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For more information regarding how we can support people applying to or at ASL, or more broadly with the US Curriculum, please click here to visit our US Curriculum webpage.

Few schools in London generate quite the same level of parental interest as the American School in London (ASL). Perched in St John’s Wood, roughly two and a half miles from the centre of the city, it has spent seven decades building a reputation that now places its graduates at Yale, Oxford, Imperial and Bocconi in the same year. The waiting lists are long, the fees are significant and the academic expectations are real.

This guide sets out what parents genuinely need to know, whether they are considering the school for the first time, working through an application, or already enrolled and trying to make the most of what ASL offers.

What kind of school is ASL?

ASL occupies a substantial purpose-built campus in NW8 with an underground six-lane swimming pool, a performance space that seats 450, dedicated ceramics and photography studios, and a design and fabrication facility called the MILL, stocked with 3D printers, laser cutters and robotics equipment. These are not typical London school facilities. They are exceptional ones.

There is no school uniform, which tends to catch British families off guard. Classes in the Lower School have between 18 and 22 pupils supported by two members of staff. By the High School, groups shrink to around 15 with a single subject specialist. The teaching environment is deliberately flexible and collaborative rather than formal.

The school draws from a genuinely international community. Around 76% of pupils have at least one American parent, but that figure has been shifting steadily. Approximately 41% of pupils hold a second passport, and British families now make up a meaningful and growing share of the intake. In 2025, 89% of enrolled families chose to remain for the following year.

A-levels and the IB are not on offer here. The curriculum follows American national standards throughout: Common Core in English and Mathematics, Next Generation Science Standards, ACTFL proficiency frameworks for languages. Parents who enrol their children at ASL are choosing a consistent, coherent American education from the earliest years to the point of university application, and that clarity of purpose is one of the school’s genuine strengths.

The admissions process

Before Grade 5

For children entering up to and including Grade 4, the admissions process involves school reports, a teacher reference and an applicant questionnaire. There is no standardised testing at this stage. Entry is competitive at every level and places at the Lower School are particularly limited relative to the number of families who want them.

The application itself

The application asks for school reports and a confidential teacher reference, but the element that catches many families unprepared is the parent statement. ASL asks parents to articulate specifically why an American education is right for their child. This statement is read alongside the teacher reference, so the two need to tell a consistent story. The school has a genuine and well-established culture of parental involvement, and applications that reflect a real understanding of that tend to stand out.

The application fee is £360 inclusive of VAT and is waived for financial aid applicants. Applications submitted by 15 January receive decisions by the end of February. Those completed by 15 March are notified by 15 April. Everything after that point is assessed on a rolling basis.

The waiting list is substantial but more fluid than many families expect. Movement is driven by cohort dynamics rather than a simple queue, which means a place that looks unavailable in February may open up by June. Families on the list are better served by staying in active contact with the admissions office than by quietly waiting.

Grade 5 and above: the testing requirement

From Grade 5 upwards, ASL requires a recent standardised test result in English and Mathematics as part of every application. The accepted tests are the ISEE (Independent School Entrance Exam), administered by the Educational Records Bureau, and the SSAT (Secondary School Admissions Test). The ISEE operates across three levels tied to the year of entry: Lower Level covers Grades 5 and 6, Middle Level covers Grades 7 and 8, and Upper Level applies from Grade 9 onwards. Each sitting includes verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, reading comprehension and mathematics achievement sections, plus a timed essay. Pupils can sit the ISEE up to three times in a single academic year, and ASL recommends the at-home online format for most families as the most straightforward option.

It is worth being clear about what ASL does not accept: the CAT, any ISEB assessment, TerraNova, UK SATs and US state tests are all excluded. The school does not operate a minimum pass mark. Every score is read in the context of the full application, and the admissions team is candid that families often worry far more about testing results than the situation warrants.

Source: asl.org/admissions/apply/testing

The curriculum: what surprises families

For families joining from the United States

American families tend to find the academic side of ASL straightforward. The grading system, course structures and classroom expectations will be recognisable. What takes adjustment is everything else: a new city, a school community that is more internationally mixed than most families will have encountered in the States, and the particular rhythms of London life. Children who arrive mid-year sometimes take a term to find their feet socially, and targeted support during that period is often about confidence rather than catching up academically.

For families joining from British or IB schools

The academic adjustment here is real and worth preparing for. British schools tend to introduce extended analytical writing at GCSE; ASL expects it considerably earlier. By the middle school years, pupils are already constructing thesis-led arguments, working with primary and secondary sources and producing written work that requires a degree of independent critical thinking that takes time to develop if it has not been practised before. Writing support is the most consistent gap we see in pupils transferring from British and IB schools.

Mathematics presents a different kind of transition. Common Core places emphasis on conceptual understanding and being able to explain reasoning, rather than executing procedures correctly. A pupil with strong procedural skills, which most well-taught British pupils have, can initially find the question style disorienting even when the actual mathematics is within reach. This is a gap that closes predictably with the right guidance.

The PSAT, SAT and AP: how they fit together

These three assessments sit at the heart of the American High School experience and are worth understanding clearly before a child reaches Grade 9.

The PSAT is a practice examination taken in Grades 9 and 10. In Grade 11 it takes on greater significance, doubling as the entry route to the National Merit Scholarship Programme, one of the most prestigious academic recognition schemes in the United States and a meaningful addition to a university application.

The SAT is the main standardised university admissions test, taken in Grades 11 and 12 and marked out of 1600. The ACT covers broadly the same ground and is accepted equally by American universities; the two tests suit different types of thinkers and it is sensible to try both before committing. British families should note that the SAT in this context refers to the American College Board examination and has nothing to do with the UK Key Stage tests, which ASL does not use in its own admissions process.

AP courses stand apart from both the PSAT and SAT. Rather than being a single examination, each AP is a year-long taught subject, assessed by a terminal examination in May and scored on a scale from 1 to 5. A pupil studying AP Chemistry, AP Calculus and AP English Language is broadly doing the equivalent of three A-level subjects, with the additional benefit that scores of 4 and 5 frequently convert into university course credits, meaning students can start their degree with advanced standing. ASL runs AP provision across more than 20 subjects.

According to the College Board’s published admissions data, rigour of secondary school record is rated the single most important academic factor by admissions offices at every Ivy League university, sitting above essays, teacher references and extracurricular achievements. In practice, competitive applicants to selective universities tend to carry four to six AP subjects in Grade 11. The subjects chosen matter as much as the number: a pupil who wants to study medicine but has avoided AP Biology and AP Chemistry will struggle to make a convincing case on paper, regardless of what they write about themselves. The SAT in isolation, without an AP programme behind it, rarely satisfies the expectations of the most selective institutions. For those applying to UK universities, fours and fives in relevant AP subjects are well-regarded by admissions teams at Oxbridge and throughout the Russell Group.

Source: College Board AP data, 2025; Common Data Set Section C7 filings, Ivy League institutions, 2024-25

University destinations

The 2025 leavers list gives the clearest picture of where an ASL education can take a pupil. The 135 graduates between them made 1,608 applications to universities in 10 countries. American destinations included Yale, Brown, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell and Dartmouth, alongside 226 other colleges and universities. In the UK, pupils were accepted at Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Durham and Edinburgh, amongst 82 others. Eighteen Canadian universities featured, as did 14 European institutions, with Bocconi and IE Madrid the most frequently chosen.

Source: ASL academic profile of graduating class, published 2025

What this range illustrates is that the American curriculum keeps options genuinely open. A pupil with strong AP results does not have to choose between the United States and the United Kingdom when applying. Both routes are available simultaneously, and that breadth is particularly useful for internationally mobile families who may not yet know where they will be living when their child finishes school.

Where pupils most often need support

At Middle School level, the most frequent gaps are analytical writing, independent reading stamina and the ability to manage multiple concurrent assignments without a great deal of external structure. At High School level, the conversation shifts to AP preparation and, in Grades 11 and 12, to the SAT. The pupils who perform best in their AP examinations are consistently those who have worked steadily throughout the year. The ones who struggle are almost always those who underestimated how much sustained effort a full AP programme requires.

For families preparing an ISEE or SSAT application, the key issue is usually familiarity rather than ability. British pupils encounter question styles and mathematical framing that are unfamiliar even when the underlying knowledge is solid. A short period of focused preparation makes the test feel recognisable rather than alien, and that shift in confidence tends to show up directly in the result.

Practical notes for families

Fees 2025/26, inclusive of VAT

Lower School fees stand at £40,188 per year. Middle School fees are £44,616, and High School fees are £46,428. All figures include VAT and are billed in two equal instalments across the academic year. Financial aid is available on a means-tested basis; over 225 pupils currently receive support, with awards ranging from 25% to the full fee. The £360 application fee is waived for families applying for financial aid at the same time.

Source: asl.org

WorkX: work experience in the High School

ASL runs a structured work experience initiative called WorkX, available to pupils in Grades 10 through 12. In summer 2025, 135 pupils completed 169 placements across 65 organisations. American university applications place considerable weight on how pupils spend their summers, and a WorkX placement with a substantive employer tells a far more compelling story than unstructured time off. Families are wise to begin thinking about this from Grade 9 rather than leaving it until the summer before applications are due.

Source: ASL WorkX programme data, 2025

Support within the school

ASL has in-house provision for English as an Additional Language, educational psychology, learning differences, speech and language therapy and pastoral counselling across all year groups. These services are well regarded and well used. They are designed, however, to address whole-school needs at a structural level. The one-to-one academic support that a pupil needs when adjusting to a new curriculum, or when preparing for AP examinations that will directly affect their university options, sits in a different category and is where specialist tuition tends to make the most visible difference.

Is ASL right for your child?

ASL suits children who are self-motivated, intellectually engaged and capable of managing a demanding workload across multiple subjects simultaneously. It suits families who want genuine dual access to American and British universities, who value a school culture that is collaborative rather than hierarchical, and who are prepared to invest in supporting their child properly through a curriculum that rewards effort and independent thinking.

It does not suit every child, and the admissions team is usually honest about that. The best starting point for any family still deciding is to attend one of the Open House sessions, which give a much more accurate sense of the school’s atmosphere than any written description can.

If you have already decided on ASL and are thinking about how to prepare your child well, whether for the admissions process, for a transition from another system, or for AP and SAT preparation in the High School years, we would be glad to have a conversation about what support would look like in practice.

Athena Tuition

We work with pupils at ASL and other international schools across London, providing specialist tuition for ISEE and SSAT preparation, American curriculum transition, SAT coaching and AP subject support from Grades 5 through 12. More information here.

Sometimes its worth reflecting on what you really do as a company and why.

Athena Tuition has been around now since 2013, and we think that by now we know what it takes to run a tutoring agency!

But for everyone’s clarity, and even our own – what is it that we really do?

Fundamentally, Athena Tuition is a tutoring agency, (or tuition agency depending on what some people might call it). On a day-to-day basis, people call or email us looking for a good private tutor for themselves or their child, while separately tutors seek to join our books as available private tutors, finding work through us, simplifying their admin and bolstering their credibility by joining a reputable agency.

Essentially then, we’re middlemen. Simplifying, improving and speeding up the process of connecting student to tutor. But why do such services even exist you might ask? Why don’t people just go direct and find a tutor?

Both good questions- and the internet has made it easier in many ways for people to find a tutor. Historically, people found tutors through word of mouth or local notice boards, but since the internet has become widespread, you can easily find sites with lists of tutors who tout their services directly. For some who are willing to wade through choices and who feel equipped to be a good judge of character and tutoring ability this might be where they find their ideal tutor.

However, for anyone who wants to find an especially good match for their son or daughter and doesn’t want to take any shortcuts, it often makes sense to call professionals who deal with tutors and tutoring on an everyday basis. This is where we as a tutor agency step in: a client tells us what exactly they’re looking for in any amount of detail and then we go and do the legwork searching, sourcing and negotiating with tutors to find the right match. We have already done the backend work to ensure tutors have the right DBS checks, references, positive demeanour, proven experience and prior successful results to make us feel they will go on to provide an excellent service for that student.

Given that it works with tutors week-in and week-out, a tutoring agency develops experience with tutors, students and results that just can’t be matched by a typical parent who may only ever look for and deal with tutors a few times in their life.

What an agency offers to tutors on the other hand, is a trusted, filtered and high-quality source of new opportunities to work with students in whatever subject and level they specialise with, and a platform which automates some of the admin drudgery that they would otherwise be forced to do. We’ve had tutors in the past bring clients they found in person to work with through our agency as they preferred to keep proceedings professional and efficient, which we always find heartening!

Ultimately Athena Tuition knows what it is that we do fundamentally, and we hope to continue to be able to provide these services to many more parents, students and tutors for many years to come. Sometimes though, it’s just worth restating for our own benefit, and anyone else out there who is curious!

By Wesley Sanders- Director of Athena Tuition

Güllich et al (2025) published an interesting study this year. It revealed that world class youth performers and world class adult performers tend to be discrete groups of people, with only about 10% of outstanding youth performers going on to occupy the outstanding adult performer category later in their life. This applies across many disciplines, such as sports, chess, music and academia. (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adt7790).

The obvious thing to ask is “why is this the case?”

Of course, motivation is one explainer; when young people excel, it tends to be parent-mediated, whereas adult success tends to be self-motivated. But, the study suggests that there may be a causal relationship between why the circumstances that predict outstanding childhood performance negatively correlate with adult excellence. The primary element being that childhood high-performance tends to come from a very intensive and unidimensional approach, yet those who excel in adulthood tend to have had a more multidisciplinary childhood, and may even sometimes underperform some of their peers initially. Their ascension to the apex of human functioning comes later.

This phenomenon might help explain the admissions methodology of top secondary schools like Westminster, St Paul’s, or Wycombe Abbey. The final decision happens in the interview room, where the schools look for the spark of a rounded child who has lived a life beyond the desk, not simply a rehearsed exam machine.

For the question of “how to excel at the interview?”, a leaf can be taken out of this study’s book, and that is that there is no substitute for honest life experience to foster interests, maturity and that twinkle that schools are looking for. Mock interviews can help get students used to the format, so that they are more relaxed on the day and able to give a better account of themselves, but this is not the same as trying to coach a performance, which interviewers can see right through. With a balanced and varied childhood, most of the interview preparation takes care of itself!

Introduction

A university degree can have great benefits.

• It can equip people with the high-level technical expertise required to do certain jobs, like Engineering and Medicine;
• a degree from a top university can open many doors later in life due to the valuable credentials one earns;
• one can mix with other talented, driven people and make invaluable life connections;
• higher education is also a useful transitional period for an individual to gain independence living away from home yet still within the security of a broader structure of an institution.

In our culture today, we are so used to taking for granted that going to university is a good and aspirational thing to aim for, we rarely take time to consider why this belief is so ingrained (it hasn’t always been) and to consider the other side of the argument i.e. the potential costs of university higher education and why one may consider alternative routes after leaving school. (YouGov: nearly half of UK public say university participation is too high).

We will explore some topics relating to this below.

50% of young people into higher education.

In September 1999, Tony Blair announced his target to get 50% of young adults to enter higher education by 2010. (Plan for huge rise in university numbers | UK news | The Guardian)

At the time it was 39%, so this marked an 11% increase (SN02630.pdf)

The rationale given for this was that university graduates had “higher-level skills” and so were more employable / had more opportunities and, therefore, by increasing the number of graduates, we, as a country, could participate more meaningfully in the “knowledge economy”.

This 50% threshold was achieved late last decade, however with hindsight, has it made life better for young people?

Why do companies prefer to hire university graduates?

Firstly, barring specialised vocational degrees, one has to think why employers were preferentially hiring people with degrees in the first place? In many cases, it wasn’t due to what was learned on the course, it was because the barrier to entry to get into the courses acted as a filter selecting the brightest and most industrious people. Employing these people is desirable as, probabilistically, they will produce the most value for the company (a company wants to maximise its value per employee). (Signalling (economics) – Wikipedia)

So, if you expand the number of people who have a degree, it doesn’t mean more people are suddenly bright and talented (as these are relative terms), instead, it dilutes the significance of having a degree as being an indicator of work-ethic and competence.

Sought-after courses at top universities get more competitive as the number of applicants increase and they can’t increase their intake much (if at all). (Has Oxbridge Become More Competitive? 10 Year Review) So, the way to increase participation is to lower entry requirements which is done by increasing the number of universities and courses available. (List of universities in England – Wikipedia)

The culture is in an oxymoronic state of the unquestioned dogma of “we must get more people into university than last year” and the real-world value to the students these courses are bestowing.

Universities and political ideology

Following from this point, nowadays there is worry that university campuses have become “ideological indoctrination chambers”, conditioning students toward radical politics, ideological fragility and conformity, the prioritisation of emotion-based thinking over critical thought and a glorification of victimhood. This hostile, censorious puritanism has grown to a point where it is difficult to reverse course.

(40% of Millennials OK with limiting speech offensive to minorities | Pew Research Center,

“Freedom-restricting harassment” of gender critical academics creating barriers to research, government review finds – The Free Speech Union,

A culture of victimhood and intolerance – spiked,

The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World: Amazon.co.uk: Doyle, Andrew: 9780349135328: Books,

The New Clerisy: How Thomas Sowell Predicted the Rise and Ruin of DEI Bureaucracies | Hoover Institution The New Clerisy: How Thomas Sowell Predicted the Rise and Ruin of DEI Bureaucracies)

This isn’t just a phenomenon within university student cohorts, but also amongst teaching staff. In the UK, the Times Higher Education (THE) surveys of university staff (including academics and professional/support roles) revealed a stark imbalance:

• 2024 General Election (pre-election poll): 64% intended to vote Labour, 12% Green, 11% Liberal Democrats, 4% Conservative (UK election: two-thirds of university staff plan to vote Labour)

• A 2017 Adam Smith Institute report estimated 80% of UK university lecturers identify as left-wing, with conservatives particularly scarce in humanities, social sciences, and arts. (Lackademia: Why do academics lean left? — Adam Smith Institute)

In the US, FIRE 2024 Faculty Survey (largest recent survey: 6,269 faculty at 55 major US colleges/universities):

• ~61% identify with or lean Democrat.
• ~12% identify with or lean Republican.

(Silence in the Classroom: The 2024 FIRE Faculty Survey Report | The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression)

Yale University Analyses (Buckley Institute):

• 2024: ~77% Democrat-affiliated, <3% Republican (overall ratio ~28:1).
• 2025: 82.3% Democrat, 2.3% Republican (ratio >36:1); 27 departments with zero Republicans.

(NEW: Faculty Political Diversity at Yale: Democrats Outnumber Republicans 28 to 1 – Buckley Institute)

This means that the “Overton Window” drifts and it is very difficult for individuals with their heads screwed on not to be taken along, to some degree, by this ideological undercurrent. (Overton window | Political Science, Origin, Examples, Shifts, & Criticism | Britannica)

Do modern jobs make us tick?

It is also worth considering our history. One important aspect of human nature is the desire to feel useful, needed and valued. For most of human history, our jobs aligned with this as we lived in small communities where each person could easily see the impact of the work they were doing as they were providing a good or service directly to that small community. (Dunbar’s number – Wikipedia)

For example there would usually be someone who was “the butcher” and he/she would provide meat to the community, another would be the seamstress, carpenter, run the pub etc. etc. One issue that many white-collar jobs have nowadays is a dystopian disconnect between the work one is doing and the value / use it is contributing to the community. (Organization Size and How it Impacts Employee Happiness | Friday Pulse, Let’s call time on the bulls–t jobs plaguing Britain’s offices, A Brief History of the Corporate Form and Why it Matters – Fordham Journal of Corporate and Financial Law)

While many may aspire to be senior management of companies, the brutal reality is that the number of these positions hasn’t increased at the rate the supply of graduates has increased, meaning many people will be on a trajectory for middle management of large corporate leviathans. A lifetime as a good (yet easily replaceable) cog. One could make the argument that trade jobs align more closely with the value and fulfilment incentives to which our brains are programmed to be most receptive; a carpenter, electrician or builder can look back on a decade of work and see all the houses they have built, now inhabited by happy families.

Debt and apprenticeships

Debt; the average student in England graduates with £53,000 worth of debt, which they will spend decades paying back. (Student loan statistics – House of Commons Library)

This is a cost and one needs to consider whether the benefits of the degree they’ll receive outweigh this cost. If you want to be a neurosurgeon then it certainly will do, however so many corporate firms today run apprenticeship schemes for people straight out of school; it does beg the question that if you are aiming for this career, will a degree in English and Film Studies from Exeter be useful in achieving this end, and will it be worth taking on that debt for? Who’s to say the apprenticeship candidate 4 years down the line could be the uni graduate’s boss when he/she joins! (Best apprentices earn £50,000 more than many graduates – The Sutton Trust)

Conclusion

The take-home message of this isn’t to dissuade people from going to university, but more to try and give the side of the argument less commonly given to enable people to make a better decision. To quote Thomas Sowell: “There are no solutions, only trade-offs,” so if you are considering university, make sure you pick the pathway where the benefits and trade-offs are best for you in your current situation and for your aspirations.

The first time I came across Academic Scholarships was through the murmuring of my friends when we were in the younger year-groups of prep school, pointing out people that were “scholars” or “in the scholars class” in Year 8. They were the academic elite of our school, which gave them a bit of an aura. (My school, Hilden Grange, was very close to Tonbridge School, so the bulk of Year 8 students would be aiming for Tonbridge as their leaver destination.)  I remember one student a few years above got the Ainsle (top scholarship) and was elevated to a “God-Tier” in the school folklore!

Based on how one is performing relative to the year group, one gets a feel for whether going for a scholarship may be on the cards (or not) but the topic only formally comes up after the Year 7 end of year exams where, based on performance in these (which were Common Entrance 13+ exams filtered for topics we had studied), the school wrote to me/my parents to say they thought I had a good shot and should consider it. 12-year-old me was a bit daunted by it due to us having to sit the exams at Tonbridge School (which was big and scary) rather than at my current school (which was small, familiar and friendly) but, after a chat with someone a couple of years older who went through the process, I decided to go for it!

Year 8 started and us scholars were grouped separately for all subjects, so for my whole of Year 8 I was in a class of 4 which led to a much more academically focused experience; it was great! What wasn’t great was how much harder all the material was! It hits you like a slap in the face; I think I went from getting high 70s % average in that end of Year 7 common entrance mock to something like 27% average in our first November Scholarship mocks! But the teachers told us not to worry as this was pretty normal as people recalibrate to the harder material and, lo and behold I managed to up this performance to get 65% average in the February mocks, which was reassuring progress compared the DEFCON 1 catastrophic trajectory I seemed to be on in November! It was the first time, really, that I had been stretched hard, academically. But the 4 of us were all in the same boat and we bonded very well that year, sharing the experience of attempting this huge academic challenge together with all the ups and downs it brings! By that point, also, being right at the top of the school, the teachers were treating us with much more respect, and we were the oldest students in the school so you felt good about your position in the micro-hierarchy of this prep school! With hindsight, Year 8 was without doubt one of the best years in my education journey!

At my school, the standard options everyone took were Maths II, Latin II and Divinity. I, however, had no interest in Divinity (ironic as I went on to study the subject at A-level!) and was good at French so I opted for French II instead. This led to a slightly awkward situation as my school had RS timetabled into the lesson schedule and, in doing French II, I needed to learn more content than was being taught in my French classes. The solution, as far as I remember, was my French teacher gave me some useful materials to work through which I think I did during scheduled Divinity classes, and we worked on it a bit more at home with my Mum. I had a few tuition classes with a native French speaker, too, for additional grammar practice.

Tonbridge scholarships come around earlier than the common entrance exams did (which may have changed now as the 13+ CE pathway is different to what it used to be). They take place over 3 days Wednesday to Friday right at the end of April. This meant that, whereas the Common Entrance lot were to primarily revise during May half term, the Easter Holidays was my revision period. I actually don’t think I revised that well over Easter; I think I just hadn’t worked out the right strategies back then for revising an ambitious quantity of work. I remember spending the first week reading through everything then on a trip to the local shops with my mum I panicked at how little I could recall from what I had done. So then we switched tactic to a more active “read, cover, recall” process which gave me more confidence. Something I have found with revision is that efficiency / effectiveness of the revision process is key. Someone can spend 5 hrs per day revising badly and learn far less than someone revising with good techniques 90 mins per day! And the only thing that matters is how well you can recall it; one could produce loads of revision notes/cards and feel satisfied at that visible output, but that is irrelevant if they can’t remember the information in the exams! During this revision period, the looming stress of the impending exams, which were perhaps T-minus 5-6 weeks away, was starting to build! The more essay-based exams were the ones I was dreading. I struggled with creative writing, too, so had come up with an ingenious strategy of planning out maybe 15 stories of diverse topics and memorising them, with the intention of being able to bend one of them or at least take bits from one of them to apply to my chosen prompt on the day (we were given about 5 prompts in the exam and we had to pick one). We’d have to wait and see if this would work.

On the day of the exam itself, I did buckle a bit under the pressure. I remember it being the most nervous I had ever been and I had to ask my mum to drive past the entrance initially as I couldn’t face going in. Once I saw my friends in the waiting area, the stress dissipated somewhat. Maybe there were about 60ish students in total, all in different school uniforms. We were sat in Old Big School (a room which has since been modernised to an art gallery I think) but at the time, it was a dark, big hall with a black floor, dark walls and high up big windows. Below the windows, surrounding the hall there were painted portraits of previous headmasters wearing gowns looking aloof and austere (in the way that 17^th, 18^th and 19^th century schoolmasters often did!). Very old school! With hindsight, I actually quite like an element of that traditionalism, but it did make it more difficult for 13-year-old me! The teachers were lovely and friendly, though, and I remember finding it somewhat baffling the juxtaposition between the friendly and casual way each department head introduced their exam and how I had built up that exam in my mind to be this hugely important, unfriendly and “un-casual” trial of academic fortitude! History was the first paper, followed by English I; two essay papers I wasn’t looking forward to. During the start of the second exam, I ended up going to the medical room as I felt unwell (but with hindsight, this was just my body’s reaction to the intense nerves, I just hadn’t experienced it before). Fortunately, with much encouragement from the pastoral care person (at the behest of my mum, it later transpired) I was convinced to go back into what was French I and Latin I that afternoon. The Friday (back then) was the day for the optional exams, so this meant that I could sit the English I paper I had missed at a time when an option I wasn’t taking was being assessed.

I remember feeling numb at the end of the exams; I was expecting this big sense of elation in proportion to the trepidation I had felt going into and building up to the exams, only it never came. I just grabbed my bag and commented to my friend that “wow it was over” who my Dad then dropped home as he lived near to me and he otherwise would have had to walk. I think the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment was a slow-build rather than an all-at-once flurry. Maybe I’m even still experiencing it all these years later writing this blog post!

As the scholarship exams finished on the Wednesday, we had Thursday and Friday off school which was great. On the Thursday we walked back into school and felt like royalty with the teachers coming out of classes to see how it had gone. There was a nice bit of pathetic fallacy with the weather being a lovely sunny day (or maybe I just remember it as such due to how I was feeling!) On the Friday, the 4 of us were at one of our houses to play and, when being picked up by my Mum, clearly the results had come out as I remember noticing my mum secretly signalling a thumbs up to my friend’s mum who signalled a thumbs up back, and so I found out then / in the car home that I had managed to get an Academic Scholarship. I got (I think) 7As, 3Bs and 2Cs. I think the Cs were in History and Maths I and the Bs in Geography, English I and one of the Latin papers (which meant that my creative writing strategy had worked as I got an A in English II!) This meant my name went on a plaque on the wall in my prep school, which may even still be there, who knows! Now there are A* grades given out, but when I took the exams, A was the highest, and unofficial “A* grades were communicated to the schools if anyone got one but not written on the official results document. Our headmaster told us he thinks one of us got an A* but he forgot who; lol, helpful!

Joining Tonbridge School as a scholar didn’t actually have that much impact. It determined how we were setted at first (but this was quickly adjusted following November mocks). There was a compulsory society called The Athena Society, which scholars had to attend, however this was quickly made optional as the content was extremely dry and I think there was some pushback (I remember the first meeting was an evening lecture on St Francis of Assisi; hardly something a 14 year old looks forward to when his friends are at home playing Call of Duty or playing sports!)

I think, if one is told they are in the ballpark for going for a scholarship, they definitely should do so! It is tough but far more of an adventure and so many good, memorable experiences that you are proud of with hindsight are difficult and/or nerve-wracking when you are doing them; that’s why they are an achievement and why you are proud! Also, doing hard things makes one more resilient. I took the exams in 2009 and I still smile at the experience today.

Toby (OH 09-14)

The unprecedented surge in the coronavirus brought the world to a standstill. However, the situation is now easing with the development and deployment of vaccines against the pandemic – 46.7% of people have already received at least one dose. The public places, markets, schools, and workplaces that were under strict lockdown in almost all countries around the world have been opened with limited restrictions. This does not put an end to the coronavirus here however. There’s still a need for practicing precautionary measures.

If you are a parent and worried about preparing your child for the new normal, here is a quick guide for you:

1. Create Awareness:

First and foremost, the health of your child is the most important thing for them as well as for you. As you prepare your child to adjust to the new normal, make sure you create awareness about the importance of following safety advice and enforce the importance of frequently washing and sanitizing hands.  Talk to your child and inform them about the threats of contracting coronavirus and the necessary measures for prevention.

While there are different restrictions in different places, if your child is allowed to go to public spaces, make sure they know that they should ideally wear a mask, keep a distance, sanitize hands, and avoid touching their face. One of the best ways to teach your child is by being a role model that they can follow. Practice what you preach!

2. Create a healthy routine:

Most schools around the world have re-opened now but many still operate unconventionally: some open on alternative days, and others run in two shifts- morning and evening. In both ways, there is the possibility that your child may not have the normal routine they had before the pandemic. Therefore, whether your child has to go to school or not, make sure you follow the same healthy routine regularly. Make sure your child eats meals on time, attends classes (online or offline), does some exercise. Keep in mind that children thrive with routine, so make sure you develop and maintain a healthy routine.

3. Listen to them:

The pandemic has brought major disruptions to daily life. Children are among the most susceptible to be affected by these disruptions. Many children who have been under lockdown have been anxious and frightened to return to school. Therefore, it is a matter of high importance for parents to talk to their children, listen to them patiently, and understand what is going on in their heads. If your child is worried about getting sick, reflect on how you think about the issue, and help them understand.

4. Monitor their mental health:

This transition is immense, especially for children. Habits gained around staying indoors during the lockdown will be difficult to retract. Children who are going to face the world again may be challenged in many ways, especially mentally. Therefore its essential for parents to check on their mental health.

The pandemic was traumatic for all of us, leading to many serious anxiety and depression problems across the population. The uncertainty regarding the situation is even more terrifying as its long-term impacts are still unknown. Studies of past pandemics indicate that symptoms related to mental health lasted for many years after being isolated for a long time.  Pay serious attention to the symptoms of anxiety and stress in your child.

5. Give more attention:

Spend more time with your child and focus on positive things rather than the negative. Try to make time together as fun as possible by doing activities like playing a game, singing, dancing or watching a movie. Make sure you keep an eye on them while they do their homework, and are there in case they need some urgent assistance. If they need some targeted academic help, or specific assistance with a problem or an essay, then consider finding them a tutor. Athena Tuition can help!

The Bottom Line:

The pandemic has been difficult for all of us to deal with, but it is the prime duty of the parents to help their children adapt to the new normal.’

Guest post from Nellie Hughes

Apologies for the hiatus; it has been a busy period!

This week, our post is regarding Medicine / Biomedical Sciences texts.

I hope this can be useful for budding medics and scientists, alike.

1. Preparing for the BMAT: The official guide to the Biomedical Admissions

The BMAT is the admissions test for anyone hoping to study Medicine or Biomedical Sciences at Oxford, and the score you get has a big impact on if you’ll be invited for interview. The best way to prepare for it is to practice, especially because the timings of the three sections within the BMAT are really tight. This was the book I used to revise, but there are loads out there.

Recommended by Sophie, who studied Cell and Systems Biology at Oxford.

2. Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks

Reading a popular science book and namedropping it in your personal statement is quite common for applicants. Whilst I don’t think doing this is as valuable as lab experience, it’s still a good way to show a genuine interest in your subject. There are some books that come up often (The Selfish Gene for example), so I’d try to go for something a bit more unique to you. Musicophilia is genuinely one of my favourite books, relates to the topic within biomed I was most interested in (neuroscience), and is written by an alumnus of the Oxford college I ended up getting into.

Recommended by Sophie, who studied Cell and Systems Biology at Oxford.

3. New Scientist

It sounds simple, but critically reading a science magazine helped me to practice evaluating theories and methods. In my personal statement I honed in on one article that piqued my interest, so I read around that topic and developed thorough ideas on it. In general, reading up on current research and thinking about your opinions and criticisms of it is useful practice for scenarios you may be presented with in interviews. If you can’t afford membership to a magazine like New Scientist, try checking your local library.

Recommended by Sophie, who studied Cell and Systems Biology at Oxford.

4. Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh

Do no harm was one of the first books I read that really ignited my love for medicine. This book is a surgeon’s perspective on how critical decisions are made whilst under immense pressure. It presents a realistic view of life in the healthcare system examining both the good, bad, and infuriating moments. I would recommend this as essential reading for any prospective medical student.

Recommended by Arya, who studies Medicine at King’s College London and Senthooran, who studies postgraduate Medicine at Cambridge.

5. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

‘When Breath becomes air’ was published posthumously and chronicles a young doctor’s cancer diagnosis and treatment. It is one of the most moving books I’ve ever read and for prospective medical students it will provide an invaluable insight into the trials and tribulations that many patients will go through

Recommended by Arya, who studies Medicine at King’s College London.

6. A Brief History of Medicine by Paul Strathern

It is important to understand how far medicine has come in the past two millennia and to do so one needs to understand its history. ‘A Brief History of Medicine’ looks back on many medical advances that have provided the foundation on which current practice is based, in its appropriate historical context. I recommend this to all students as understanding the history of medicine can help you better articulate why you want to be a doctor

Recommended by Arya, who studies Medicine at King’s College London.

7. Get into Medical School – 1250 UKCAT Practice Questions

UCAT forms part of the admission process for the majority of medical schools in the UK. Therefore, it is important that students are well-versed in all sections of the UCAT, understanding technique whilst practising a lot also. This book has a plethora of questions, to be used alongside online UCAT question banks such Medify UCAT or UCAT Ninja, to help students prepare.

Recommended by Senthooran, who studies postgraduate Medicine at Cambridge.

8. Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande

Outlining to students the human side of medicine, this book helps readers better appreciate the true priorities that underlie medicine. Despite all the science involved in medicine, one’s appreciation for the natural progression and reality of human life is very important, in order to have a realistic understanding of what it means to be a doctor.

Recommended by Senthooran, who studies postgraduate Medicine at Cambridge.

Round 3. Welcome!

We are Biology. We rely on Biology. Here are a range of resources for those considering studying this world-changing subject at university.

We hope you find the resource useful. We will be uploading a new blog covering a different subject each week.

1. The Greatest Show on Earth – Richard Dawkins

Great coverage of the range of arguments / pieces of evidence that support evolution by natural selection. This book gives someone a solid grounding / understanding of the crux of evolution, and can be a good springboard from which to explore further, if interested.

Recommended by Toby, who studied Biological Natural Sciences at Cambridge

2. The Epigenetics Revolution or Hacking The Code Of Life – Nessa Carey

Epigenetics is an important area of Biology as it reveals layers of complexity between the genetic code and the proteins that genes can code for. This allows for greater variation in potential protein structure from a given genome, and more avenues for regulation of expression. Since I left school, Epigenetics has started being included on A-Level syllabuses. A huge area of interest in both the biological, healthcare and investment worlds is gene editing, and the potential benefits (and challenges) it can bring. With this in mind, Nessa Carey’s more recent book: Hacking the Code of Life, seems very relevant, although I have not read it yet.

Recommended by Toby, who studied Biological Natural Sciences at Cambridge

3. Hallmarks of Cancer: The Next Generation: Cell Hanahan and Weinberg

A thorough overview on Cancer Biology. This is an updated version of the original ‘Hallmarks of Cancer’ paper that was published in 2000. The original is a very well-known and well-cited paper, but it makes sense to read the more up-to-date one, as the frontier of science has advanced since 2000.

Recommended by Toby, who studied Biological Natural Sciences at Cambridge

4. Read up on Short-Read Sequencing (eg Illumina), Long-Read Sequencing (eg Pacific Biosciences of California) and Ultra-Long-Read Sequencing (Oxford Nanopore Technologies).

The future of biological research is likely to be heavily reliant on genome sequencing, so an understanding of the main approaches, their pros and cons will be beneficial. Short-Read is dominant now, but will it remain so…?

Recommended by Toby, who studied Biological Natural Sciences at Cambridge

5. Denis Noble, The Music of Life

In this highly accessible and readable, yet profound, book, Noble argues that contemporary biology is, rightly, moving away from a gene-centric understanding of life, and towards a more holistic picture. Living organisms are not puppets of their genetics. In fact, life emerges from a complex reciprocal interplay of DNA, cells, organism physiology and the environment. This new vision of life demands a different approach to biology, one that seeks to integrate the molecular (DNA, RNA, proteins and metabolites), cellular and physiological worlds that make up the organism and respond to its environment. This sets the scene for the growing interdisciplinary field of Systems Biology, a subject transforming contemporary biological/biomedical research and bringing together biologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists and engineers to build this more holistic picture, where life and its processes emerge from the orchestral interplay of its multidimensional components.

Recommended by Alex, who studied Natural Sciences and Systems Biology at Cambridge

6. Schrödinger, What is Life?

One of the most important physicists of the 20th century muses turns his attention to biology, namely to the question of how we understand life as a physical phenomenon. This highly read, and critiqued, short book influenced many of the minds involved in the development of molecular biology, which has engulfed biological research ever since. Though Schrödinger’s ideas don’t all prove true (notably, he suggested that genetic information is stored in proteins), there is a remarkable depth to his arguments, which will broaden the mind of any reader interested in the intersection of biology and physics.

Recommended by Alex, who studied Natural Sciences and Systems Biology at Cambridge

7. New Scientist and National Geographic 

For up to date new technology in the Science world and discussion points for interview.

Recommended by Josephine, who studied Biology at Imperial and Oxford

8. Carroll, S. (2005), Endless Forms Most Beautiful

An excellent introduction to the diversity of life and its genetic basis, from an eloquent writer on the subject.

Recommended by Josephine, who studied Biology at Imperial and Oxford

9. Leroi, A. (2003), Mutants 

An excellent introduction to genetics and the formation of the phenotype, illustrated with the extraordinary range of human mutations: it links together genes, cells and organismal form.

Recommended by Josephine, who studied Biology at Imperial and Oxford

10. Darwin C. (1859), On the Origin of Species

Needs no introduction! This is a long, dense read but of course a foundational text in the life sciences.

Recommended by Josephine, who studied Biology at Imperial and Oxford

11. Holland, P. (2011), The Animal Kingdom: A very short introduction 

This one is relatively close to the diversity of life strand of the first year course, or at least the zoological part of it, and provides an insightful yet accessible introduction to the diversity of animal life.

Recommended by Josephine, who studied Biology at Imperial and Oxford

Hello again, students!

As promised, here is instalment 2 of our book recommendation series!

We hope you find the resource useful. We will be uploading a new blog covering a different subject each week.

For more undergraduate application advice and / or to enquire about tuition, please call us on 0208 133 6284 and we’ll be happy to help.

1. ‘Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air’ by David JC MacKay 
   This is perhaps a little out of date now, but provides an amazing view of how the world could completely transform its energy system. Aside from an interesting overview of various sources of green energy, this book is most useful for giving a guide to estimation. It has fully explained calculations of how to scale technologies up to a global scale, and gives budding engineers a masterclass on how to estimate quantities.

Recommended by Charlie (Studied Chemical Engineering via Engineering at University of Cambridge)

2. ‘The New Science of Strong Materials – or Why You Don’t Fall Through the Floor’ by JE Gordon 
   Materials don’t get as much attention in school as they should, so this book introduces the important properties of most common materials, and how engineers use these properties to make their designs more efficient and useful. The full range of atomic scale to the structure of cathedrals is explored, to show how microscopic changes in structure affect macroscopic material behaviour.

Recommended by Charlie (Studied Chemical Engineering via Engineering at University of Cambridge)

3. ‘Professor Povey’s Perplexing Problems’ by Thomas Povey 
   A great collection of maths and physics problems of the type that might come up in an Oxbridge interview, with detailed worked solutions. Not a book I’drecommend for cover-to-cover reading, but dipping into it for interesting problems, especially during the build-up to interview season is really helpful, as it can help you see how a problem can be developed in more and more detail and how your prior knowledge of maths and physics can be applied to more challenging situations. Working steadily through these questions in the six months or so preceding interview is the intellectual equivalent of training for a marathon! 

Recommended by Charlie (Studied Chemical Engineering via Engineering at University of Cambridge) and by Luke (Studied Engineering at University of Cambridge)

4. ‘How do wings work?’ by Holger Babinsky 

Excellent introduction to aerospace engineering by debunking the common misconceived explanation for generation of the lift force. Mock interview style question included, and wonderful fodder more generally for the personal statement.

 Recommended by Luke (Studied Engineering at University of Cambridge)

5. ‘To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design’ by Henry Petroski 

Thought provoking explanation of the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse, and a cautionary tale to remind students of the ethical responsibilities of professional engineers. 

Recommended by Luke (Studied Engineering at University of Cambridge)