How common is passing independent school exams but not the interview?

[Lastonestandingone]

Has anyone been in a situation where they have got through an exam but then not the interview (for independent schools at year 7 entry). Does this happen a lot in North London? Working hard for the entrance exams at present but there's the worry that DD may still be turned away.

I’ve been looking around on Mumsnet for this exact question! The main advice is to get a tutor or someone unknown to your child to come and do a practice interview, to get the School Interview Practice book (the yellow one) and then there were some very unhelpful posts saying to just relax and not stress about it.

I bought the book and also the workbook which is actually really good. I haven’t bothered getting a tutor but I’m going to get my friend to come and do a mock interview after we’ve (ds and I) have had a bit more time to go through the book together.

I don’t know how common it is to be turned away due to the interview but being able to prepare is putting my mind at ease and ds is feeling confident now too.

This is VERY out of date advice based on my experience as a former pupil and parent whose DC left school a decade ago 😂 I would say though that the situation was the same when my DC were at school as it was when I was I was at school 😂

About 50% of applicants who sat the exam were invited to interview and about 50% of interviewees got an offer. That was at schools that would be likely to be a top choice for many applicants.

The percentages may have changed but schools will still interview many more applicants than they have places because most DC are applying to multiple schools so they need to make more offers than places and have a back up waiting list. They also want to give applicants who have done well on part of the assessment but not so well on another part a second chance to allow for having a bad day. It’s certainly not a done deal at the interview stage.

Local tutors will probably have a far better (and much more current) idea of how many interviewees get offers at different schools based on the experiences of their students.

Have you tried making a large donation?

It's a while since I was at school but there wouldn't be a point to the interview if everyone was accepted based on the exam would there?

The actual numbers are going to very school and cohort specific, I don't know what it was in my day but I suspect it's a lot higher now

I would be very careful of over preparing because if it sounds rehearsed that will count against them.

It varies by school but it definitely happens.

At our school they’d reject after interview if kids were rude, or silent/couldn’t be drawn into discussion, or came across as likely to be disruptive to a class, or came across as being coached within an inch of their life and giving scripted answers.

If there are still too many applicants after weeding those ones out then the school would start to look at balance in the year group, which isn’t something you can control/predict. I always think all kids applying to selective schools should be warned that balance of the year group is important, so if they don’t get in it’s often not any reflection on how they performed.

@KarcherK5 thanks for this, im getting worried that after all this preparation, we may not even pass an interview.

“At our school they’d reject after interview if kids were rude, or silent/couldn’t be drawn into discussion, or came across as likely to be disruptive to a class, or came across as being coached within an inch of their life and giving scripted answers”

This is pretty much what we were told by the head of admissions at the school DS went on to join. The impression I got was very much that passing the exam was the biggest hurdle and they were looking to make as many offers as they could, and were ruling out candidates at interviews, rather than candidates having to rule themselves in IYSWIM.

That said, for some of the super selective London indies the interview may carry more weight.

Everyone I talked to about it - admissions people, teachers who did the interviews, our tutor, agreed that it was possible to over prepare and this put kids at a disadvantage. They want to see kids as themselves not a scripted version.

My favourite example is a friend’s son who was asked in interview about his favourite foods. He said his favourite thing was a dessert served on the open day of another school he’d applied to (he named the other school)! He got offers from both schools.

@KarcherK5 which book was this?

I've seen courses banded about around the £400 mark to prep kids for interviews, these are about an hour long!

I think it was actually @kidsbeingloudagain who mentioned a book? I’m afraid I don’t have any book recommendations.

In terms of interview prep I think it’s just a slight extension of the work you’d be doing anyway to help your kid grow up polite, able to hold a conversation, able to talk to grown ups. They’re just trying to get a sense of who the kid is and how that kid will do in that particular school.

So try not to worry too much about it!

The interviews check for something different. Certainly, I think some look for a bit more lateral thinking at times than the exams allow for.

She’ll end up somewhere. Don’t get too hung up on it. The last thing these kids need is more pressure coming from their parents.

Also worth noting that “passing” the exam is not a complete binary - the school will know exactly what marks they got.

If the pass mark is 72% then the kids who got 73% will be interviewed to see if they have something really special to up them to be worth an offer. Where as the child who gets 99% will have to really mess up to not get an offer. But they could.

(I had a child who was likely to get in the region of 99% but was also very shy so I asked these questions.)

Yes that’s a good point @Mumoftwoteenagers , the eventual decision is going to be made based on exam result, references from current school, evidence of impressive extra curriculars and interviews.

DS was in for Y7 entry for 2 academic private schools locally. Made the waiting list on one and had an offer from the other. He got his choice of state secondary, so it was a back up we didn't need.

He had a practice interview with a tutor. Speaking, thinking, expressing own opinions, having interests seemed to be what was required. The place he got the offer from was the one where he thought they wouldn't offer because he had a different view of Christianity from the interviewer.

A while ago, but a friend who was deputy head in a sought after West London school told me they were looking for kids who could speak to adults and had something to say. What they said was less important.

An equally sought after school were bemused that our son, aged 10, wanted to be an archaeologist as he liked history and he liked digging. They asked us where his interest in Mongolia came from, and I suggested a computer game (Age of Empires.) My fear was that he identified with Genghis Khan. They told me not to worry. They were interested in children who were curious, could find something that interested them and carry it forward.

What they will want to avoid are the over coached who do well in the exams but who then struggle. Life in a very academic London school is not fun if you are at the bottom of the cohort and need on-going coaching to keep up.

The best school is not the one with the best results. It is the school where your child fits comfortably within the cohort so can thrive and maximise their potential rather than be over-stretched.

To add, another school seemed to use the interview to probe some of the exam performance. So if a child had performed relatively poorly in maths, they would be given some maths questions in the interview to see how confident they were in solving problems outside an exam setting.

The same school used to, infamously, ask whether they were the preferred school. DD did not know how to answer. We had already sent in her dyslexia assessment so they were aware that her English was a lot weaker then her maths, so I followed up explaining that we recognised that some schools would not want to offer her a place. She had only applied to schools she was interested in attending (we were lucky that her prep went up to 13 so we had a useful plan B) and we had encouraged her not to pin her hopes on any specific school. However their school was our first choice and I went on to list the reasons why. She got a place!