SW London boys, 11+ grammars and independents

[Jumpalicious]

Hello, I know there’s an excellent thread for the girls. Not sure if there’s one for the boys? Anyone want to come on board? I know we can’t divulge details of round two grammars since there will be late sitters, but was thinking more of a support thread. Any takers?

@TadlowDogIncident interesting re WUS - we discounted it without visiting it. But really because it’s so blimmin expensive.City Boys, amazing school. Up there with the best. Did your son apply there?

He did, but didn’t pass the exam. We got lucky with the LU switch to ISEB, it suited him much better than a conventional written exam. I suspect CLS took one look at his handwriting (appalling in spite of years of me chasing him to do handwriting practice) and discounted him!

@TadlowDogIncident haha I know what you mean about handwriting! City incredibly competitive. Many hundreds applied, for only something like 60 places. I think my son preferred the Iseb too...

It’s frustrating that the ISEB results seems to be a secret. Why can’t we find out our children’s scores? I mean, I suppose I know why. They don’t want parents arguing the toss over a child with lower marks getting a place over a child with higher marks. Lots of factors go into the offers. I get that.

But I still really, really want to know.

@Northernsurreyandconfused

"DS likes football but not a clear requirement, and it doesn’t seem like a main sport for any of them."

Re Hampton : FYI you can choose football for both the Autumn and Spring terms. No compulsion to do Rugby like some schools. They seem to have a strong footballing culture, winning the national schools cup a couple of years ago.

@Motherdare I would ask for feedback if you get a ‘no’
I have managed to obtained mine and I know a few parents who also have.
They should at least give some feedback, considering everything including the fees involved, how hard everyone works and the level of effort involved.
Our results came back totally random so even more frustration as these cannot be reviewed or discussed !

@lamsodone - may I ask how you got the ISEB scores?

Thank you, @Jumpalicious and @EnolanotAlone! @NoToMisogyny, sorry your DS was feeling so nervous. As others have said above, I am sure the school have seen it all, and will be able to make the right choice. A poster in the girls' thread said that KGS interviewed only 350 out of 1,000 candidates, so this ought to be within reach!

Any ideas how many offers/ waitlists from those 350? DS had a specialist subject interview so wondering how good his odds are.

@EshSchools I wonder if they will over offer by the usual amount (not sure what that is for KGS but often schools seem to over offer by 25 p/c (or so), and then waitlist almost everyone else who has been interviewed - this is such an odd year with people randomly sitting for extra schools “just in case”. Each school has had an unprecedented number of applications (surely because the same kids have applied to more schools! Schools will therefore all chase the same top 10 pc. Too risky to reject a certain p/c as they might usually!).

Btw, because of this, just getting through to interview is an enormous achievement!

Yes - I was so pleased for him just getting there. It's toll such a crazy process. We are in Esher so have Surrey schools which don't seem quite as crazy as London / Kingston but still full on. And they're only 10/11! KGS was the last interview, so glad it's over.

Good luck to everyone on the thread!

Thanks to everyone, and good to know about Hampton and football. That is a real positive. Not sure how I missed that.

@EshSchools and anyone really. For Esher, do boys tend to apply to RGS, Hampton or KCS? They are both going to be great but I’m thinking of social life as well. My gut feel is that the natural flow is to Guildford but I’m not sure that is just because of who we happen to know.

I feel like I might be wrong because when I look at a map Hampton and Wimbledon are closer.

Again my gut is saying - apply to Reeds, Hampton and RGS. I think with RGS as preferred.

Agreed, just getting to interview is a mahoosive achievement, regardless of offers. I am so proud of DS and all of our boys here

At this point in time I think I'm quietly going to assume the best we will get is waitlist and quietly sow this seed in DS's mind (stressing the achievement of even getting interviews given the large numbers involved) and then if we do get any offers it will be a nice surprise. Though I think DS has forgotten about it all now anyway. I think it's hard for them to be massively invested when they've not seen the schools properly. How on earth we (as a collective thread of parents) are supposed to make decisions about schools when many of us haven't even seen much more than the school websites seems bonkers doesn't it?!

@EshSchools do you know roughly how many applicants there are per place for the Surrey schools you've applied for? I read on the Tormead girls' school thread that they average 3 candidate applications per actual places (so, 270 for 90 places). Effectively there are triple that number for Hampton!! RGS Guildford haven't released any applicant stats unless I've missed something. They did however interview every single candidate who applied during a 2 day period, which suggests to me that their numbers are also nowhere near as high as the London schools...

@Northernsurreyandconfused , I'm located near to you with a ds at Hampton.
KCS is much harder to get into than all the other schools in the area, some of my ds's classmates got KCS offers and turned them down (often sport related reasons) but many would not have got in.
My ds has been at Hampton for several years and his class is made up for ds from every bus route so Ascot/Wimbledon/East Sheen/Ealing/Twickenham/New Malden/Leatherhead. Across the year there are several ds from the Esher station/Esher high st/Thames Ditton area. They are all able to use the train line and TFL bus routes to meet up in Twickenham/Wimbledon/Kingston in the holidays.

I know if you go for RGS you can end up driving right down the A3 for meet ups.

Last year RGS had around 400 applicants for their 140 ish places, 11 and 13 entry. So quite good odds. From my experience it is easier to get into RGS than Hampton or KCS. Hamptons numbers can be ridiculous, think it was 800 applicants for 80 places 11+ 2 years ago

Hampton is over 800 for 90 places this year.

126 in RGS First Form this year. 400 sat the exam in school, but more sat the exam overseas.

Reeds was 600 taking the exam for 60 places, last year.

All pretty competitive, every year.

Good luck, everyone! DSs will land in the right schools for them. Keep faith!

@Sterou I just asked for feedback from a school we got a ‘no’ to interview
Good luck everyone

DH and I have been discussing the odds - it must be fascinating to see how the admissions teams work out how many offers to make.

Logically, the top 100-ish boys will get an offer at every school they apply to. But they can only attend one. So presumably the Hamptons of the world only need to over-offer by a small amount as they'll be first choice for a lot of people. But then if you're a less academic school (I won't say one in case I offend someone!) you'll need to make a lot more offers as you won't be everyone's first choice. Which means you probably run the risk of having too many acceptances.

But, if you don't over-offer, and rely on filling places from your waitlist, you have to accept that some people will have already paid deposits elsewhere by the time you offer to them, and won't want to forfeit these. So actually, you can't rely on the waitlist as a solution, because then you may not get your first choice candidates.

So long story short, it's presumably a massively complex process for the schools, and add into that the fact you have to factor in exams, interviews, references etc., so it's also a fairly subjective one in some respects. So on that basis, we're going to try and forget about it until 12th February! (I think offers are being posted on the 11th?)

Definitely a complex procedure and I don't envy admissions teams one bit!

This makes an interesting read though - it was posted on another thread a while back and whilst it's from a girls' prep rather than a boys' - Holy Cross in Kingston - it does illustrate very well that even schools seen as massively competitive/desirable in SW London will have a significant number of offers turned down.

www.holycrossprepschool.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Destination-of-Leavers-2020.pdf

So KGS for example: hugely popular and 1000 applicants this year, maybe, but as the attached shows, they offered 15 places to Holy Cross girls in 2020, and only 4 accepted. LEH (arguably the girls' equivalent of Hampton, highly respected, competitive, sought after) had only half of their 14 offers taken; Putney High had five out of six offers turned down, Surbiton High offered 20 and only 1 child accepted!

So not a straightforward (or easily predicted) process by any means...

Again - thank you, plenty to think about. Think Hampton, RGS and Reeds makes sense but hearing RGS isn’t necessarily the obvious choice for the Esher area.

Hampton applications to places seems super high/in fact quite scary. Is it academically much better than RGS, league tables would suggest not? I guess it draws from a more densely populated areas.

@Northernsurreyandconfused , re Hampton v RGS yes I would say it's the population density, the school bus network is massive whilst for RGS you need to be on a Guildford Train line or change on the way.
Also Hampton has football whilst RGS rugby / hockey only, the football at Hampton is a massive draw because you can play it for Autumn and Spring terms and avoid rugby.

@Singingrain1223 thanks - and makes sense. We shall see, we may not be even given the choice given the competition

We're also in Esher and for some reason people don't generally look at Guildford. Those considering further afield schools look at St. George's or St. John's. That said, DS's prep isn't super-academic so we get a huge range of schools, rather than just focusing on the "top" ones. But for what it's worth, we looked at overall journey time and used that to work out which schools would work best for us - and then narrowed it down further from open days, although that's obviously harder at the moment.

FlyingPandas that link is really interesting. I guess it just shows how many offers probably go to the same children, hence the need to over-offer. Fingers crossed that goes in our favour!