Harrow School 13+ Entry and Preparation for 2029 Entry

For 2029 entry, Harrow asks families to register by 30 September of Year 6 and treats anything after the end of Year 5 as a Late Application competing for fewer places. Boys sit the ISEB Common Pre-Test between early September and 20 November of Year 6, then the Harrow Test in one of ten sessions, and hear in late April or early May as one of four results.

Which Registration Date Actually Applies to Your Son?

Harrow publishes two dates in a single paragraph, and almost every guide quotes only the first. The stated deadline is 30 September of Year 6. But Harrow adds that registrations received after the end of Year 5 will be considered Late Applicants, who compete for fewer places while following the same procedure.

Read together, those two sentences mean a boy registered in mid-September of Year 6 has met the published deadline and is nonetheless a Late Applicant. The date that decides which pool he competes in is the end of Year 5, three months earlier than the one on the deadline line. If you are applying to Eton as well, this aligns the two schools neatly: Eton closes registration on 31 August at the end of Year 5, so a single cut-off covers both.

What Harrow Reads Before It Invites a Boy

Three things reach Harrow before any invitation goes out, and only one of them is a test.

The first is a confidential reference, which Harrow requests from the boy's current school at the very beginning of Year 6. For a boy who registers after that point, Harrow requests it immediately. The second is the ISEB Common Pre-Test, which every boy must sit between early September and 20 November of Year 6. Harrow describes it as a standardised, age-adaptive measure of ability and attainment, and notes that an applicant is not disadvantaged by sitting it early in Year 6 or by being young for his year.

The third is the one nobody expects. If a boy reaches the required standard in the Pre-Test and Harrow has received a strong supporting reference, it requests a hand-written CV before inviting him to the Harrow Test. Invitations go out by the end of December. A hand-written document from an eleven-year-old is not something a tutor can produce, and it is worth thinking about long before December.

One constraint bounds all of this: Harrow states that an applicant can sit the Pre-Test only once in any one academic year, and only once after registering for Harrow. If a boy has already sat it for another school, Harrow accesses that result from his ISEB Applicant ID rather than re-testing him. There is no second attempt to plan around.

What Is the Harrow Test, Exactly?

Not an exam paper. Harrow lists three separate exercises, sat during a single visit to the School in one of ten sessions between early January and mid-February of Year 6.

That split is the argument for how to prepare. Forty of the hundred minutes are spent talking — once one-to-one with an adult who is deciding whether he wants this boy in his house, and once in a group where the other candidates are also being watched. Those are the two parts families rehearse least and the two parts that cannot be revised from a book.

The group activity in particular rewards behaviour that a competitive preparation culture actively discourages: listening, building on somebody else's idea, giving another child space. A boy who has been coached to dominate will do it visibly, in a room where that is being noted.

What Are the Four Possible Results in April?

Harrow does not issue a single yes or no. In late April or early May of Year 6, having completed the Harrow Test, an applicant receives one of four results.

The distinction families misread is A1 against A2. Both are offers of a place at the School. The difference is whether a House has been named yet, not whether the place is firmer. Harrow notes that many parents leave the House allocation to the Registrar entirely, and that families who do state a preference on the registration form often have a pre-existing relationship with that House through Old Harrovian connections.

Boys holding an offer in a specific House are invited to a one-to-one meeting with the House Master from the summer term of Year 6 onwards. Other offer-holders are allocated a House later, after which a visit can be arranged directly. Either way, the place itself is settled two full years before it is taken up — subject to Common Entrance or the Academic Scholarship papers in Year 8.

How Does Harrow Differ From the Other 13-Plus Schools?

Families rarely apply to Harrow alone, and the differences between the senior schools are procedural rather than cosmetic. All of them start from the same ISEB Common Pre-Test, and then diverge sharply in what they add to it.

Harrow adds the most, and adds it earliest. Three components at the Harrow Test, of which two are spoken rather than written; a hand-written CV before the invitation; a confidential reference requested at the very start of Year 6; and a four-way result rather than a yes or no. Eton, by contrast, runs a single individual interview alongside an online predictive test, and issues a Conditional Place or a Waiting List Place.

The registration dates align more closely than they look. Eton closes on 31 August at the end of Year 5. Harrow states 30 September of Year 6 but treats the end of Year 5 as the point after which a boy becomes a Late Applicant. So a family applying to both is working to one effective cut-off, at the end of Year 5, and a boy who misses it has not lost Harrow — he has moved into a smaller pool with a later test.

What that means in practice is that the Pre-Test result travels but nothing else does. A strong Pre-Test score opens doors at both schools; the hand-written CV, the group activity and the House Master interview are Harrow-specific work that no other application will use.

When Should a Family First Visit Harrow?

Harrow answers this itself, and the answer sits before the registration cut-off rather than after it. It recommends that families visit when boys are in Years 4 or 5, aged 9 or 10. Open Mornings run from 9am to 1pm on twelve Saturdays through the academic year, with a talk by the Head Master and a question and answer session with the Director of Studies, a tour of the School and a visit to a boarding house. Where a family cannot attend one, Harrow says individual visits may be offered subject to availability and eligibility.

Reading that alongside the registration rule gives the whole timeline its shape. Visit in Year 4 or 5, register before the end of Year 5, sit the Pre-Test by 20 November of Year 6, sit the Harrow Test by mid-February, hear in late April or early May, meet a House Master from the summer term, and sit Common Entrance or the Academic Scholarship papers in Year 8. Seven steps across four school years, and the first two are decisions rather than examinations.

Reviewed August 2026: every registration date, assessment component, offer category and deadline on this page was checked against Harrow School's own Year 9 Entry, Admissions Process and Key Dates pages on 22 August 2026. Harrow notes its process is subject to change, so confirm the current position with the School before you plan around it.

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