Westminster School: Encyclopedia II - Westminster School - Entry

Westminster School - Entry

There are 4 main points of entry for prospective pupils:

• For the Under School, at ages 7 and 11, judged by a combination of internal exam and interview.
• For the Lower School, at age 13, judged by either Common Entrance, a standardised, national set of exams for entrance to independent schools, for standard entry, or the Challenge, an internal set of exams, for scholarship entry, as well as interview.
• For the Upper School, at age 16, judged by subject-specific exams and interviews and conditional upon GCSE results. This is the only point of entry for girls, and a handful of boys.

As well as the Queen's Scholarships, which pay from endowment one half of boarding fees, and of which there are (almost always) 8 in each year, pupils applying for entry under the Challenge have available a small number, usually 2, of Honorary Scholarships for boys who could have been scholars but do not want to board. Stephen Hawking was entered for the scholarship in 1952, but fell ill on the day of the Challenge examination.

Those entering the Lower School also have the opportunity to obtain scholarships based on musical talent, and bursaries for those whose parents are not able to fund their tuition. Ignoring scholarships and bursaries, annual fees before incidentals range from £10,500 (approx. $20,000 US) for pupils at the Under School to £23,000 (approx. $42,000 US) for boarding pupils.

The proportion of boarders is around a third, and this is part of the reason that there is saturday school. Most boarders only stay in residence from Monday to Saturday.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Entry", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki