11+ Will you take a selective private school waiting list place over a less selective firm offer?

[ConfusedDotCom111]

A selective private school was our first choice but DD got waitlisted. However, we got a firm offer from a less academically selective smaller nurturing school. Shall we accept a WL place if it is offered (fingers crossed) or stick to our firm offer? My concern is if DD did not make it through the first round probably she is not quite the school standard and will struggle there? Or I am overthinking it and it was just not her day at the time of the exam?

Agree with this. Make sure the firm offer you have is not an ‘exploding offer’ tho. Oh yes that flipping nightmare they throw on us too! Accept last minute and see if wait list place comes up. Our waitlist place came up 2 days after I accepted the firm offer and I still got deposit back. Sometimes they can be kind. And I also agree with @NYE2023 and @HawaiiWake on calling. Monday afternoon is a great idea. You can always call in a lovely way checking in and saying how keen you and your DD are on the school. As someone said they want to fill places and I am sure will go first to those top of mind and likely to accept. When I got the call saying there was a place they knew already we would be delighted and were super happy to call us. And I called weekly asking for updates. In a gentle and happy way. Fingers crossed OP. Update us! Wherever she goes ultimately I am sure she will do super well.

@ChiefRoady yes I do . So for one co Ed popular school near here 1. an interview which was just a pleasant chat usually meant a straight offer unless you did something heinous in the interview 2. An interview where they asked you to, say, read a passage and discuss usually meant top half of wait list unless you smashed it and turned it into an offer 3. Having to do few written questions in a separate room before the interview because there were concerns as to whether certain skills were strong enough probably meant at best wait list but further down ( unless you smashed it to move higher up; or crashed out with a no ). But it is school dependent but the above certainly held true for our cohort but that was some time ago . But there will be someone around who has more recent experience than me.

@ConfusedDotCom111 Do you think your DD would have done well at interview?

@NYE2023 thanks for responding. That’s very interesting to me as I thought the same but my DS is on one waitlist having had a general interview. It’s quite conceivable that he did not interview well as he’s quite intimidated by new adults, to the point of becoming monosyllabic!

@ChiefRoady don’t worry too much - I don’t think these schools are phased by shy 10/11yo - my DS was definitely shy . I think they are quite skilled at coaxing out of them what they need . They also want a mix of kids . It would be a nightmare if every single child was supremely self confident ! But obviously you can’t know for sure but the main thing is he is still in the mix! Good luck .

@ChiefRoady It was just a general interview, our DD said it went well, I believe it probably went well as DD easily talks to adults. I suspect that the problem was in the exam itself. When DD came out she said that papers were relatively easy and she finished them before the time was up. My heart sank, as it meant she rushed them, didn't read questions properly and did not check answers.

@Ndd135632 could you shed a little light on how you received your deposit back please? We're in a similar position to OP and I'm loathed to jettison £3.5k by accepting an offer for our second choice school should our first choice WL school suddenly become available after the deadline. Thanks.

Re paying deposits - I think that schools now have to abide by the 14 day "cooling off" period for distance selling so check the T&C!

@NLondondiva I hope you're right! I shall check them out.

What's an exploding offer?

I've heard different stories about this, including that distance selling regulations only apply if you haven't seen the product, so you're on the hook if the school has a record of your attending any open days.

All independent schools "over-offer", that is, they might make 200 offers when they have only 100 spaces to fill. They do that because they know that they will not be the first choice of every applicant that they offer so, making 200 offers, they expect only 100 acceptances.

When they are overly optimistic about the "yield", that is, it looks like fewer than 100 offers will be accepted, they go to their waiting lists to get to 100 acceptances.

When they are overly pessimistic about the yield, that is, it looks like more than 100 offers will be accepted, they can do several things:

1. Increase the size of each form, so that 5 forms of 20 may become 5 forms of 22 or 24, provided that facilities permit.
2. Increase the number of forms to make a "bulge year", so have 5 forms of 20 become 6 forms of 20, again, provided that facilities and staffing permit.
3. Withdraw outstanding offers once the acceptances reach a hard limit of number of places when facilities and/or staffing no longer permit.

You'll find that most schools, in the small print in the offer letters, reserve the right to do option 3 in case they really misjudge the number of offers and they absolutely cannot increase the number of places further. When a school withdraws an offer before the decision deadline, that offer is said, colloquially, "to explode".

That is so helpful thanks! I wondered how they did this. In my area the ones going private tend to apply to all of three selective schools. Some will get three offers by the end of the month.
I suspected they all must over offer and try and attract the best. One has wait list places too. One school has sent offers out now but the others haven't yet.