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Rugby School

School rating 4 / 5 by

Lawrence Sheriff Street Rugby Warwickshire CV22 5EH United Kingdom
Boarding
4th to 12th
Day
4th to 12th
Gender
Coed

Academic

Rugby School review by .

For those who want to learn, Rugby School is an institution that offers the very best of British education. By a streaming system, students are put into classes with others of similar academic ability to them, allowing everyone to work at their most suited pace. With a typical class-size of around 20 students, there is some scope for personal attention from the very well qualified teaching staff. Rugby School pushes each student to achieve their full potential, via an advanced curriculum, a structed disciplinary system, and a wide range of prizes and incentives. This has both pros and cons. Positively, it ensures students will excel. This is counter-balanced, however, by the risk of creating an excessively pressured and competitive environment, which can can leave self-motivated students very stressed and less able students feeling inadequate. The humanities departments (History and English in particular) are characterised by fantastic teachers with a passion and profound knowledge of their subjects. The depth of udnerstanding which the students are offered is without fault. It was in these subjects in particular that the most able students excelled to great levels and the less able students still felt stimulated and content with their learning. The school's languages facilities are excellent; however many of the teaching staff, though extremely well qualified and intelligent, are non-native speakers, which leaves students learning languages without authenticity of speech or pronunciation. As a bilingual and multi-cultural student, I also felt the lacuna in teaching of culture ought to accompany the instruction in the language. The science schools are arguably unrivalled in any school in the world. Having undergone recent rennovation they are phenomenal. I would also say that science teaching at Rugby is far and beyond that anywhere else: when I left Rugby School to study at another institution I found myself several years ahead of my contemporaries in terms of knowledge and skills. The study of the arts is also extremely advanced at Rugby School, thanks in great part to fantastic facilities, but also to some passionate and skilled teachers. In particular the teaching of Theatre and of Art are arguably without much competition in the nation's schools. My one great criticism of the teaching at Rugby School would be its exam-centricity. However within a national education system as that in the UK (GCSEs, AS levels, A levels), in order to ensure students can go on to achieve their university and career goals, good schools have no option but to ensure their students come out on top in terms of grades. The competition in the UK for university places is fierce, and Rugby School does well to engage with this with full vigour.

College Counseling

The careers department at Rugby School are prepared to work extremely closely with students to....

Sample insights on college counseling

  • They have contacts at most of the major universities and feel perfectly comfortable picking up the phone and advocating for a student to get accepted somewhere they feel is a good fit for that student. However, these counselors are certainly not magic bullets. They cannot guarantee that a student will get into an Ivy League university...
  • For those wishing to move on to Oxford or Cambridge, the provision is second-to-none. In the months running up to application and interview, every subject faculty offers classes (often run by former Oxbridge tutors) exploring further areas of their subject as well as offering advice on personal statements, interview technique and more...

Admissions - Getting Accepted

There are different processes for entrance to the junior department and the main school respectively.....

Sample insights on admissions

  • For the interview, dress conservatively. Try to be very clean and put together. Also, I was a tour guide for two years and at the end of every tour, we were asked to evaluate the candidate so if you think the tour is not apart of the process, you are very wrong. Ask questions and be interested. Also, tip for the parents: the kids speak on the tour. Do not ask their questions for them...
  • Most younger siblings have an easy time in the admissions process. I can only think of one case of a younger sibling not being admitted. About half of the students who entered with me had come from public schools. The remainder came from private K-6 schools, or had transferred from other New York private schools The Elizabeth Morrow School and St. Bernard were two of the larger feeder schools...

School Life

While the school’s facilities in terms of housing, leisure activities, and dining are excellent, I would not say that the social atmosphere of the school is at all pleasant. In many ways the school has remained in an archaic age of male dominancy, social hierarchy, and behavioural boorishness. For the most part (excluding perhaps only the academic scholars) the student body exhibit a distinct lack of concern for pressing global issues. Ethnic minorities and international students are not wholly accepted to the same extent as white students. Female students are not exposed to a health attitude towards intimate relationships and....

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