St Albans HS for Girls

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Daogroupie
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Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:01 pm
Location: Herts

Re: St Albans HS for Girls

Post by Daogroupie »

How many Oxbridge offers did they get this year?

Any idea how they create the classes. Is it postcode based like Habs? DG
avidskier
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Joined: Wed Mar 13, 2013 8:28 pm

Re: St Albans HS for Girls

Post by avidskier »

They got 13 Oxbridge offers this year, a record with about 25 girls applying..
But this is due to their exceptionally able yeargroup and I think it is fair to say that it will go back down to normal levels next year (normally around 9). That is out of around 87 girls in the year this year.
Last year they only got 7 offers with only 4 hitting the grades.. so 3 couldn’t go.
One girl is retaking her A Levels at a local college - Unheard of in the past. They have tried making changes this year but the proof will be in the pudding!
Their Oxbridge % is usually at around 9% of the yeargroup, which given their exam results I find woefully inadequate - a real weakness of the school.
I don’t know what prep other schools do for girls wanting to apply, but my DD first had to get past the hurdle of the school’s Oxbridge Coordinator who strongly discouraged her from applying given that she wasn’t your usual straight A* candidate. However after she persevered they supported her with practice interviews (3-5 with parent volunteers and staff she didn’t know), a weekly “tutorial” group roughly aligned to her (obscure) subject choice and an interview with the Head.

Classes are not done by postcode and seem quite randomly allocated. It used to be a mixture of 2 houses in the lower year groups but they recently started mixing all 4 houses so who knows?
Guest55
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Re: St Albans HS for Girls

Post by Guest55 »

avidskier wrote:Their Oxbridge % is usually at around 9% of the yeargroup, which given their exam results I find woefully inadequate - a real weakness of the school.
Not really; not everyone is obsessed with Oxbridge and for some subjects it is not the best choice.
hertslady
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Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2018 11:02 am

Re: St Albans HS for Girls

Post by hertslady »

Anyone know how many Oxbridge offers at Habs girls this year?

Also just received a DAO letter saying they offered down to number 110 this year - are they over offering or are the extra people siblings/music/postcode ? There are only about 60 places I think.
Is 110 standard or higher/lower than last year?
Daogroupie
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Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:01 pm
Location: Herts

Re: St Albans HS for Girls

Post by Daogroupie »

In your DAO letter 110 is the last rank to be offered a place. It is not a number.

DAO has 200 places, 65 are academic and 10 are music.

DAO had 31 Oxbridge offers this year. DG
hertslady
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Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2018 11:02 am

Re: St Albans HS for Girls

Post by hertslady »

I know that 110 is a rank, but isn't it for the exam i.e. 65 places? In which case they are overoffering - or am I mistaken?
ToadMum
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Re: St Albans HS for Girls

Post by ToadMum »

hertslady wrote:I know that 110 is a rank, but isn't it for the exam i.e. 65 places? In which case they are overoffering - or am I mistaken?
No, it means that of those who were allocated a place under the Academic criterion, the person allocated the 65th place available was ranked 110 in score order. Not everyone who sits the test actually applies for a place at the school. It may be that the top 45 scorers also got really good scores for fully selective state or independent schools and chose not to apply to DAO at all, or that numbers 1 - 50 and 96 - 200 applied but those ranked 51 - 95 chose not to, or whatever.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx
Daogroupie
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Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:01 pm
Location: Herts

Re: St Albans HS for Girls

Post by Daogroupie »

This is exactly the same as in private schools. The only difference is DAO gives each student their exact total mark, their rank compared to other applicants and the breakdown of the three separate marks and the private schools do not.

Let just imagine that St Albans High school for girls did do this. They would give each dd their English mark, their Maths mark, their total mark and their rank within all the applicants.

Then on their website they would be able to quote the last rank to get a place so let's say that 400 applied and that they needed to go down to rank 250 to fill their places then if you were rank 260 you could check on the website and see how far down the waiting list you were.

DAO has 65 places. As so many sit DAO as a mock as it is the first exam on 1st September and many also sit HBS, QE and Latymer and prefer those schools it has taken DAO to rank 110 to fill the 65 places on allocation day March 1st.

Now 30 days later five of those students have given up their places and DAO is now on rank 115.

DAO has 65 places and that cannot change. What does change is how far down the ranks it takes to fill those 65 places. DG
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