CAT scores for SPGS

[SWLParent]

Does anyone know what sort of Year 6 CAT scores are needed for applying to SPGS or G&L?

125+ G&L
130+ SGPS

....ish! But will depend much more on exam performance.

Also... would put this in Secondary School chat for more responses

You need the education board, I think there may actually be an annual thread for this sort of school application.

Thanks

We'll move it for you now, OP.

138 got her through the first round, but not the 'assessment day'. I'd say 135+ and the right performance/ability on the day

This has been asked before. There are long threads about CAT scores for various schools.

What usually comes out is that the highest scores aren’t necessary for a place at even the most selective schools. Given schools need to fill their places and most candidates sit 4+ schools, it just isn’t the case that everyone in the top 10 schools has CAT scores of 130 or 125+. Yes, lots will have those scores, but all the schools have to over offer to fill their places and there simply aren’t enough girls to fill all the places with those scores. All schools have a ‘tail’. The difference is how long the tail is. In the most sought after schools, perhaps 10- 15 % of those admitted have CAT scores below the numbers often touted. As you go down the rankings, more do. It wouldn’t be unusual to have some girls with CAT scores in the region of 115 or certainly 120 even at the very top schools.

But I understand that people are trying to gauge what might be achievable, aspirational etc. These CAT levels get talked up though. It really isnt the case that all the girls have CAT scores of 130+ at StPGS.

Remember too that there are always some girls who don’t get the most popular state selectives like Tiffin but get into the top indies. Again, you start to see that there is a bigger range than people might imagine. And that’s fine.

I think only each school truly knows their CAT score ranges. But as a single datapoint, my DD was admitted to both with a 139.

It really isnt the case that all the girls have CAT scores of 130+ at StPGS.

Your statement surprises me to be honest. What makes you say that @WombatChocolate ?

Good question. And remember, when you ask other parents about their DC's CAT scores, you may not always get an honest answer. The only people who really know the range of scores are the admission offices at these schools. Everyone else is just guessing or quoting a few cases of peronsal experience.

Are CAT scores shared with the schools you are applying to?

My DD’s state primary never shared any CAT scores with us, neither did her top 10 private London day school.

I have no idea of either of my children’s CAT scores.

Yes, the usually go with the school's head teacher reference.

Our school did share them with us incidentally.

@WombatChocolate is completely correct. There is a distribution within every school.

If you look at St Paul's (boys) ISI report from 2017 it is unusually specific about the ability profile stating:

"Most pupils are in the top 10% and half are in the top 3%". Top 3% would be around 128 and not even all students are in the top 10% though most are.

It might be different now that the ISEB is being used more widely but historically this would certainly have been typical.

Absolutely. People need to think about the statistics of ability and the number of kids in London and the number of places.

Of course, all schools want to give the impression they are very selective. Some are barely selective at all and give offers to almost all who apply. Others certainly can be more selective because they have far more applicants than places.

But as I said, many student who apply to even the top 5 or 6 schools have applied to at least 3 of these and can only take one place. The school has to significantly over-offer. People don’t realise just how much they have to over-offer to fill and of course this is a closely guarded secret. Even at the most popular or top rank school, a good number who receive offers turn them down. There is another thread asking why people turn down SPGS….every year, lots do. It might be geographical distance and difficult journey or just a sense the school isn’t the best fit or to do with scholarships or whatever. More people than you think turn down offers to all the top schools.

Given schools don’t want to be going to waiting list which is uncertain, they always offer more places, based on their usual acceptance rates. In order to make all these offers they need to move down the ranking. Given CAT scores of 128 place people in the top 3%, it will never be the case that every student is in the top 3%. In the more selective schools, more will be and the ‘tail’ will be shorter but it will still exist. There will be girls there who in CATs have around 120 or even sometimes less. When the school itself tests in Yr7 with Midyis or CAT4, a range of ability will appear. Lots will have very high scores, but some will have lower scores too. It isn’t always those with the highest scores who get the highest GCSEs and A Levels, but some kind of connection is likely to be seen, but that’s on a broader scale than individually based.

Remember too that lots of families have no idea of their CAT level as their current school doesn’t test with it. SPGS or other selective schools therefore don’t know it either. They admit mostly based on their own exams which they feel are good indicators. Every year girls from schools which don’t use CATS are admitted and without SPGS knowing the scores. Later when they test themselves, most of these girls will have high scores, but some won’t be as impressive, again there will be some correlation with the entrance exam results but it won’t be perfect.

Anither way if thinking about it could be to look at the other end and Uni destinations. If the ability of all students was really above 130 meaning top 2% and for those who say it’s 135, that’s less than 1%, you’d expect even better Uni destinations than are delivered.

Quite simply there aren’t enough girls with CAT scores if 130 above in LOndon who are willingness able to pay the fees to fill all the places in the schools mentioned. The school will look to take the brightest they possibly can….but they must fill their places. Therefore they always have a range of ability. And of course they believe they can boost up those who aren’t perhaps as naturally good. Certainly they should be able to add value, because after all what are people paying for otherwise.

Even at the end of Yr11 some perhaps can’t return to do the A Levels of their choice. Some have got GCSE grade 7 or occasionally a 6 - perhaps not grades you’d associate with CAT scores of 130. In some selective schools, quite a number if the grades are more at this level than 8/9. It reflects the ability of the intake.

So not all kids in the top tier schools are CAT Level 125 or above. They would all be top 4 or 5% for that to be the case, and quite simply there’s a broader range of ability than that, even if the majority are in that kind of range.

Thanks for the answer @WombatChocolate

@WombatChocolate They should employ you to go and talk common sense to anxious parents at primary and prep schools! I think a lot of these CAT score mythologies originate from parental angst, but I suspect a lot comes from tutors & online platforms (eg Atom) who want / need to justify their existence and the exorbitant fees they're charging. I think CAT scores are a useful broad indicator and a good guideline, but no more than that. Of course every school has a tail, of course those tails are longer in less academically rigorous schools, but the idea (which I've seen on here many times) that everyone at SPGS / Westminster etc has a CAT score upon entry of 135+ is patently ludicrous!

The correlation of CAT scores to GCSE results is 81% according to study of 70,000 children.

emilkirkegaard.dk//en/wp-content/uploads/Intelligence-and-educational-achievement.pdf

This chart can be helpful for converting the CAT scores into percentile rank. We also know from the London Mayor's report that there are approximately 45k boys and 45k girls at the end of primary school. This excludes the thousands of children in private schools. If we look at children with +130 CATs then that's the top 2% or 900 boys or 900 girls in London state schools. Add in a couple hundred from independent schools. Then you need to fill a top secondary school with 100-150 students per class.

So can you fill a London top secondary school with +130 CAT students, yes you can. Do I personally think all these students are +130's, no I do not. But those are the numbers.

As you lower the CAT score, clearly the potential student population size grows significantly. Just going down to 120 means you now have 4,050 boys or girls (45,000x 9%).

www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/final_epi_edits_design_final_gla_annual_report_2017_0.pdf

And just to fill in the London private school numbers, there are 55k boys and 55k girls, roughly, in all year groups. There are approximately 1,950 boys and 1,950 girls in London private schools for Year 6. My guess would be those 1,950's have above average CAT scores, but I do not have a data source to backup that claim.

www.isc.co.uk/media/7496/isc_census_2021_final.pdf

Yes, they will have above average CAT scores.
But there will also be sizeable numbers of those with high CAT scores who are in state schools and who never ever consider independent education for lots of reasons. Remember too, that some kids travel far and wide for boarding and don’t stay local or in London. Remember too that not all parents are fixated on getting g their child into the most academic school possible or school league tables and that therefore chunks of the cleverest go to wide range of other independents due to closeness to home, better scholarships, siblings, family connections and all kinds of reasons. All these factors mean that even the very top schools are not selecting from a pool that is anywhere near big enough to fill all their places with every student having above 125 or 130 or 135 CAT scores.

The thing all schools want to do is to attract large numbers to apply, because amongst larger numbers, will be bigger numbers of the very bright. And then what they want to do is encourage those students to accept their offers and not the offer that somewhere else has made. This is why you get the ridiculous open mornings and offers if fun activities days and shmoozing of families which can be a bit sickly…the goody bags and personalised letters and invitations to see school plays etc. Scholarship offers are just another part of trying to get the top applicants to say ‘yes’ when they get an offer ..because if lots of the top performers say ‘no’ you have to offer even more places this year to waiting list or next year in the initial offers, which means going down the rank order and taking less and less bright students. For some schools, that means dipping below 120 CAT score, whilst for others the reality will be dropping close to 100 or below that. Schools with a linked junior school that doesn’t require an entrance exam to get into the senior school also tend to have quite a tail, but that’s the price they pay for a bit more certainty of at least some places being certainly filled, and these schools if popular then try really hard to fill the remaining places with the very best candidates. They know their ‘tail’ is likely to include some form their Prep, but the level of the tail is more known than when taking in outside lower performers.

As those post-applications always say, everyone seems to get a place in the end and most are pleased with the place their kid goes to. Many many of those kids are of pretty average ability, but they all find places at independent schools and whilst some might be widely known for really not being academic at all, many are considered fairly academic, whilst in reality having a few bright student but lots who are more middling. But everyone likes to think their child’s school is very selective and that the school selected their own child because they are bright. When you pay fees, one if the things that makes people feel it’s ‘worth it’ is if they feel the ability cohort is quite different to what they might get in a state school. Sometimes it is very different to most Comps, but sometimes it’s not as different as you might imagine.

Good points. The only counter force would be that a number of non-London families come in to London for some of these schools. For example, my sister-in-law went to Henrietta Barnett for a tour. The student explained to her that she lives in Birmingham and commutes in and lives with her aunt/uncle during the week. And I definitely know of Surrey families sending kids to SPGS. Difficult to know how prevalent this is, but it most certainly happens.

@funtoday

I can't see where you've got your estimates for the number of private school pupils in year 7 based on the information you've posted. But assuming it's correct there are about 4,000 people that can afford and choose to pay for private school in London including non-selective options for each year group.

The gap between average ability in the general population vs private school has been estimated to be about 7 points I think based on the norming difference between CAT scores (which are used by both sectors) and ISEB which is private schools only.

Assuming that a CAT of 132 is an ISEB of 125 only 5% of the London private school population would have CAT scores that high assuming London follows the normal distribution pattern. By your own numbers that would be circa 200 pupils in total per year group. That figure can just about fill 1 of the top London schools annual intake despite claims there are multiple schools with that CAT requirement.

Extremely bright students are spread throughout numerous London indie schools though in less concentrated numbers than at a school like SPGS and again with a longer tails and lower average ability.

The idea that any one school could have every pupil at CAT scores in the 130s doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.

Let's back up because I think we're getting off track a bit. Let's pick a particular school. According to Atom, Westminster has the highest average CAT of 132 of any private school. What would you guess the interquartile range is IF the 132 was accurate? 127-137? I don't know to be honest. The only point I'd make is that even the supposedly highest testing school would have an IQR below 130.

Also, in terms of the numbers you presented, a 132 is in the 98th percentile, so if they follow a normal curve, then it would be less than 5%. I can post a CAT to percentile table if people want numbers more precise.

Just curious, what do you think Westminster's CAT IQR is?

@funtoday you've misread my post.

I explained a CAT of 132 would be equivalent to an ISEB of 125. Only 5 percent of private school students have that ISEB level. So then I applied the 5% to the proportion of private school students in London to get the theoretical population set.

I don't have any idea what the range is at Westminster specifically.

My only point is its extremely unlikely that the various schools touted as having everyone at 132+ actually do.

Okay, I see what you mean. Thank you.

Did any school ever say they have all +132 kids? Even if that Westminster 132 is correct (who knows if it really is) it's allegedly the average. If all the kids were +132's, then the average would be in the mid-to-upper 130's.

If you don't mind my asking, where did you get the ISEB of 125 is the 95th percentile? I'd like to read the data. TA