Tough week in Jan2017

[Northdad]

Out of curiosity I had a look around at the dates for in some North, West London Indie Exams.

W/c 9th consists of St Paul's Girls, Habs Girls, NLCS
and one of the North London Consortium groups. So any DD wanting to go for all of these schools will have exams 4 out of 5 days.

I haven't looked at St Albans and City of London Girls dates yet. Wouldnt be surprised if one of these schools fills up the 5th day.

By coming out of the Consortia these schools are getting their pound of flesh from the DCs!

[Daogroupie]

There is also Highgate to fit in that many girls I know will also sit, but at least HBS is not in that week as it was last year.

St Albans will be the loser. I think they were mad to come out of the consortium and increase their fees by 9% at the same time. It will be interesting to sit if their numbers of girls applying goes down. DG

[adelante]

Sounds very much like schools higher up the food chain resent seeing the number of applicants skyrocket year after year (with associated admin hassle and guessing game as to offers/places etc), and trying to regain upper hand in the process by making it more difficult to sit the tests in the first place

[Daogroupie]

If selective private schools want to reduce their costs and the amount of students applying there are lots of options open to them.

They can double or triple the application fee and reduce the amount of open days they hold, they can reduce the amount of time applications are open and introduce a first round test that knocks out all but a small percent of applicants.

HBS only has to mark 300 English and Maths papers because they knock out 2300 dds by using CEM as a first round test.

Private schools can also drastically reduce the number of students they interview to keep down costs.

I don't see private schools doing anything at all to discourage applicants. Why would they when there is a risk they might miss out on the best students?

It is no accident that HBS and QE who open their doors to applicants from everywhere end up with some of the very best students and a corresponding rank in the league tables.

St Albans and City have a great opportunity to reduce costs by introducing a first round paper with a very small percentage going through to the second round or just reducing the percentage of interviews. Last year St Albans had 300 applicants and interviewed in group task 200. That does not need to be so high. Habs had 600 applicants and interviewed 400. That could easily be 200. I think St Albans would like to have more of the Habs applicants from North London so they certainly will not clash their exam date with any of the major North London schools.
.
St Albans and City are clearly waiting to see what slots are left to put their exams in.

Which one will nab that final day in the first week? DG

[11+pass]

Gosh these girls will be totally drained out before that week ends. I can only suggest to parents that only make your DD sit the exam if you are really serious about that school. Your DDs will only be 10 years old then and there's only so much that they can cope with. There's absolutely no need to make her sit a particular school just because her best friend is sitting it or just to see how many offers she gets. Please be realistic and practical especially with distances between school and home and always remember that a child that wants to do well will do well regardless of what school he/she ends up in.

[Daogroupie]

So how many schools did your dd sit? DG

[11+pass]

Three, 2 GS and 1 indie

[adelante]

If selective private schools want to reduce their costs and the amount of students applying there are lots of options open to them.

They can double or triple the application fee and reduce the amount of open days they hold, they can reduce the amount of time applications are open and introduce a first round test that knocks out all but a small percent of applicants.

HBS only has to mark 300 English and Maths papers because they knock out 2300 dds by using CEM as a first round test.

Private schools can also drastically reduce the number of students they interview to keep down costs.

I don't see private schools doing anything at all to discourage applicants. Why would they when there is a risk they might miss out on the best students?

my post above is just an educated guess based on fact that many of the schools we applied for this year have explicitly, at their respective open day, mentioned drain on resources, exhorted parents to be reasonable about target schools and (although this more implicitly) appeared to really feel like application numbers were a little bit overboard

reduction of inscription time or increased fee would work too, but I'd argue that's probably a less efficient way to make the selection they appear willing to make - which is tourist/aspirational application, because the process is convenient

this may be a bit of a cynical view, but again, bits of this were explicitly conveyed by schools, so I am naturally assuming at least part of the intent is to give a gentle nudge to parents that maybe, sitting six different schools is not the way to go

[ToadMum]

Perhaps they could all run a £100 pre-test in the autumn term - only those scoring 80% or above eligible to pay them another £100 / £200 / £300 or whatever to sit the real thing? A bit like HBS and the Sutton schools but with hard cash involved. That would probably put a certain number off (possibly those whose DC would be dependent on a bursary, should they prove academically suitable, but one could leave that little conundrum for the schools to discuss with the Charity Commission, I expect).

[Losttheplot]

Interestingly Highgate has moved its exam to 12 December 2016..