Etonians who lead a boring life and never went to Oxbridge?

As opposed to how very exciting to have gone to Oxbridge to read Old Norse and then spend the rest of your life thereafter working 12 hours daily educating kids! Love the picture!!!

To be fair peteneras the Old Etonians we met at Sandhurst and subsequently during our years in the army were overwhelmingly there because they weren't bright enough to prosper at uni. Some were quite impressive at polo though (ours was a polo regiment).

zazasabore there are plenty of OEs around who are perfectly affable as you'd expect in any community but my DDs in particular tell me that some of the ones who didn't make Oxbridge used to come to Oxford for parties and be weighed down by a far weightier chip on their shoulder than anyone else, so they just came across as dicks, proving with rather silly quips and conversation exactly why they were turned down. It seems the less obnoxious ones got in on the whole.

I think you have to be a graduate now to go to Sandhurst though - but perhaps that's wrong. Anyhow, in our day incredibly few OEs who'd been to Oxbridge went on to Sandhurst - the overwhelming majority came through the non graduate stream, usually for a short commission before going on to the City or some similar cosy niche.

This whole thread is like something from The Daily Mash.

Venus I was thinking Monty Python.

peteneras I'm sure you didn't mean with one breath to say that the teaching at Eton is exceptional and then with the next breath to sneer at the teaching profession as filled by boring people with unexciting lives - there will be overlap between the two! And let's be honest, any schoolboy (Etonian or otherwise) knows that Old Norse is better than New Norse.

My DD had a boyfriend at Eton in the 6th form. He used the website from her jolly old comprehensive school for maths revision.

Sorry, HingleMcC, my apologies to you, an Oxbridge classicist, re my jibe about Old Norse and the teaching profession. Please do not take my postings seriously. The bulk of my postings at MN are sacarsms directed at stereotypes especially when talking about Oxbridge and even Eton. It was my answer to a suggestion that life after school for OEs (and by implication all others) who didn't go to Oxbridge "must be quite an anticlimax". Maybe I should have said how terribly exciting it was for an Oxbridge historian to be reaching climax after climax at the Btitish Museum dusting off dirt daily from two-million-year-old Iraqi artefacts instead.

You do remind me of LittleRespo when he was being a trifle obtuse. A good dose of castor oil soon sorted him out. That and five years at Ampleforth.

Goodness me. This reads like the From the Message Boards column in Private Eye.

@VenusInSpurs totally. I can't believe I keep opening it. Was @Edustar offering tuition??? It maybe a Harrow interloper.