ridiculous dilemma

[nervousmom]

If you really don't want KEA But love BV then I suggest you don't put KEA on your CAF.

I would put

CHB
FW
BV
local comp

Which one did your son prefer?

[Beyond.beyond]

See, I am new myself. I am not very familiar with the local areas. I have not heard anything negative about BV from other parents. The only bad thing I heard about Aston is the locality. I do not care about that either. Does anyone know which school has better results last year? I cannot find the results on the school's website.

[booellesmum]

They are both Grammar schools and get great results. Go with the one that will suit your family better with regards to where it is/ travel etc.

[ABJ]

I have a new dilemma now. It is one of those days. After visiting Handsworth today, I have decided to take it out of the list all together. It should be easier now but it is not. I will put CHB and FW on top as I know I have zero chance there. Now the tussle is between Aston and BV. I am not a huge fan of Aston. But it is with higher merit. I am just scared that by some luck, my son will get in Aston, he has 219...... Hightly unlikely but still. And I would miss BV. Or am I just delusional. I loved BV.

If you don't want KEA at all than don't put it on the form.
Aston's cut off will not be lower than BV.

[Petitpois]

I have a new dilemma now. It is one of those days. After visiting Handsworth today, I have decided to take it out of the list all together. It should be easier now but it is not. I will put CHB and FW on top as I know I have zero chance there. Now the tussle is between Aston and BV. I am not a huge fan of Aston. But it is with higher merit. I am just scared that by some luck, my son will get in Aston, he has 219...... Hightly unlikely but still. And I would miss BV. Or am I just delusional. I loved BV.

Well BV was 219 Vs KEA at 224 in terms of cut off

6% less people applied to BV last year Vs 5% more to Aston

BV was pretty stable 1073 in average applications in the two previous year, so not sure why it suddenly dropped down to 1009 (absolute) in 2015

circa 100 more people applied for a place at Aston than applied to BV last year.

Astons application pattern is distinct from BV. In 2013 it is the same as 2015, with a drop in application in 2014, so 2014 looks like a blip for aston, where as BV looks like more of a drop off of popularity, possible caused by Fairfax and Arthur Terry, not sure

Beyond BV results very good looking to me

BV
http://www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/sch ... urn=137988" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Aston
http://www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/sch ... urn=137043" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

BV looks pretty good to me

[thirdtimemum]

We have bv first and Aston second... Just in case scores change, but then we have struggled to use our 6 options. We love bv and it has always been first on our list whatever score DS achieved. We too removed HGS as we really didn't like it. Staff we met were very uninspiring and it wasn't very sporty. If you would be disappointed with kea then don't put it on or do what we did and put it further down the list. We also put QMGS on the list even though we probably won't get it.
I am surprised to see that bv got less applications last year. Especially as it provided an extra 30 places and the cut off was raised by 2 marks

[Petitpois]

The other possibility is that KEFW stole lots of preferences from all the others.

It is of note most of the other increased too if only marginally, excepting BV and Handsworth girls.

[Beyond.beyond]

We have bv first and Aston second... Just in case scores change, but then we have struggled to use our 6 options. We love bv and it has always been first on our list whatever score DS achieved. We too removed HGS as we really didn't like it. Staff we met were very uninspiring and it wasn't very sporty. If you would be disappointed with kea then don't put it on or do what we did and put it further down the list. We also put QMGS on the list even though we probably won't get it.
I am surprised to see that bv got less applications last year. Especially as it provided an extra 30 places and the cut off was raised by 2 marks

Oh. Happy to hear that someone is in similar dilemma My husband thinks I am nuts that I keep on harping about BV. For us, traveling would be a killer as there is no green bus to BV. We are exploring different options to work it out. I will be very happy when all this is over. Then I tell myself that we are in fortunate position to worry. There are many who would be more than happy to be in our shoes.

[PamB]

Just for what it's worth - we are also putting BV above Aston on list of choices (as 3rd and 4th respectively). I don't expect scores for BV to be higher than Aston, but you never know, and it's the order of our preference.

Have you looked at train to BV? That's what we are thinking - University station straight to Sutton, then short walk.

[thirdtimemum]

We have bv first and Aston second... Just in case scores change, but then we have struggled to use our 6 options. We love bv and it has always been first on our list whatever score DS achieved. We too removed HGS as we really didn't like it. Staff we met were very uninspiring and it wasn't very sporty. If you would be disappointed with kea then don't put it on or do what we did and put it further down the list. We also put QMGS on the list even though we probably won't get it.
I am surprised to see that bv got less applications last year. Especially as it provided an extra 30 places and the cut off was raised by 2 marks

Oh. Happy to hear that someone is in similar dilemma My husband thinks I am nuts that I keep on harping about BV. For us, traveling would be a killer as there is no green bus to BV. We are exploring different options to work it out. I will be very happy when all this is over. Then I tell myself that we are in fortunate position to worry. There are many who would be more than happy to be in our shoes.

If bv is that difficult to get to then maybe Aston is the better option. Wasn't aware you were that far away. Bv for us is one bus and a walk up the hill in Sutton. It is a school bus to Aston so it simply came down to which school we preferred. Even if DS scored enough we wouldn't have considered fw or camp hill. There are school buses to both but felt the journey was far too long. So much so we didn't visit them at all. Maybe you could do the journey to bv one day this week to get there for 8.40 and then decide from there?