Any advice on appeals for Maidstone Grammar School for boys

[Nemo]

The school had more applications than places this year and I was interested to hear 1st hand how some people had successfully appealed against this in previous years.

[dadofkent]

Cannot help you with your specific request, but oversubsription is not a recent phenomenon at MGS. I seem to recall there were some 40 odd appeals to MGS last year, although it is not clear to me whether they were for non-qualification or oversubscription, and I don't know how many were successful. The year prior to that an extra form was created to cater for extra qualifying pupils. Recent past appealing experiences may not be entirely relevant now, because of the change in over-subscription criteria, and giving priority first to those scoring 390 or more. I assume you have been caught out by the consequential significant reduction in catchment distance for the rest. Hopefully someone with MGS appeal experience will be along to help you, but it might be worth looking at the general appeals info on the site for over-subscription srguments.

[Mary]

We appealed for MGS last year due to oversubscription but did not get offered a place. We used all the arguments suggested on this site and more but were still unsuccessful. The schools case was just too strong - they argued that because they had taken in an extra class the previous year this was having a serious impact on space especially at exam time and taking in any more pupils would have a detrimenal effect on the current pupils. We had been allocated our second choice grammar so I don't think we had a chance anyway but I suspect they would be more sympathetic if you were not allocated a grammar at all. Son now at Oakwood Park Grammar and very happy!