SPGS actual offers and acceptances

[spnumbers]

This has been mentioned a few times. Here's last year's actual results by school. The class was 113. 51 places were achieved by making 53 offers. That's 45% of the class. At that rate, it implies that a total of 4.4 offers were declined. If we think the other 55% is more likely to decline offers, then it's more like 7-12 total offers declined. Enjoy.

Oh not this again.

We did an hour a week at a tutor for approx six months total and it was plenty (from completely ordinary average state primary). DD had half an hour's homework a week from the tutor (usually timed questions) and nothing from school at all. DD is not a genius, and nor are the vast majority of Paulinas.

The only reason we got a tutor is that I knew DD would complain if I made her do extra work but be all sweetness and light for a tutor, and frankly I have enough stress in my life already without deliberately adding to it.

Please stop scaremongering and trying to make people worried that if they don't tutor or do extra work for hours and hours a week their children will not have a chance at the schools they want. The primary determining factor for entrance to selective schools is intelligence, not tutoring. If anyone feels their child will need hours and hours of work a week for the 11+ for any school, my strong recommendation is that they should look at other schools with less stringent admissions requirements. There are lots of good schools in London which are a good fit for different ability levels and personalities.

@BonjourCrisette Your DD is clearly a genius. I am sure a lot of Paulinas are not just intelligent but also work hard.

Or the school was very different then vs now?

It is not scaremongering at ALL, I NEVER say for any school, it is specific to top grammar or selective school only.

Apprently you think saying for most DCs little prep is required for 11+ in top school in London OK?

Excuse me is this a joke or something ? Vast majority of Paulinas not geniuses.. 1.5 hours tutor per week for half year will get into SPGS?

I am saying that if you really need to do 8 hours plus a week, you are looking at the wrong schools. And that a child who's been tutored like crazy to get in somewhere may find themselves a bit at sea once they are in a group of children who didn't need to do that amount of prep.

They mostly work hard, yes. Some don't! They're mostly also not geniuses and I specifically pointed out that mine isn't.

You may not mean to scaremonger, but you are. I am just pointing out that if you don't have the mental or financial resources to do crazy levels of preparation (or just don't want to, maybe because your child would hate it and mine would have loathed it) it may not necessarily matter that much as long as you are applying to a school where your child is a good fit on ability and personality, and that might include schools that people assume need a lot of extra work.

Obviously this all depends on your own particular child who you probably know best. Some people don't even necessarily decide to apply to selective schools until quite late. We didn't decide to apply to St Paul's until a few days before the forms were due in so we couldn't have prepped for years even if I'd thought that was a good idea. I don't think it's a good idea for a number of reasons and would never have subjected her to hours a week or even an hour a day.

St Paul's is well aware also that downtime is important and they are often at pains to stop their students doing too much. They also think excessive tutoring is not a good idea, and parents are asked to say on the application form what preparation has been done.

The school has not changed much in the last five or six years, I don't think!
I wasn't going to get involved in this again because it's ridiculous, but I do think it's important to counter your strange assumptions because otherwise people might actually think they are true, including people who might come across this thread in the future.

We don't know any girl at St Paul's who engaged in the levels of prep you seem to be undertaking. That's not to say there aren't any, but our personal experience is that we haven't come across anyone who did that level of prep.

This is beyond ridiculous. as Paulina mum I am ashamed!

@BonjourCrisette Is it possible to DM me your tutor contact? St Paul Girls is our dream school.

Preplex is referring to my posts on another thread. I dislike being repeatedly accused of lying, and so I have chosen not to engage there, and I would suggest others take the same approach.

The answer is obvious. Direct quote from a prep school:

www.glendowerprep.org/moving-on/preparation/

"When choosing a school, we advise parents to be open-minded, ambitious and realistic. Be prepared to look at all possible options and make sure your daughter is setting herself high standards, while listening to what her teachers tell you.

Sitting exams for several schools can be onerous but does have the advantage of your being able to enter your daughter for a range of schools so that unpredictable issues, such as the strength of the competition that year and your daughter’s performance on the day, can be allowed for."

Mostly lurking, questions to 2023 SPGS applicants, anyone recalls the question wrt what preparations has been done in the application form? I don't remember.

So SPGS is your safety school? Do another three days of tests and interviews to have another lottery ticket? I'm impressed.

Don't have a safety school per se. The marginal gain outweighs the disadvantages. It was recommended by our prep school as one of the top tier set of schools to sit.

How many schools did your DD sit in total? @spnumbers

On paper the odds of this lottery ticket is better than other competitive schools (500 applicants vs 120 offers). Also the additional cost is cheap compared based on the prep effort - because of sharing same pretest CEM format, open English maths format is the similar to a lot other schools. Worse case have a practice at exam conditions. I can't see why not? No body want to put all the eggs in one basket.

No I didn't see any questions like that

I know there’s been scepticism here that anyone would claim to consider turning down a SPGs place but just to say, one reason for doing so might be financial.
eg if DD were lucky enough to be offered a place in our case it would still then massively be dependent on the level of bursary offered.

Good luck to your DD and hope she get both offer and the bursary!

How did the DDs find the SPGS interview? My DD came out deflated on this :-(

Also we were in the last few slots on 29th - does this reflect the standing on the exams?

Toolong - my dd came out deflated and thinking she’d mucked it up last year, and was still offered a place. So don’t read too much in to it, and good luck for offers day!

Our DD didn't feel deflated but the interview was really short. I don't think anyone can tell the outcome from such short interview - it is the combination of all assessments matters. So good luck to your DD! @Toolongawait23

We have known some acquaintances go in for wall to wall tutoring for SPGS and boys equivalents. A music teacher of one such family begged for an intervention as his pupil was being held captive to his mind….allowed out for a bit of daylight once a day…and he worried for her health. It’s not the majority clearly, but it happens. Having been through the cycle though, my observation would be the ranking of the school makes little difference to university places. The majority end up at the top end Russell Group whatever school in the London pecking order they go to. No discernible pattern away from
being marginally brighter or not.

I guess the parents need to get thr maths right first, targeted tutor is it 10 mins a day? 1 hours a day? Plus how many hours prep school home work per day? What is hours and hours (and what is included in the hours?) some good and IMO is real recent examples are reported in the other thread Here

Or in your example, only see daylight a bit a day (I assume less than 2 hours daylight time?) in that case I think the music teacher should report to the police straight away... 😱

Was some years ago now. She got in so presumably wasn’t denied supper. We know of some kids that sat a dozen entrance exams, other that had euphemistically named ‘homework’ tutors every night and even some that turned down THE BIG PRIZE. All is fair in love and westLondonpreps.

spgs.openapply.com/
does anyone has something else than declined in it? Seems like there was an update

Same here. Do we assume that’s accurate then?

I suspect they have updated for declined but not for WL or accepted.. :(

suspect you are right. Oh well. It was a ridiculously long shot anyway for us (financially speaking) but still, it’s the knock to confidence I don’t like. Sorry for your DD too. Will you tell her or wait for official email?