Admission to Harrow

At what age do pupils come to Harrow?

The School also admits up to sixteen pupils each year directly into the Sixth Form. These pupils are normally aged sixteen or seventeen.

For more information on why you should choose Harrow for your son click here.

We are unable to accept any further applications for places for entry in 2008.

The admissions process in brief

The admissions process for entry to Harrow at age 13

• Step 1
  Contact Registrar for visit to School (this can happen at any stage)

• Step 2
  Complete Registration Form, (before your son is eleven if possible) and send to the Admissions Office.

• Step 3
  Age 10 (or later depending on when you have applied): Harrow obtains report from the candidate's school

• Step 4 (optional)
  Meet House Master(s) and seek a provisional boarding house place. This step cannot be guaranteed and can come after Step 5.

• Step 5
  Age 11: Harrow conducts a short interview and tests

• Step 6
  Offered Guaranteed Place or put on Waiting List or application rejected

• Step 7
  Year of entry: take scholarship exam and/or Common Entrance Examination. Overseas applicants take tests in science and extra European language (if appropriate) to enable teachers to put them in correct classes when they start at Harrow.

• Step 8
  Age 13: start at Harrow

The admissions process for entry to Harrow at age 16

• Step 1
  Complete either a Registration Form or a Scholarship Application Form and send this to Tim Hersey at the Admissions Office.

• Step 2
  We will request a reference from the student's current school.

• Step 3
  Strong applicants come to Harrow to sit a test or be interviewed by a teacher in each of the AS/A-level subjects they intend to study. Offers are made as soon as possible after an applicant has been seen.

Applicants for Sixth Form entry from Hong Kong can be tested and interviewed in Hong Kong itself in the September and October one year before entry. After this process, applicants can be offered either a place or a scholarship at Harrow. For full details of the agent handling this testing (Academic Asia) please contact Tim Hersey on tgh@harrowschool.org.uk.

What are the 11+ admissions tests?

The best way to prepare for the tests is to do some Verbal Reasoning Tests (available in W H Smith's) and to think about the answers to obvious questions such as 'what do you like to do in your free time?', 'what book have you read that you enjoyed?' and 'what have been your greatest achievements at school?'

It is usually possible to arrange for pupils who live abroad to sit the tests abroad. But they will be disadvantaged if they cannot come for an interview at Harrow at some point, ideally after they have sat the test.

Once the tests are completed we offer as many places as we can on the basis of the three pieces of evidence:

• the references we have taken up from the boys' current schools
• the Verbal Reasoning and English Literacy test results
• the interviews

For pupils whose schools are able to prepare them for the Common Entrance Exam these places will be subject to achieving a pass in this exam.

We are looking for boys who are bright AND who are going to benefit from being at a boarding school (in other words they have interests outside the classroom). The purpose of the tests is not to make Harrow more academically selective: it is to help us to make offers on a controlled basis and in a way which is fair. We receive many more applications than we have places.

Some candidates are placed on a Waiting List and they will be offered places if vacancies arise. Unsuccessful candidates will be encouraged to register for an alternative school but they will also be told that they may apply to be reassessed in a year's time if their prep school feels that a great deal of academic progress has been made in that year. We always leave a number of places for good late applicants or late developers.

What are the key ages at Harrow?

Age 16-17: First year of Sixth Form: 4 AS-level exams. Up to 20 pupils join at the start of this year.
Age 17-18: Final year of Sixth Form: 3 or 4 A-level exams.

Age 18-19 Entry to University

Where do our pupils come from?