Deadlines for Independent schools earlier than CAF?

[Daogroupie]

A phone call was made by NLCS at 5pm on 29th January 2018 to a parent who had previously received a letter to say her dd had not made it to interview.

The parent was asked to bring in her dd at 910am the next morning which was 30th January 2018.

The parent took her dd to that interview at 910am on 30th January 2018.

Last year the parent was phoned after offer deadline day and asked to bring her dd in for interview. She was given an offer and is now in Y7. I am not going to give any more details because it would be unfair to identify her.

Another parent was phoned on offer deadline day after the deadline. Her dd had an interview but was not given an offer. NLCS phoned to offer her dd a place but she had to accept on the spot. She asked for a few hours so she could talk to her dd who was at school but this request was refused so she refused the offer. I am sure it did not take too many more phone calls to fill the place and seems a very sensible thing for NLCS to do if they did not have as many acceptances as they wanted. DG

[shootmenow]

So, you are saying that, this year before any offers had even been made, one of your tutees who had not been offered an interview was asked to come in on the 30th for interview. The 29th was the mop up day for girls who had missed interviews due to conflicts with other schools or illness. Keep in mind how I know this. At that point, there hadn't even been a meeting to determine who would get offers of those interviewed. My best guess is that either your tutee hadn't shown up for their slot (sent a rejection letter in error- rare but with 600+ letters going out it is possible) or your tutees parents didn't understand the content of the letter inviting them for interview.
As for last year, I spoke to the powers that be (or, were) and asked how it went because feedback is important for everyone in the process and only a scant handful came off the wait list. There's good evidence of that on this site from the parents who posted in the spring that they still had vain hopes of getting a waitlist place during 2nd and subsequent rounds of HB offers.

[Daogroupie]

The timing makes total sense.

If 29th January was mop up day and the last of the interviews then it makes sense that by 5pm that day they knew that they wanted to interview some more dds as the day had not produced as many great candidates as perhaps seemed possible by their exam performance.

I know candidates this year whose exam performance would have been exceptional but would have found any interview very difficult.

So they then went back to the list and started phoning those who had just made the cut until they had enough to fill the slots they had for 30th January. The parent I know was told that 910am was the only slot left and all other slots were full so they took it. There were probably others that could not make the slots at such short notice.

30th January was backup mop up day. They probably would not have made the calls had the interviews during the day on the 29th been more promising.

This sounds like an excellent strategy and shows that they are able to tell in interview which dds are suitable for the school. DG

[Middlesexmum]

shootmenow, it is very clear you are passionate about NLCS and are heavily involved in the school. But that does not mean you know everything that goes on in admissions. Being present at the interviews is not enough to suggest you know the ins and outs of EVERY candidate's admission process. The school is not going to share that information with parents, no matter how involved they are with the school/PTA/Parents' Guild or whatever (and if they did, it would be highly unprofessional of them).

NLCS is just a school with its strengths and weaknesses like any other. You would do better to be a little less defensive of even the merest hint of criticism of the school.

[firefox]

I have DS's and am in the other side of the river so have no vested interest. However, this happened to the DD of a close family friend last year.

His DD was called unexpectedly by NLCS for interview late in January when he had accepted that she wasn't going to be called and was focused on UCS instead (if my memory serves me correctly).

Clearly you would know more than me Shootmenow but I assume there may be exceptional circumstances where it happens?

[shootmenow]

If that DD was focused on UCS- it was I either for a 6th form place or that DD is a DS