Any news on interviews at St Albans High School for Girls?

[dreamon]

At St Albans the Head clearly stated that scholarships will only go up to 10% of fees for those children to whom they were offered. This % will hardly sway those who may get offers from the likes of NLCS/Habs as it is too nominal an amount to be given serious consideration.

I also know of 2 dd's who were offered scholarship interviews at St Albans but did not make the cut for interview at Habs/NLCS.

I'm not sure what the 'vision' is for the future as the impression I received was very much that St Albans is a caring, wonderful school with a great pastoral system but not really for academic girls. During the informal chat with parents, much time was spent describing the charitable work the girls do whilst at school and how involved they are in the local community. The talk mentioned nothing of what the future held for the school or the changes the new Head wants to implement. What impression did others get?

[NLMum27]

NLCS had 52 girls with all A* at GCSE. Every girl in the year got A* in maths.

Wow, that's incredible. 52 with all A*.

[ToadMum]

Admission up front: I have no DC at St Albans (or at any independent school, but looking at their website, they seem to have a lot of sixth formers moving on to study solid, interesting, useful subjects at decent universities, so I'm a bit perplexed as to how 'not really for academic girls' the school is?

With regard to the percentage scholarship awarded, isn't this something to do with Charities Commission(?) guidelines? For those who have applied knowing that they can only afford to send their daughters there with a more significant discount, bursaries of up to 100% of tuition fees are apparently available.

Personally I would be attracted to a school which encouraged its pupils to become involved in helping others, so would regard that as the positive that the HT obviously thinks it is .

[SleepyHead]

Didn't apply to either NLCS or St Albans - thought that NLCS would have been the wrong school for DD and although I loved St Albans school I thought that the coach departed too early and that we would always miss it.

Have to say I do think that St Albans is a very academic school - it certainly doesn't come across as a soft option.
Surprised at the difference in results between NLCS and St Albans - are those figures indicative of yearly averages or was it an exceptional year at NLCS?

[shootmenow]

It was a record breaking year at 50% straight A* but the year before had 40% and that's more the norm.
35-40% Oxbridge every year.Lots doing med/vet/dent as well.

[SleepyHead]

goodness - very impressive indeed.

[shootmenow]

I'm really proud of DD and her friends. They are a nice bunch of girls with a good balance of work ethic and fun.

[Daogroupie]

St Albans is certainly a school for academic girls and most of them get their first choice Russell Group Universities. It is just that Habs is not that far away and is considered to be more academic. Some of the top Wheathampsted preps move to Habs but most prefer to go onto the High School. I am very surprised to hear that any girl could be in the top twenty four of the three hundred and not get an interview at Habs as many of the girls I know of applied to both and I don't see the gap as that big. I am less surprised about NLCS as I know the new English paper will have knocked out a lot of the candidates, but it is still strange to be top twenty at St Albans and not in the top hundred at NLCS. There is a very strong local contingent at St Albans from the town and Harpenden so the intake is not as broad as Habs and NLCS. It is an excellent school and lots of girls do very well there. I do however wish that they would have a proper interview and do away with this group task. Also doing 50% on a Friday and then waiting until Monday to do the other 50% gives the second group the whole weekend to find out what the group task is and prepare for it. I think they need to give a clearer message about how they make the cut between interview and offer. DG

[Daogroupie]

I know of five girls who got scholarship interviews last year , three went to HBS and two went to Habs. Not one of them went to St Albans. This year I know of three, all three want to go to Habs, two of the three also applied to NLCS, one got of them got the interview but prefers Habs. So a lot of spaces will be freed up at St Albans from girls getting Habs. I am sure they know this and it is taken into account when offers are made. DG

[possum]

Does anyone know how many ( roughly) girls were at each of the group interviews at SAHS? I have heard there may have been as many as 72 on Friday morning and as few as 30 on Monday afternoon. Also, individual group sizes reported as 3,5 and 12.