Admissions process

There are approximately 60 places available to join Year 7 each year. Boys admitted at 11+ will join the approximately 60 boys who transfer from the UCS Junior Branch to the Senior School.

Our friendly and experienced Admissions team will be happy to answer any enquiries you have, and to guide you through each stage of the process. Please call 020 7433 2117/2118, or email [email protected].

We strongly encourage all families to get to know UCS better by visiting us.

Open Evenings run during the Autumn Term; the dates for families interested in applying for an 11+ (2025) place are published here when available.

Open Evenings start at 5pm with a series of talks from teachers, pupils and the Headmaster in the Great Hall. These are followed by prospective families embarking on self-guided tours of the school where they can visit department areas to meet teaching staff and current pupils. Registration is not required for Open Evenings.

In addition to our Open Evenings, we hold an information evening each autumn for families who have applied for, or who are considering applying for, an 11+ place with fee assistance (a bursary) for the following September. There is no need to register for this event.

We also offer private daytime tours of the Senior School to prospective families. This is a great opportunity to come and visit the school during the teaching day and provides you with first-hand experience of life here at UCS. Each tour will run for approximately 40 minutes, with the option of meeting one of the Admissions team at the end of the tour.

To book a suitable time and date, please contact the Admissions Office at [email protected].

The deadline has passed for applications for 11+ 2024 entry.

We are now accepting applications for places to join Year 7 in September 2025. The deadline for applications for 11+ (2025) is Monday 11th November 2024.

To apply for an 11+ (2025) place, please complete the online application form below. You will be redirected to our secure online form and payment pages. We estimate that the application process will take approximately 20 minutes.

In some cases, you may wish to include additional information (as directed on the form), in which case the application may take longer. You will be able to partly complete the form and save it for completion later if you so wish. As part of the application, you will be required to upload a photograph of the applicant.

There is a £150 registration fee payable (with the exception of bursary applicants) when you submit your application; you will be directed to our online payment facility when you have completed the form. There is no need to print and post your application, or to post cheques.

If you have any queries, wish to send additional information or documents, or would like to make any comments, please contact the Admissions team at [email protected], or call us on 020 7433 2117/ 2118.

Read our Data Privacy Notice for Parents and Guardians.

Once the application deadline has passed, we request a confidential academic reference from each candidate’s current school. Every candidate is then invited to sit our Entrance Exam, which for 2024 entry took place on Monday 8th January 2024. The date of the 2025 assessment day is confirmed for Monday 6th January 2025.

The format and content of our 11+ Entrance Examinations match National Curriculum requirements for the end of Key Stage 2. Therefore, all 11+ candidates are judged primarily on their performance in the core curriculum subjects of English and Maths which are taught daily in every school. We do not require candidates to sit a reasoning paper. We have always advised that there should be no need for any additional preparation, particularly intensive tutoring, to sit our Entrance Exams.

The format of our English and Maths 11+ Entrance Exams, which are taken here at UCS, is as follows:

• English Examination – one hour 15 minutes. Time will be split between two sections, namely Reading Comprehension (45 minutes) and Creative Writing (30 minutes).
• Maths Examination – one hour 15 minutes. There will be three sections: Multiple Choice, Core Mathematics and Maths Problems. All questions will continue to cover the National Curriculum Mathematics topics.

Please note that we do not provide past papers.

Taking account of the Entrance Exam papers and the academic references, we invite as many candidates to interview as we can. Interviews take place in late January and consist of a mini-lesson and a one-to-one interview with a member of our teaching staff. Parents are invited on this occasion too, and will have the opportunity to meet our Senior Leaders and some of our pupils.

Offers are made in mid-February.

Our aim is to ensure that a full UCS education is available for all, without financial impediment.

Bursaries are financial awards which range from 10% to 100% of the cost of fees and, in addition, include assistance with co-curricular activities which have a direct bearing on a pupil’s education, such as curriculum-related school trips. These would include music tours, fieldwork and so on. In addition, we make a digital device (currently a Chromebook) available to bursary pupils free of charge.

Families are asked to indicate their interest in a bursary award on the initial application form – and bursary applicants do not pay the £150 registration fee. Those whose sons are called to interview will be contacted by the Finance Office and asked to submit their financial particulars on a separate Financial Disclosure Form to allow us to assess eligibility for an award. All information submitted is treated with utmost confidentiality.

Our assessment of eligibility involves the calculation of Net Relevant Income. This first considers gross annual income of both parents from all sources, minus reasonable housing costs, e.g. annual rent or mortgage. A small allowance is also made for siblings. The size of the bursary award will be informed by this figure. Please note that we will assume that capital assets (including significant equity in the family home) should be realised to meet school fees before fee assistance is offered.

The outcome of the bursary eligibility assessment is made known when we make an offer of a place. Note that there are no additional academic selection criteria applied to boys whose families are applying for a bursary.

All bursary awards are reviewed annually. Awards may go up or down from one academic year to the next reflecting families’ changing circumstances, to ensure that our funds are directed to those most in need.

Any family that experiences difficulty paying our fees should contact the Financial Controller, or the Bursary Coordinator, without delay. A limited amount of fee assistance may be available via our hardship fund for families under such circumstances.

Although our funding of fee assistance is generous, we cannot guarantee to offer a bursary to all those whose sons receive an offer and who are eligible. Under such circumstances we will take account of all aspects of the candidate’s application to UCS to determine those whose bursary applications have been successful.

UCS has a proud musical tradition. We believe that music, of all kinds, makes a unique contribution to the life of the school and to the educational experience of our pupils – whether they consider themselves specialist musicians or not.

The ensemble programme is extensive and diverse, including a Symphony Orchestra, a 50-piece Concert Band, a Chamber Orchestra, four choirs, Wind, String and Brass ensembles and three Jazz groups.

Chamber Music is especially strong, with our groups achieving notable success in national competitions, while we have recently inaugurated a Rock School to include Popular Music. Every two years a full-scale musical is put on in conjunction with the Drama Department.

A Music Scholarship at UCS will entitle the holder to a reduction in the annual school fees of between 10% and 25%. In exceptional cases an award of up to 50% of fees may be made. The precise value will depend on the standard of applicants and, therefore, the competition in any one year. Music scholars are also entitled to free instrumental tuition at school on an instrument (including voice) at the discretion of the Director of Music.

Termly fees include lunch and personal accident insurance.

Termly fees are payable in full on or before the first day of the term for which they are due. Payment by means of direct debit is generally required. A scheme for payment of fees by means of three equal monthly instalments per term by direct debit is available.

In order to accept the offer of a place at UCS, a deposit is requested. Under normal circumstances this is not returned if the place is not taken up. Full Terms and Conditions will be provided at the time of the offer.

A registration fee of £150 is payable at the time of application. This is waived for families applying for a bursary.