CAF Preferences - Interesting exercise

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Green Girl
Posts: 49
Joined: Fri Oct 24, 2014 11:11 am

Re: CAF Preferences - Interesting exercise

Post by Green Girl »

Three2go wrote::lol: it not that odd my order are
KEHG
CHG
FW
QMHS
SCGS
Holyhead
Wasn't sure if it was odd to have schools likely to have higher cut offs lower than our first choice but I think it's right for us. Nice to see someone else doing the same :D
Thumbsup
Posts: 120
Joined: Sat Nov 01, 2014 8:51 am

Re: CAF Preferences - Interesting exercise

Post by Thumbsup »

I have a question about the CAF. I appreciate all LAs will have a different format, eg different number of references (3,5 or 6 etc). My query is, do the reasons you put down for your choice of preferences have any bearing? I'm nervous as there are up to 2500 or 3000 characters (I think) for parents to explain their choice of preferences. (Wolves LA). As my first three preferences are selective schools (Ags, QMGS, HGS) can I write son took test and we believe his score would qualify him a place?? Last two schools are comp's, 4th preference an oversubscribed and 5th is our local that he should get into (not heavily oversubscribed). As the schools are not religious, I'm not sure what reasons to include. I could note easy to travel to?? Should I put more effort into the reasons or would a simple few sentences do? Lol, took me ages to think which 5 schools and then sort the order out. Now I'm fretting over reasons.
nervousmom
Posts: 1687
Joined: Sun Jul 15, 2012 9:38 am
Location: Warwickshire

Re: CAF Preferences - Interesting exercise

Post by nervousmom »

I don't think I put any reasons on mine!

To be honest I don't know if it would really make any difference.

If you are worried, just give your local admissions team a ring and ask them, they'll advise accordingly.
nervousmom
Posts: 1687
Joined: Sun Jul 15, 2012 9:38 am
Location: Warwickshire

Re: CAF Preferences - Interesting exercise

Post by nervousmom »

These are the scores I have managed to find. Interesting that a lot of the high scores were from people who registered on offers day!

185. 1
186. 1
189. 1
190. 3
192. 1
193. 1
197. 1
198. 3
199. 1
201. 3
202. 1
204. 2
205. 1
206. 3
207. 2
208. 3
211. 2
212. 1
213. 3
214. 2
215. 1
216. 1
217. 2
218. 1
219. 1
221. 1
222. 3
223. 2
224. 1
225. 3
226. 1
227. 1
229. 1
230. 1
231. 1
232. 2
233. 2
234. 1
235. 1
236. 4
237. 2
238. 5
239. 1
240. 1
241. 4
242. 2
243. 2
244. 2
245. 1
246. 3
249. 1
250+. 16

Obviously all this to be taken with a pinch of salt, but interesting all the same.
Last edited by nervousmom on Wed Oct 21, 2015 12:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.
booellesmum
Posts: 611
Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 7:44 am

Re: CAF Preferences - Interesting exercise

Post by booellesmum »

Thumbsup wrote:I have a question about the CAF. I appreciate all LAs will have a different format, eg different number of references (3,5 or 6 etc). My query is, do the reasons you put down for your choice of preferences have any bearing? I'm nervous as there are up to 2500 or 3000 characters (I think) for parents to explain their choice of preferences. (Wolves LA). As my first three preferences are selective schools (Ags, QMGS, HGS) can I write son took test and we believe his score would qualify him a place?? Last two schools are comp's, 4th preference an oversubscribed and 5th is our local that he should get into (not heavily oversubscribed). As the schools are not religious, I'm not sure what reasons to include. I could note easy to travel to?? Should I put more effort into the reasons or would a simple few sentences do? Lol, took me ages to think which 5 schools and then sort the order out. Now I'm fretting over reasons.
Last year I put for the Grammar school that she had taken the test and I believed she may have scored enough. I also put her sister went there - there is no sibling rule at all but it made me feel better to put it!!!
For the first comp I put it was our closest school and believed we were in catchment.
I put nothing for the others.
helen0209
Posts: 739
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2015 10:17 am

Re: CAF Preferences - Interesting exercise

Post by helen0209 »

Hi nervousmum. I have already posted my DS's results, but here are a few from his school and football friends:-

DD 211
DD 197
DD 186
DS 207
DS 204

Is there any way you could show your list as a boy / girl split or is that just too much work? May give an idea of which preference order to go for?
booellesmum
Posts: 611
Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 7:44 am

Re: CAF Preferences - Interesting exercise

Post by booellesmum »

helen0209 wrote:Hi nervousmum. I have already posted my DS's results, but here are a few from his school and football friends:-

DD 211
DD 197
DD 186
DS 207
DS 204

Is there any way you could show your list as a boy / girl split or is that just too much work? May give an idea of which preference order to go for?
Personally I would be very wary of using posted scores as a guide to what to put on the CAF. This is going to be such a small sample of scores overall. Put what you really want down as you have nothing to lose.
nervousmom
Posts: 1687
Joined: Sun Jul 15, 2012 9:38 am
Location: Warwickshire

Re: CAF Preferences - Interesting exercise

Post by nervousmom »

booellesmum wrote:
helen0209 wrote:Hi nervousmum. I have already posted my DS's results, but here are a few from his school and football friends:-

DD 211
DD 197
DD 186
DS 207
DS 204

Is there any way you could show your list as a boy / girl split or is that just too much work? May give an idea of which preference order to go for?
Personally I would be very wary of using posted scores as a guide to what to put on the CAF. This is going to be such a small sample of scores overall. Put what you really want down as you have nothing to lose.
Hi, this is nothing to do with helping choices, its just purely an interesting little exercise, just done out of interest and to be taken with a huge pinch of salt :)
Petitpois
Posts: 1440
Joined: Thu Jul 02, 2015 7:44 am

Re: CAF Preferences - Interesting exercise

Post by Petitpois »

nervousmom wrote:These are the scores I have managed to find. Interesting that a lot of the high scores were from people who registered on offers day!


Obviously all this to be taken with a pinch of salt, but interesting all the same.
Hi Nervous I chucked your dataset in to a Pivot in excel (It's just a very quick way of looking at data graphically).

All I can really see from the data is. The dataset represents roughly a 2% sample, assuming no falsies

1) only 7% of the scores posted comes from the 2 data points either side of 200, so the forum posts are highly unrepresentative of the general population as a whole

2) only 10% of posts are for scores below 200, yet we know these must be roughly 50%in the full population

3)There is a spike of posts between 236 and 244. As I don't know whether girls or boys, can't say a lot. Perhaps its a mixture of worried boys parents posting I got 241, will I get in Vs DD's posting yay I got 239 - I know I am in and I am well happy

In simple terms, a reasonable hypothesis is that quite a lot of people use the forum to basically to brag, when it comes to posting scores. It suggests the moderator posts telling people not to post above say 250+ are meaningless, in that they are largely having the effect of saying to really big braggers, don't brag too loud, because you might upset tier 2 braggers, who are still highly successful?

All in basically largely only people who succeed post here!
Bizarre really when you look at cold numbers like this.
nervousmom
Posts: 1687
Joined: Sun Jul 15, 2012 9:38 am
Location: Warwickshire

Re: CAF Preferences - Interesting exercise

Post by nervousmom »

I said that to DH this morning, a lot of high scores, were indicated by people who only registered on offers day!

I've jus added four more scores posted by helen0209. Scores that come through word of mouth seem to be more accurate/real as they are lower!

I didn't keep a tally of boy and girl but managed to get the following, but this is an extremely small sample and no way really has any bearing on what will happen.

Number of 1st choice preferences for each school

CHB. 10
CHG. 5
FW. 6
BV. 7
KEA. 1
KEHGS. 9
HGS. 0
SCGSG. 4
QMHS. 8
WGHS. 2

(HGS is Handsworth boys)

All a bit of fun really, too much time on my hands :lol:
Last edited by nervousmom on Wed Oct 21, 2015 10:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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