How to get into Eton

Monday February 13th, 2017

Eton College was founded by King Henry VI in 1440 with the specific purpose of educating 70 poor scholars.

These days you don’t need to be poor to go to Eton.  In fact with the annual fees of £ 37,000 (growing annually by 5%), one has to be rather rich to go there. There are a number of options reducing those fees or having to pay nothing at all to study there. We will talk about it in more detail in out next video. So money actually isn’t the only factor if a factor at all in getting into Eton!

So what is?

First is the timing. First entry into Eton is at 13 and application has to be submitted by the time your son is 10,5 and preparation well underway by then. If you failed to register your son before he is 10,5 it will not be possible to go there at 13, but the next opportunity will be to try again to join Eton for the A-Levels at the age of 16.

Secondly – academic ability. Now, Eton does run a pre-test to identify the IQ of their candidates. This is an online test that tests their Mathematical, verbal and non-verbal abilities. This test is staggered during the year for those with Autumn, Spring or Summer birthdays to sit the test as close as possible to their 11th birthday.

260 successful boys are offered firm places every year plus 120 places offered as a “maybe” as around 60 of the offers are turned down by the boys who, perhaps, were also successful at their other school entries and chose instead either a day school or a mixed school such as Oundle, Wellington, Marlborough or Sevenoaks.

Eton is not for everyone. First of all it is a full boarding school, which means that the boys stay at the school during the term time and see their families only every once in three weeks or so for an exeat weekend or a holiday.

In the last decade Eton has become exceedingly overwhelmed with applications from the overseas students. The number of applicants now stands at 4 per a place, over a 1000 candidates from all over the world compete every year to get in. Children often get “over-tutored”. The initial assessment, that the school runs when the child is 10, is designed to identify his natural abilities, or IQ, plus the interview that is run at the same time will determine if the boy will be able to fit in.

Once this hurdle is overcome and the place is offered, the final test in the year 8 will be either the King’s Scholarship test, Eton test or Common Entrance test in Maths, English, History, Geography, languages (French, Spanish, Latin or Greek) at 13+, but, according to the Eton head of admissions, practically everyone offered a place will pass the next stage successfully.

Easy? No. The secret to passing those tests is to get into a really good Prep school and/or prepare your son.  If you are super clever and know the curriculum you can do some preparation yourself or, what parents do more often – prepare your son using tutors. Experienced tutors that prepare for schools like Radley, Winchester, Westminster or Eton are their weight in gold, literally. They charge anything up to £100 per hour and you will be lucky to find one that’s available.

How much tutoring your child will need would depend what is his Prep school doing at the moment for him, how clever he is naturally and how fast he processes information. As with anything – the more practice you get the better you become. However, if your son is naturally not too academic, we don’t advise over-tutoring him, depriving him of his childhood just so that he gets into a school where he will be struggling to keep up. There needs to be a good balance of a happy childhood and ambition.

If you need advice on how to choose the right school for your child and how to get into it, please get in touch.