Anyone waiting for Herts / N London 11+ results?

[bluegreencherry]

Our DS is only sitting two - Habs and St Albans. Second round for Habs next week, waiting to hear whether he will get invited back for second round of St Albans. I'm finding all this waiting is shredding my nerves, so if anyone else is in a similar position with these schools and fancies a pointless chat / baseless speculation on impact of VAT on applications / the process / Plan Bs, please say so!

Not these two schools but two other North London / Herts indies and the wait is brutal. All interviews were completed on the same day as the assessments before Christmas so now it's just a waiting game. As if January isn't long enough... So really on here to share sympathies and happy to shoot the breeze on all things above as a delightful distraction!

VAT wise, I assumed applications would be down but according to one school we applied for they are the highest ever and judging by the number of children at the assessment day for the other one, I'd say demand has remained high. It's very hard to know if it's perception rather than reality though. The two schools are plan A and plan B. I know others apply for way more but we'd already put DD through the grammar / state selectives and she was pretty done with it, so we narrowed indies down to the ones that really sang to us.

Our plan C is seeing what is thrown our way on National Offer Day but we're in a catchment area chasm and chances of getting into our nearest, very good state secondary are almost zero so it's pretty teeth grinding. Can't wait for it all to be over one way or another so we have a plan.

How are you feeling about things?

Feeling very very similar - teeth grinding is about right! Like you said we (I) just want to know so we can work out what our options might be. Our DS is at a state primary with few friends applying for private so most of his friends already know what school they are going to.

Really interesting re the VAT impact (or not) on applications - esp what your first school said re highest ever applications! I think maybe London & Herts is a bit of a bubble that doesn't seem too affected by VAT? Habs boys had about 600 applicants I think (estimating on counting the number of boys roughly x the number of sittings) which is crazy.

We also have a v small chance of getting the excellent comprehensive that is our nearest school so not holding out a huge amount of hope for March 1

Best of luck to your DC for Habs next week. And fingers crossed for St Albans, they’re both great schools. When is the final outcome sent? I feel you on the uncertainty. DD also goes to a state primary and most are going to the local secondary with some to the grammars / state selectives so it feels like a bit of a lonely journey going indie.

I do think this area is a bit of a bubble. Some of the smaller indies might be in trouble but the bigger, established ones seem to have enough families wanting places. That’s a great thing for long term planning and certainty but adds to the anxiety when you know there is competition for places. February can’t come soon enough for us!

Thanks for starting the thread - also waiting for St Albans! In a previous communication they said callback invitations would be sent the Friday after the exams ie today, so I’d got myself all worked up only to realise we’ve another week to go 🤦🏼‍♀️

Also at a state primary, we looked at Merchant Taylors and Berko but applied only to SAS in the end for DS as I think he’d hate commuting by coach to school. Our Plan B is a local prep for 2 years and another two bites at the SAS cherry, unless we’ve crashed and burned! We’ve almost no chance of getting in the good state secondaries near us, I genuinely like the prep but it would mean having to go through all this again.

We did open days at SAS last year and this year (2 this autumn, I wanted to see the new head and then DS decided he wanted to look round again). I thought numbers were noticeably down on last year at the first open day this autumn (in the past I’m sure the events always book out), but at the second it looked pretty full.

My estimate or parents waiting for boys to come out of the first assessment session was 80ish. Assuming a similar number for the second and then maybe half that for the Thursday session (Boys who had a Tuesday clash - St Paul’s, not sure of anywhere else, plus boys needing extra time) that would mean numbers well down on the 300odd they mention on the website, but my estimates could be way out!

How did everyone’s DSs find it?

DD is only a year behind (aiming at STAHS, Berko and probably Habs girls) so it’s very much a marathon for me 😩

You’ll have gathered I love to speculate, theorise and chat about it all…

@DawsonsGeek , I really feel for you as DD, doing your assessments before Christmas and then nothing till the results in February is a really long wait!! Although DS had Habs in November it was fairly easy to forget about the whole horrible process over Christmas - until that first week of January. Very much hope you get your Plan A - as well as the option of Plan B!! Habs and St Albans final results all out on 14 Feb, although if DS doesn't get through the next round of St A we will find out next week.

@BarqsHasBite my son did the same assessment in the morning at St Albans school! Hope your DS found the whole experience ok? DS said it was ok - not easy, not impossible. He said the bit where they played games while waiting to be interviewed was quite fun which is good - can only really hope that it is overall a positive experience for them. No clue really on whether we will get through to the next round. I will be feverishly checking my emails this Friday while trying to be oh so relaxed about it all...! Re: numbers DS said there were about 11 boys in his group and about 10 groups but his numbers might be wildly wrong / different groups may have different numbers in them. Thursday's was smaller I think as a friend's son sat it, and school was back in session.

We had a busy weekend which was good for distraction and reminds me not to wish days away... hope you both did too

@bluegreencherry I think my DS found the St Albans test similar to your DS - he said overall it was marginally easier than the Atom mock tests he'd done, and that the maths and English were fine. He also enjoyed the puzzles but said that there was one question he thought everyone bar one boy in his group had misunderstood and got wrong (something to do with moving a hat around and people getting the wrong starting point for the hat).

I'm fretting a bit about the interview as it sounds like he was asked fewer questions than a friend of his, plus he said he liked football and reading Alex Rider when asked what he does in his spare time and what he likes reading, which probably makes him sound like 80% of 11 year old boys! He has much more interesting interests so I worry he's made himself sound a bit average with the answers he gave, plus St Albans really isn't a football school (as I told him repeatedly!).

Your estimates on numbers are interesting. The website says they have 300 applicants and that they call back around half these for the group assessments, but when I spoke to the head of admissions she said they normally call back more than half. I also got the impression they tried to rule boys in rather than out - eg if a boy's maths score wasn't quite high enough but the school reference said he was good at maths they'd give him the benefit of the doubt.

If you get offers from Habs and St Albans have you decided what you'll take?

Haha my son said the same at interview - football and reading some action books when actually he has TONS other interests which he voluntarily spends more time on than football and reading!! The thing that feels the most unfair is it's such a snapshot judgment and they don't really a chance to know the boy at all. Especially as I suspect our state school reference will be much shorter and less detailed than a reference from a prep head who is fully invested in the destination school! Interesting re the info from the admissions team. IF we get a call back (big if...) then would be interesting to see how many boys at each day. The website says about 72 places for 11+ I think?

I don't dare hope we would get both offers but if we did I would (after having a large glass of wine) probably encourage DS to choose St Albans as the commute is much better for him (and us).

Fingers crossed for you both for good news. My friend's DS started at St Albans in September and is really happy. I went to Habs Girls but it was a million years ago now! We'll find outcomes at end of Jan for one school and mid-Feb for the other, so nothing to do now but sit back and wait. Agree about not wishing days away - life is short. But oh, January is a drag...!

Hi! We didn’t receive any feedback from Habs girls, they don’t even say applicant wasn’t successful? I may get bold by nerves :-(

Oh the waiting is so hard (for you too @DawsonsGeek!).

I found this thread which suggests they may contact al candidates, successful or otherwise in getting an interview but who knows:

https://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/11plus/viewtopic.php?t=53335

Did they give you a date by which interview invitations would be sent? I would very politely contact the admissions office if the position is unclear. Good luck.

@bluegreencherry our sons sound very similar, and that’s a good point about references. I know that heads of prep schools who are on friendly terms will sometimes call the likes of SAS to discuss candidates, which state pupils can’t compete with. I’m just thankful that DS this year has a fantastic teacher who clearly likes him (other teachers have been indifferent) and who used to tutor 11+, so he hopefully understands the importance of the reference and made DS sound good!

Yes they have 72 places though they said on an open day they can go above this a bit if they have a particularly strong cohort of applicants. My guess from what I’ve read about other schools is they will make around twice this number of offers knowing that many will turn them down in favour of other indies or state.

So I’m hoping that anyone who makes the callbacks is pretty likely to get an offer unless they have a bad day, or are otherwise clearly not a good “fit”. I feel like getting the callback itself is the biggest hurdle but I’ll continue to fret throughout the process!

@WorkinMumsince4ever definitely call the admissions team. They should have sent out interview invites by now I would have thought (Habs girls exam being in Nov I think?) and it would be good to make sure you haven't accidentally missed it. The boys school sent interview invites and "sorry no" letters at roughly the same time.

I spoke to Habs admissions team to see if DD invited for interview, they said latest we will know by Monday, they will try to send out by the end of this week though.

Thank you very much all.
@BarqsHasBite from your message, it looks like they communicate the results just before the interviews. Your message really help. Thank you.
@bluegreencherry I tried calling and was unsuccessful. Wasn’t lucky.
@ToughWaitingGame this is brilliant! Thank you so much for sharing! Good luck to your DD!

Woo hoo - DS has been invited to the call backs at St Albans School! So pleased and SO relieved.

@bluegreencherry keeping my fingers crossed you've had good news too, and good luck to those waiting to hear from their schools.

@BarqsHasBite hooray and well done!! (To your DS but you too )

We also have a callback - also sooo pleased & relieved. The letter says some odd thing like it's a busy time of year so it doesn't matter if your son or you can't attend... does that mean it's not part of the assessment process this year??

Congratulations to you and your DS (it's definitely a joint effort!!). It seems that SAS can't get enough of boys who like football and action books! 😆

Yes I thought that line in the letter was odd! I can't see how the callbacks would be optional (could always try ringing and saying "Nah, we're not that bothered can we just go straight to being offered a place?"!).

Maybe some people don't take up the callback offer if they've got higher preference schools that they feel confident of getting (I'm not sure if any have actually made offers now though), and they want to avoid no-shows. Or they want to ensure they don't have people turning up for the callback who hadn't bothered to fill in the form to confirm they were coming.

Is your callback on Thursday or Friday?

Random recommendation, if you have time after, this is well worth a quick detour:
Museum of the Moon | St Albans Cathedral

So happy with the callback news to SAS and didn’t even notice that last line in the letter until you mentioned!
For callback session, any advice/tips to ensure our sons get firm offers?

Congrats @Escapetomygarden!

I guess if it's a group lesson - and attendance isn't even mandatory- that they can't be assessing much?! Is that very naive of me??

@BarqsHasBite we are on Thursday. Thanks for the moon exhibit tip!

Thanks @bluegreencherry !!!
It has completely made my day. My older son is at SAS and during his time 3 years ago, it was equally strange - the general belief was that only borderline candidates were called back. So we got a cryptic message with no final confirmation until the formal offer in February.
This year, seems everyone that passed this first stage has been called back so unsure what it means. No point ringing them either as you will be none the wiser 😀

Hi all,

just jumping on this thread as DS has also received a callback email. We had our hearts set on Habs mainly because of its excellent coach service but we didn’t get a callback unfortunately. I’m really confused about SAS as it’s so far for us. We are likely to receive a scholarship from Belmont in Mill Hill which is only a 20 minute drive compared to an hour and 15 min coach for SAS. Is anyone else also considering Belmont? Would it be insane to turn down SAS for Belmont on the basis of the long coach journey? Sorry to derail the thread, will also start an independent one I think but was hoping that some on this thread might be in a similar situation.

DS is bright, loves STEM, enjoys sport but isn’t competitively sporty. He loves Dr Who and sci fi!

Congratulations to you too@Escapetomygarden! It's funny you mention that about the process with your older DS as I was googling to see if I could find any info about the callbacks (there's nothing at all on the SAS website other than the dates) and came across this thread: https://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/11plus/viewtopic.php?t=63018&start=10

You will know better than me but it looks like the whole assessment process was changed that year due to Covid and that they didn't automatically interview all exam candidates or do any group lessons, and instead just called back borderline candidates for interview and either made offers to or rejected everyone else. So I don't think it sheds any light on the current situation!

I still can't believe the group lessons are optional, but who knows - maybe they'd still offer a place to someone who did exceptionally in the exam even if they don't attend. The school could really have done with being clearer! TBH I think they would be happy to confirm if you do want to contact them.

@bluegreencherry our callback is on Friday.

Also confused about callback situation, very ambiguous. DS has been invited to geography and science lessons…I think I saw in my previous research that if candidates are borderline they have a mini interview with the head of the department where their weakness lies, I’m sure I read a boy was quizzed by the English head. I’m assuming as callback is purely to do groupwork activities this isn’t the case…but if admission procedure has changed and several more boys are called back than previously who knows…

DS also from state school like most on this thread; we literally know noone applying for St Albans, nearly all the kids are going to the local states, very tricky navigating this all solo

Habs girls invitation to interview email was received. No date for interview until next week.

@honeynutcereal congratulations on SAS callback!
I think you should do what works for you. We turned down Belmont which is 5 mins from us for an hour on the coach to SAS. Not saying you should do the same but SAS has been great for our DS so no complaints.

@honeynutcereal congrats on the callback! Re the question about Belmont and SAS, I don't know much about Belmont but I don't think it is insane at all to turn down a place at a school because the commute is long or tricky. If we get two offers I think for us ease of commute will be the deciding factor. DS does quite a bit out of school and is used to short days at his local primary - he also likes just chilling out at home of an evening, and honestly I like that family time too. For some children a long commute won't phase them (or they might thrive on that extra social time on the coach) but you know your child best.