Do indies actually hold
ranked wait lists?
State schools have to publish their admissions policies, which have to comply with the Admissions Code. And oversubscriptions criteria, ditto. And they have to maintain waiting lists, at least until the end of the autumn term in the year of admission, strictly in oversubscriptions criteria order. There are legal processes for dealing with schools which fail to comply with any of these
The thing that people love about Indies is that they are, well, 'indie', though? Not bound by boring things like the Admissions Code, which annoyingly specifically forbids interviewing applicants or their parents, thus preventing schools from considering applicants
holistically, making sure those
naughty, distracting kids don't get in, etc?
Usually at this point, someone with an awful lot more experience of the North London indie school scene than I will pop in with the advice that what you need to do is contact the school and assure them that it is your very top choice and that the minute they find they are able to offer your DD a place after all, you will immediately turn down whatever offer she currently holds and be on their doorstep with your cheque book.
If that strategy genuinely works, then (sadly) I suspect I have the answer to my original question.
Seriously, though, rala, if that particular school is where your DD really feels that she would be happiest, then I hope that she will eventually be successful
. It can't hurt to contact the school to ask whether she has a chance of this.