city of london school scholarships

[hellolondo]

Please share me the info about the scholarships at the City of London School. They say the academic scholarship is £250, but are there any other academic scholarships? Something like Westminster School's Challenge. It seems like City is not very generous with scholarships.

@hellolondo you are confusing scholarships with bursaries maybe? The latter are means tested and City of London schools (referring to both the girls and boys schools here) are well known for their very generous financial assistance to help children attend their schools. Scholarships are generally modest awards for music, drama or art. City does not award for academic prowess because the entry is by academic selection.

Westminster also runs a bursary scheme and a similar scholarship scheme. Most of the schools in London operate in the same way.

Scholarships in many schools have been reduced over the last 5 years, and the days of 25% and 50% academic scholarships are largely gone.
They're now typically a one-off payment of < £1k, or 5-10% of fees (which basically means your paying the annual fee increment one year in arrears).
Alleyns and Dulwich College are exceptions in offering up to £5k or 33% respectively.
Some schools are slightly more generous with music scholarships, with a very small number of 25-50% scholarships available but possibly only one per year group or in exceptional circumstances (e.g. UCS and Latymer Upper).

Bursaries are a different matter. Several of the top schools have generous bursary schemes and dozens of places available. But these are means-tested. If you have significant income, savings or equity in your house you won't qualify (you'd generally be expected to use your savings and/or extend your mortgage first).

Scholarships generally tend to be nominal amounts that recognise achievement in a particular area - music, academic, sport etc. Bursaries are a v different kettle of fish. They're means tested and can be 100% of fees.

I actually meant scholarships. Thanks all for sharing your thoughts:)

@hellolondo you should bear in mind that the King Scholars’ scholarship at Westminster facilitated by ‘The Challenge’ is solely a reduction on boarding fees to day fee rate. Your child must board, no exceptions. In addition, the value of this scholarship is being reduced in the coming years. The most successful pupils are ones who tend to be very gifted - particularly at Maths.

Is there a reason you are fixed upon the value of the scholarship? The cost of a day pupil at City Boys is significantly less than either a kings scholar or day pupil at Westminster. You either want a highly selective academic school or you don’t - but the highly selective ones are not the ones with the larger ‘scholarship’ amounts.

Do you know if these kind of awards are available for in year placements due to a move?

@capricosa scholarships are not possible, not sure about bursaries - you’d need to check with the schools concerned. In year placements are still by competitive entry.

DD applied a few "top" private schools last year and got award a few academic scholarships. Amount range from nominal amount to 2K reduction in fees. I think most of these schools want to pivot towards their financial aids to mean tested model, which make more sense to me.

This isn't entirely true. You would not be expected to release equity or extend a mortgage IF you cannot afford to do so. There is a lot of mis-information around about bursaries. Different schools will have different requirements and cut-offs.

Thank you so much for sharing the info!

For the school in the OP's question, the website states:
"It is unlikely that a family with a significant six-figure income, a large house or second property, or significant other assets would qualify for a bursary".
see https://www.cityoflondonschool.org.uk/apply/bursary
There are similar statements from other schools. e.g. https://www.stpaulsschool.org.uk/admissions/bursaries-assistance-with-fees/bursaries-faqs/
So the statement that there are generous means-tested bursaries but that those with significant income, savings or equity won't qualify is generally true, and similar in wording to the wording used by school the OP enquired about.
Not everyone will agree on what constitutes 'significant' income/equity/assets but I used the same word as they did.

Curious as to why you say the cost of a day pupil at City is less significantly less than the cost of a day pupil at Westminster?

From the respective websites:

Westminster day pupils / King's Scholars £11 433 / term
www.westminster.org.uk/admissions/fees/

City £7,545 / term
www.cityoflondonschool.org.uk/about/fees

Seems a fairly large difference?

@preppingforlife because they are VERY different in terms of cost.

Thank you @MarchingFrogs. I know because I have paid both invoices over the years 😭

Thank you. Do your DS go to both school? They must be so bright. How do they find these school? any difference do you see as a parent?

@MarchingFrogs Thank you. Do your DS go to both school? They must be so bright. How do they find these school? any difference do you see as a parent?

@hellolondo Westminster suits a particular sort of child. They need to be engaged and self-starting. Westminster life is full-on so you need to accept that as a parent your child will only be off on a Sunday. The teaching is, however exceptional - your child will learn the subject not just to pass the exams.

City has a big focus on enhancing its bursary scheme so not surprising they’ve made academic scholarships token in amount. I think they said 10% of the year 7 (what they’d call year 1) intake have an bursary.

Frankly though schools like that don’t need to offer academic scholarships - they have plenty of the right calibre of child applying. And plenty of parents like us who were willing to turn down decent sized scholarships at less academic schools to go there.

Nope, neither DS attended either.

The question re the fees just seemed one that would easily be answered via 30 seconds' engagement with a well-known Internet search engine.

In our city (not london) the generous scholarships are offered by the somewhat-lower-calibre-academically schools to tempt the brightest pupils away from the highest-performing ones, and by the most-expensive school to bring fees down to a similar level to the more-average-fee schools for a few desirable pupils (scholarships in sports, arts and music as well as academic) but the scholarships at the best schools are token, and really only for the honour. Bursaries seem to be the inverse, with the schools that have the least on offer for scholarships doing the most for bursaries.