Private school acceptance of place deadlines

[ElvenDreamer]

I have a question for those who are more knowledgeable about private schools. We have applied to 1 (including trying for a scholarship) and should hear at some point this month if a place and scholarship are being offered. A friend told me that the private schools are legally obliged not to be able to make you accept or refuse the place before national secondary offers day. Does anyone know if this is true? Google is not helping me! We are looking at state options too so this is an important consideration for us. We don't want to turn down a place we need if come March our options are dire. Equally we don't want to accept and then later find out we have our 1st choice state option. Many thanks.

no they can set their own deadline. Many families will pay the deposit to secure the place then withdraw if they get a chosen state school in March. There are also a few schools which do "exploding offers" where it is first come first served on accepting places in February.

November seems awfully early in the year to get an offer of a place. Obviously, that’s what you have been told so it must be the case but it does make the period of time between offer and national state offers extra long. As far I as I know, they are not obliged to wait for anyone, although, given that offers are generally made between the end of January and mid Feb, most schools (in fact I have never heard of one that doesn’t) do give candidates a few more days after the national school offer as deadline.
As the PP said, this is unless they operate on a first come first served basis aka the “exploding offers”.

They can set their own deadlines, and in my experience (I’m a prep school teacher) they generally set them for before national offer day. Obviously, they want commitment not for you to be holding on for a free place before you decide if you accept them. I think what most parents do is accept the place and pay the deposit and risk losing it if they do get a state place they’re happy with. Yes, you’re £1000 down or whatever if that happens, but you’re still a lot better off than if you ended up going private!

I’ve never experienced the exploding offer thing at schools near us but none of them are oversubscribed. That sounds like a london thing where it’s more competitive for places!

Your friend is wrong.

There is no such obligation, and each school will set its own timetable.

Many schools publish their admissions key dates on their websites, or will tell you if you ring to enquire.

Each school will have its own timetable, but ours is at least a month before State offers day at secondary/juniors and with conditional offers for 6th form.

I work in the independent sector. Your friend may be referring to the HMC agreement. If a school is a member of the Headmasters/mistresses Conference (a large group of UK public schools), then I believe they have an internal rule that acceptances will not be required until after national offer day. But there's nothing legally binding about it, and if a school isn't a member of HMC then it won't apply.

We've also had an offer sith scholarship ( which was a pleasant surprise as we hadnt applied for one) and deadline is in January. We are expecting next decision in about 2weeks then nothing before mid December

Thanks all, that's pretty much what I thought. That's interesting Saladbights, I guess that's what they must have been referring too. Certainly they didn't have to give an answer until after offers day last year for same school but they also applied very late in the year as a bit of a panic for another option. I think they do more than one set of offers too for those saying November seems early. We were just told that scholarship offers would be made by end of November. So possibly if an offer is made we would need to pay a deposit to secure place, makes sense. This is all a very new concept to me, only on radar due to DCs particular issues which we wonder may be better in the small school environment and we're still doing the sums quite frankly so don't want to be railroaded into a quick decision.
Thank you everyone.

When my daughter was offered places it was end of November/early December and was given two weeks to accept, with a £2500 deposit.