SW London Private & Grammar - applying for year 7 in 2023 (Part III)

[QuiteAJourney]

Continuation from

www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/4697901-sw-london-private-grammar-applying-for-year-7-in-2023-part-ii?page=40&reply=122947087

An opportunity for parents of DC applying to private and grammar schools in SW London for entry in year 7 in 2023 to share their journeys.

Not necessarily, imho. Emanuel comes from a tradition of interviewing every DC... and are very vocal about the interview being a key deciding factor. They take many more than they need for offer and WL purposes.

I was just comparing independent school destinations and SPGS seems to be the only school that doesn’t need to over offer. Most students from independent schools end up accepting their offer. And i believe most girls would also accept offers from Tiffins girls and Henrietta Barnett.

Yes, I mean in general. Emmanuel historically has a different approach.

There really isn't much point for schools in general though to interview loads of students they know they won't admit. It's a waste of time and resources and unfair on the kids as well so in general I do think this applies.

Dulwich interview 160 for 70 places.

@Workhar not sure for TGS but definitely not necessarily the case for HBS and SPGS.
NLCS, HBS and SPGS can go either way.
And a lot of indi parents chose NLCS/SPGS over HBS

You can see this from a lot of North London prep destination offers/accept published data.

@MomFromSE Agree that no point in interviewing those they have no interest in offering to... the point is that some schools are of the mind that they only know who they want to offer to after (and as result of) the interview.

I think they know how many offers they need to make and set the cut off for the second round accordingly given how many schools children apply to.

Even a school like Kings College will likely have most of their suitable applicants applying to St Paul’s and Westminster as well. Schools
over off by quite a large margin / need quite hefty waiting lists. Occasionally when even highly selective schools have underestimated their popularity, it’s been by an entire form entry form and they will still have received plenty of nos.

With everyone now apply to 5 plus schools and only able to accept 1 for the vast majority of schools they are interviewing loads because they will get lots of rejections.

I imagine it is a lot more than 500 applicants!

The head literally said it at the open day, so I'm not sure why anyone would doubt it.

@MomFromSE that is an interesting take - so you think that LEH, for instance, would offer or put on waitlist some 250 DDs? I am sure many here would find it quite reassuring.

I do not debate for a moment that they estimate in advance how many they are going to offer and/or put in WL, and that factors the rejections they expect. But tue point is that some of them invite to interview a number close to that (KGS is usually mentioned) while others invite many more because they use the interview as a key deciding factor.

The WL issue is indeed an interesting one. Long WLs can be meaningless - WHS used offer or put on WL all DDs going to second round... but if your DD was in the bottom half of the WL you knew that it was basically impossible that you would get a place. It would be interesting what they do this year as they have put through double the number of DDs to second stage.

i only say that because friends said they thought 200+ girls at their daughter’s exam and thought there were at least three sessions. A father I spoke to said there were 1000s of girls at the exam, so I guess it is hard to tell as an observer.

KGS have been the one school that we have found transparent about the process. They have said that for approx 125 space, they offer to approx 250 students. With 50 on the waiting list. Pure speculation but If LEH had similar ratios (I think that they would likely be in the same ball park), then they would offer to 140 out of the 250 being interviewed with maybe a further 30 likely to be on the wait list?

Stastically, coed schools will need to over offered more than the single sex school per place

Why is that?

For the 7/8+ process schools like Kings would have their process wrapped up and offers sent before Christmas, thus some families pulling their DS from the other two schools’ exams and reducing the numbers of applicants.
not sure how helpful it is for secondary schools to sent offers all at the same time… if some families received their top choice school’s offer earlier, they may opt out of the other schools’ final stages, for instance, thus reducing the need to interview so many applicants.

As I said in an earlier post, beware of parents making grand claims without any facts to back them up. How would that father know there were 1000s of applicants? Presumably he didn't sit outside the school all day and count them going in...

Some parents want to believe that competition is even fiercer than it actually is so that if their DC doesn't get a place, they can console themselves having exaggerating the numbers /competition.

I expect everyone on this thread would be a lot less stressed if people didn't speculate wildly like that, or if they were able just to tune it out.

From the figures mentioned it seems almost impossible for a place at Emanuel.

Years ago my DS was waitlisted at City. I really liked the school and called to ask where he was on the list but was never told just encouraged to keep in contact. It was another parent who had been in the same position a couple of years prior who told me that it was extremely unlikely that he'd ever receive a place and she was right.

Some schools call from the WL for occasional places the following year.

@Daydreamscometrue if you are in second round, I would say some 40 pc (640 people left, 96 places, Emanuel likely to offer 2-3 times the number of places). Far from certain but I would not say impossible. Of course, it is not odds as such as it depends on performance (and other factors - eg Emanuel is quite strict about being 50/50 boys and girls)

@PreplexJ Interested in the thinking underpinning the statement that co-Ed's need to over-offer more than single sex.

Because there are schools that are single sex schools eg City of London Girls and City of London Boys. So Co-Eds can expect more of their offers to be rejected. So in theory they would be offering more places.

@Maxmin I am aware that there are single sex school and co-eds compete with them for some students (not all, we know of plenty of students applying only to co-ed). Competition works both ways and single sex compete with co-ed as much as co-ed for competition for the respective gender cohorts.

What I do not follow is why a general statement co-eds needs to over offer more than single sex - surely it depend on the co-ed and single sex in question (desirability, location, etc).

The only issue in relation to offers from co-eds that I am aware of is that, in some areas of SW London where girl schools are quite prevalent, co-Ed might be offering more to girls because of the dynamics of the area and because the preference of girls for single sex is higher than that of boys for single sex. The HM at KGS was quite open about it - although he said that in their case it compensated the fact that girls tended to do better at exams. But this phenomenon is more nuanced than a general over offering for all coeds across the board.

Competition is not in both ways, girls schools don't complete with boys schools. Coed schools are completing with boys schools, girls schools and other Coed schools so in general more competitions means more offers need to be issued..

This is just general statement , not to a specific school.

@Maxmin that doesn't make sense. They make half the offers to girls and half to boys. Boys and girls are likely to reject in the same proportions as at any other school. What they are likely to have is more applicants per place as all girls in an area and all boys in an area may apply for only half the number of places per sex.

This website looks at a few schools and tallies up the preps that feed into them so you can get a good sense of offers vs acceptances:

www.londonpreprep.com/2021/04/st-pauls-girls-school-feeders/