Private Sixth Form Admissions (with full bursary)

Hi! scholarship person here from East of England, may be worth applying to good but not as know schools (basically not eton) as the competition will be lower. The interviews aren’t the hardest but not just focus on academics but what you do outside to further your interest e.g a book etc. Make sure you dress smart, boarder life is chilled but you are more restricted than you would at home. People don’t care that much as no one really talk abt finance, but just act normal and not focus on that. I think that Gresham school in Norfolk may be worth checking out, it is Jame Dyson old school and so has his support, but the people are hit or mis. Also with bursaries you have to give proof abt finances

Thanks so much!

Hi all - newcomer to tsr here:
I'm looking to apply to some sixth forms for the 2027 entry:
- Westminster
- Winchester
- spgs
- clsg
- chelts
- possibly some other private schools but I haven't really done much research yet 😅
+ some state sixth forms as a backup
Does anyone know abt the format of the exams/school life/how hard interviews are? Also any other academically rigorous schools that offer significant financial support? What's life as a boarder like? Due to the obvious financial differences, do people treat you differently?
Id say that I'm quite strong in terms of STEM, so hopefully that would strengthen my application. I heard that both extracurriculars and supercurriculars are highly valued so any advice in regards to that would be extremely helpful.
In terms of grades I'm predicted 99999999887(english literature is severely screwing up my grades 😭)
With mathematics being my strongest subject overall.
I'm planning to apply for maths, further maths, econ and either physics or computer science - so any advice in regards to that would be sooo helpful
Any help would be appreciated! Also any advice in terms of admissions and schools in general would be sooo helpful.
thanks!!

hiiii !!!! late response but i can probably help with the exams and interviews. i'm a y11 student rn who applied and has offers from some privates at that level, though i was a languages applicant, i have a friend who has offers for exactly the same subjects as you haha. i also have some friends who applied to clsg, westminster and spgs
you're starting at a really good time ! clsg (according to my friends) has a 'general' reasoning paper that everyone has to take, then as you're a stem applicant you'll be doing their logic paper i think which is mostly maths. not to be a debbie downer but imo being a stem applicant is actually a disadvantage with those private schools as most people apply for stem instead of humanities/languages/arts so you have way way way more competition that even the best get rejected. though if ur considering applying ur probably super cracked sooo so make sure you lock in on your maths !! 🔥
westminster and spgs afaik give you subject based papers. for maths, they're of varying difficulty so focus on the hard questions at the back of GCSE papers, and also practice a ton of IMC questions as any extra points you can get is worth it. economics has an essay component but also maths parts apparently - you should probably work on essay skills a bit. for physics, look at physics olympiad questions, bcs for one of my schools they apparently made the whole paper from olympiad questions. for compsci just make sure you know how to write your code in both pseudocode and python and you'll be fine. of course make sure to review GCSE content
if you get interviewed that probably means the school wants you and you clear their academic bar. i don't know whether you're the typical studies-a-lot-and-is-a-genius archetype, or wild-nerd-enigma-and-can't-study archetype or something else, but whatever it is, lean into who you are. if you have an obsession with convincing chatGPT that it's sentient just yap about it! collecting ancient postal stamps? yap about it. i yapped a ton about AI market economy and ergativity in linguistics and linguistic isolates and apparently it stood out (as per the offer email). if you genuinely don't like talking about yourself you can also say the most basic stuff like "i play flute" "i do debate" and rely on paper results and predicteds to get you through (you'll need super high ones for that strat though).
but most of all make sure you enjoy the process!!!!!!! it was super fulfilling for me personally and i talked to a ton of people who are so unique and so fun and so nerdy and cool. it's amazing and also good prep for uni applications ❤️ good luck and feel free to dm me if you want in-detail info, i can share general timelines of the applications process and even ask my friends what the exact questions on their papers were. :3

Hi all - newcomer to tsr here:
I'm looking to apply to some sixth forms for the 2027 entry:
- Westminster
- Winchester
- spgs
- clsg
- chelts
- possibly some other private schools but I haven't really done much research yet 😅
+ some state sixth forms as a backup
Does anyone know abt the format of the exams/school life/how hard interviews are? Also any other academically rigorous schools that offer significant financial support? What's life as a boarder like? Due to the obvious financial differences, do people treat you differently?
Id say that I'm quite strong in terms of STEM, so hopefully that would strengthen my application. I heard that both extracurriculars and supercurriculars are highly valued so any advice in regards to that would be extremely helpful.
In terms of grades I'm predicted 99999999887(english literature is severely screwing up my grades 😭)
With mathematics being my strongest subject overall.
I'm planning to apply for maths, further maths, econ and either physics or computer science - so any advice in regards to that would be sooo helpful
Any help would be appreciated! Also any advice in terms of admissions and schools in general would be sooo helpful.
thanks!!

Why not go for s state boarding school or a good Grammar?

Why are you on every post telling people to not go to an independent 🤣