independent school entry exam and interview question

[midod]

Has anyone experienced a child applying to several schools but only receiving one or two interview?
I often hear that if a child can get into interview, they can get into all — I’d be interested to hear if that’s really the case？

Some do exam, interview, offer. These are using the exam as a way of filtering out the students who are not as able. They then interview to check confidence/personality/'good fit'.

Others interview and then do an exam. They tend to be less fussy about academic ability.

Each school varies as to number of interviews per available place. If your child is sitting 4 exams but only getting 2 interviews, that indicates they aren't performing as well as some others on the exams.

I think it depends on the child. If a child gets into all the interviews, that is a strong position to get offers. If they only get interviews to some of the schools, then it might be the case they are not as strong. But it depends on the level of schools you are applying to and confidence of your dc. For example, we were told by others if our dd or ds made it to interview they would get an offer (and this was the case). Do teachers, tutors or the head give you any indication?

We are at a state school. I applied to City, Highgate, and Forest. He hasn’t been invited to the City interview, and he also didn’t pass Latymer Edmonton. His school teacher said he is in the top 5% in depth. He plays two musical instruments and passed Grade 8 and Grade 5 at the age of eight, so I don’t understand what went wrong.

My dc were in state school too. But the comments were made when discussing how they would do in the interview round w various teachers that have worked with them in some way or just spent an afternoon with them (for a creative writing workshop). It was more to do with the way they interact with adults at the interview stage. As for not being invited for interview, it's incredibly competitive. Ds was not invited to interview for Kings, because he messed up in the math somehow (even though math is his strongest subject!). I know this because I asked the school for feedback. You could try asking City for feedback on how he did on the exam. They might let you know what quartile he was in comparison to others. Prior to interview, they are really only looking at the scores on the exam. I don't think they take into account sport or music. However, they look at that during interview.

I forgot to mention, I believe the kids end up where they are meant to be. If they do not get in one school, it was not the right fit. It can be a little frustrating, esp for state school parents during the 11+ since the school does not advise for anything. After two dc though, I have learned a lot and feeling confident about it.

@midod Nothing “went wrong”. The whole London 11+ independent process is about finding the school of right fit for your child. For some of the most academic schools it can simply come down to test scores and it is so competitive. If they only interview the top 5%, for example, your son may have been in the top 5.1% and missed out by a whisker. Or they might not have performed as well as hoped on the day in the exam. You may never know.

For those schools who are interviewing your son it says they are looking at his application more holistically. They are taking the time to get to know him beyond simple scores on a test. These are the schools you should want your son to go to.

I 100% believe that children going through the independent 11+ route really do end up where they are meant to be. I have seen parents crying because their child didn’t get into the top ranking academic schools but one year later their child is thriving at the school they did get into.

I guess what I’m saying is don’t panic.