Got 1st choice secondary - now changed our mind!

[stickygotstuck]

As the title says, DC has just got admitted to our 1st choice school. I should be over the moon but I'm just not!

We have been very lucky as are just out of catchment and it's massively oversuscribed. I am very aware there are people out there would give their right arm to be in our position. However, I can't shake the feeling that we should go for our 2nd choice instead (not oversuscribed and in our catchment so should be easily done).

The reasons why it's oversuscribed are because it's an Ofsted 'good' school and gets decent results. But mostly because (1) it has a good reputation going back years which it lives off and (2) snobbery, frankly. Middle-class parents go to great lengths to avoid their children going to 2nd choice school (which is also Ofsted good, smaller but in a more working-class area), 1st choice school has a more middle-class catchment.

We personally chose 1st choice school because:

• offers 2 languages, which is important for us (except now we have Brexit and no Erasmus program, but that's a different story)
• larger school and more diverse catchment, so larger pool of friends for slightly quirky DC

The downsides are:

• requires bus (2nd choice is walkable), which means longer days for DC and having to pay for it as it's technically just out of catchment
• new friends are unlikely to live locally
• a lot of DC's school mates are going there. There haven't been massive issues but DC was looking forward to secondary school as new start after their very small primary

Would the downsides be enough to make you go for 2nd choice school instead?

2nd choice downsides are:

• does not offer two MFL
• it's smaller and less diverse

I know people are allowed to change their minds and things change. It just feels mad to reject a school so many are clamoring to get into (roughly twice as many applicants as places).

School 2 would be my choice

Friends of mine who have children at a massive local comp (1000+) say that the large size suited their ‘quirky’ DCs as there was more diversity of children and more potential ‘like minds’.

Thank you Stamp, half and Eugene.
Why would you prefer school 2, half?

The size is what attracted me in school one. I guess it is a question of numbers, the more kids the higher the chance of finding people like you. It's just a shame about the long bus trip!

One peculiarity of school 1 is that it's out of town, so almost all kids go on the bus or have to be driven there. As a result, all clubs are lunchtime ones.

If that was all, I wouldn't feel so uncertain about school 1. But three is also the presence of current classmates DC would rather avoid. I am hoping the size of the place will mean they'll dilute. Is that the case in people's experience?

Go for school 1..you can always swap to school 2 if it doesn't work out but that probably won't be possible the other way round. Don't worry about primary school people. All the friendships etc change in secondary.

Thanks mellicauli, that makes sense.
But oh my, the price of uniform alone puts me off changing schools .