Sixth form offers

[Orangeblossom1977]

Hi just wondering if anyone can advise. DS has applied for a couple of sixth forms, they are about to give conditional offers. One is a back up as has slightly lower entrance requirements

What happens with acceptances please, don't want to accept both if that is incorrect as would lead to rejecting the second if offered the first. many thanks

Trust me kids accept lots of offers and often will even enrol at more than one place before they make up their mind!

It makes sense to have a couple of different options in place

@Orangeblossom1977 , are you talking private or state?

Perfectly normal to accept several offers for sixth form.

State

Thanks

It"s fine to accept multiple conditional sixth form offers because they're not real offers. The real offer comes on enrollment day, on of after GCSE results day, when you get an appointment to turn up at the school and sign on the dotted line. The appointments will be ordered in line with the admissions criteria so you need to be aware that it cuts both ways ... you may meet the conditions, but if the school fills all its places before your appointment time, you"ll have the door closed in your face. That happened to a lot of people at some schools local to us.

As the previous poster said - I didn’t realise this but one of DD’s offers was like this. You were given an offer, then invited to make an appointment on results day. Current pupils were invited at say 10, current pupils of the twinned boys school at 12, then everyone else at 2, first come first served, and you didn’t know whether they’d have a place for you or not.

She had 3 offers - this one, a large college which I was pretty sure was a definite as they’ve been known to accept people in Sept and the required grades were low and a grammar with very high required grades, but a definite place if she got those grades.

She accepted all 3 places because she really couldn’t decide and there was also a lot of uncertainty. In the end she got into the grammar. She had to formally pull out of the college place (they chased) but the other school never contacted us.

Goodness.

Have already had one application rejected as we ticked the box for 'reserve' in the application form. Had a reply saying they are overwhelmed with applications this year so will not be considering 'reserve' applications.

Our school have told us they will get conditional offers and need to tell them if accepting or not by reply.

@Orangeblossom1975

Goodness.

Have already had one application rejected as we ticked the box for 'reserve' in the application form. Had a reply saying they are overwhelmed with applications this year so will not be considering 'reserve' applications.

Is that legal?

Is that legal?

It is legal for sixth form colleges, and for private sixth forms, but not for state school sixth forms (who aren't even allowed to ask that question).

It was a state sixth form. It was a long form with loads of questions on e.g. religion, as well as if it was first or reserve choice...

In terms of our main choice, checked and it says it is in order of direct line distance from the school after grades have been met. A bit like the admissions into year 7.

It was twinned with our school as well, seemed to make no difference

@Orangeblossom1975

Our school have told us they will get conditional offers and need to tell them if accepting or not by reply.

Yes, but it's just the conditional offer you're accepting, and it isn't binding on either party. You can tell them at any time up to registration that you want to withdraw. If you turn up for a scheduled registration appointment at your first choice school, and they say "sorry we're full" or "sorry, we only have places on other courses" you will need a backup.

From a school's perspective it's a horrific problem for planning courses, timetables etc, because they never know exactly who they're getting until registration day. In a normal year that's just a week before the start of term.

Oh this is interesting. Just checked online via the council website and it states the following

*Students will be contacted in writing confirming an offer of a place, subject to gaining the agreed qualifications, within six weeks of the arranged meeting date

*Once students have accepted a place, it is secure and the School is committed to the student.

*As part of the (Local area) Schools Alliance, there is collaboration between (our school) and (other twinned school) which
enables students the opportunity to study a wider choice of subjects and options.

*The intended admission number is 200, of these at least 20 will be offered to external students.

So it does seem strange in that case that the twinned school has rejected it as a 'reserve choice'. Maybe I will get in touch and mention what it says in the council link. It does have different subjects and slightly different entrance grades as well

I was under the impression the two schools mixed sixth forms as they are linked schools.

Students will be contacted in writing confirming an offer of a place, subject to gaining the agreed qualifications, within six weeks of the arranged meeting date

Once students have accepted a place, it is secure and the School is committed to the student

This is after the interview they have just completed so assuming it is binding

@Orangeblossom1975

It was a state sixth form. It was a long form with loads of questions on e.g. religion, as well as if it was first or reserve choice...

In terms of our main choice, checked and it says it is in order of direct line distance from the school after grades have been met. A bit like the admissions into year 7.

Then that's an illegal admissions policy and if someone referred it to the schools adjudicator they would probably be told to change it, like happened with this one: www.gov.uk/government/publications/waldegrave-school--2

Also, if you appeal the decision and point out the illegalities of the policy you're likely to win.

@Orangeblossom1975

Students will be contacted in writing confirming an offer of a place, subject to gaining the agreed qualifications, within six weeks of the arranged meeting date

Once students have accepted a place, it is secure and the School is committed to the student

This is after the interview they have just completed so assuming it is binding

Ok, if it says that in the admissions policy of the school you're probably ok. In my area the most popular sixth forms conditionally offer to more applicants than there are places and say the place depends on several factors, including the oversubscription criteria, and whether a particular course has enough students registered for it to be considered viable. It's all in the admissions policies, but not everyone delves that deep and people sometimes get caught out.

Well I will contact them and point out the joint nature of the schools and mention there was no option of a joint admission and only reserve

i wonder if it may be especially oversubscribed this year due to the coronavirus perhaps. Not sure.

Accept all offers then on enrolment day choose the best fit one. Most people do this.

My school has a deal with another school where we bus kids between them at sixth form so they can study a wider range of subjects (we offer further maths, they don't, so their FM kids get bused to us for those lessons etc). However we are still completely different schools with different admissions procedures and an application for one wouldn't even be seen by the other. The application for the sixth form isn't considered by subject as lots of students change subjects before or soon after starting in Sept.

Ok thanks