11+ London Private: More Interviews, Longer Waiting Lists this year?

[Hatcher]

I have heard anecdotally that way more children than usual are getting callbacks this year even in top selective schools, including some not so strong candidates. The proposed explanation is that, due to VAT, schools are shortlisting more candidates because they are worried about how many will accept offers. Applications numbers are not that much down in the top schools, but that doesn't mean a lot of them won't eventually opt for state schools in the end. So schools don't want to take any risks. Were that to be the case, waiting lists will be longer this year, with a lot of uncertainty (and agony!) as to how realistic it will be for someone on it to get a place.

Is that anyone else's sense?

Who have you heard this from? It does not feel like the case....as we know dc who did not get call backs for interviews at multiple schools. DS did not get an interview at one school, while got others...so it does not seem like schools are interviewing many more than normal. It does not seem like applicants have dropped....but perhaps there will be more WL offers just in case people decide to go state. The few that we know have interviews, at least two of the dc are more likely to go state. We are considering a state option as well, but most likely will go private.

It's very unknown because the schools haven't set the Sept 2025 fees yet which will have to take into account the NI/minimum wage increase and paying full business rates as well as the VAT (which is currently showing on the school websites).
No ones knows what the impact of such high fees will be as well as the impact on the grammar school acceptance rates. Less movement in the grammar schools and a reduced pot for bursaries and scholarships all impact acceptance rates.

It must be the case that schools will find it harder to predict acceptance numbers than in previous years - until the early March deadline passes it’s really just guesswork.

Schools will presumably be dealing with this in different ways - some may be interviewing more than in the past, others may be interviewing the same number but plan to make a higher number of offers to interview candidates than before.

I don’t envy the schools in this - if they over-offer by too much they end up with more pupils than they really wanted (is anywhere still doing awful exploding offers?).

If they under offer they may struggle to fill places from waitlists as by the time they’ve had the rejections the waitlist people may well have accepted offers elsewhere. I suspect much agonising will be going on in admissions offices!

What @ICouldBeVioletSky says sounds spot-on. Uncertainty is always a nightmare for the admissions people. Schools will be choosing a variety of different approaches. As under-offering is more of a risk than over-offering, this might be good news for those applying this year. But I agree it is all speculative.

That would be great, as we are doing the 11+ this year...but so far with interviews it seems the same as always...no more then normal are getting through to interview at our school or from what I hear around. But, of course the ones that do go through, maybe they will offer slightly more or WL more.....who knows.

Hampton claims more applicants than previous years (200 more compared to previous years) and they took a smaller number to interview than they announced in previous years. Latymer Upper had roughly the same applicants (I think maybe 50 less than last year) but took the same number to interview. They might offer more waiting list places, but it seems the number being offered interviews is consistent with previous years. Are there any other schools that are also transparent about number of children applying/interviews? I can’t think of any.

That’s interesting re Hampton numbers being up, especially in a lower birth year. Do you think people are concerned that there will be an influx to state schools of pupils who would have previously (ie absent VAT) gone to indies? And that’s driving up indy applications as a possible insurance?

I don’t want to out myself but our local boys’ selective indy (Home Counties) says on the website that it gets c300 applicants and apparently had 280 this year so that could be down a bit.

More families seem to be going for London day schools over expensive boarding school options. We know families that send older DCs to boarding and this round looking at day schools.

That may be the case in some parts of the country. But I am in North London and I don’t know anyone who sends their kids boarding, let alone who plan to move them to day schools. Boarding is not a popular choice in Central London.

No, that’s not true. We have about the same number of acceptances and rejections. In fact, speaking to last year’s parents, the papers and interviews are actually harder because the schools are in uncharted territory. They might offer more because there will be more movement during the national offer day. If they end up enrolling more students this year, it’s still a win-win for them since that would be extra commercial interest. Although some smaller schools might find it tough, the usual London ones should be able to accommodate more.