No published GCSE threshold, three versions of the assessment, and 2026/27 fees stated inclusive of VAT.
Book a Free ConsultationCranleigh School is a co-educational independent boarding and day school in Cranleigh, Surrey, whose Sixth Form admits about 30 external pupils into Year 12 each year. Cranleigh publishes no overall GCSE threshold for 16+ entry: its Admissions Policy of June 2026 rests admission on references, a mixture of entrance tests and interviews. Senior fees for 2026/27 are £60,540 boarding, £48,675 Day Plus and £34,815 day, each stated inclusive of VAT.
That absence of a published grade bar is the single most consequential thing a family needs to understand before applying, because the pages ranking alongside Cranleigh's own do state one. This guide sets the school's documents against each other, prices two Sixth Form years from the official fee schedule, and shows what a Cranleigh scholarship is worth in cash.
Search for Cranleigh's Sixth Form entry requirements and a third-party directory listing tells you, plainly, that 16+ entry “requires a minimum of six GCSEs at Grade 6 (Grade 7 required for intended A-Level subjects)”. It gives no source. That sentence appears nowhere in Cranleigh's admissions pages, nowhere in the Admissions Policy, and nowhere in the Sixth Form options booklet.
What the school itself publishes is broader and vaguer. The Admissions Policy, owned by the Director of Admissions and last updated in June 2026, says of every entry point except the Early Years: “Each year, we aim to recruit over 200 new pupils. Admission and entry (bar EYFS – see below) are based on assessment through confidential references and/or reports, a mixture of entrance tests, and interviews.” No grade, no number of subjects, no minimum.
The admissions page adds only that Cranleigh looks “at the whole person – not just exam results”, and the Sixth Form FAQ that “entry is holistic, combining academic assessment with personal evaluation”. A parent trying to work out whether their child is a realistic candidate is therefore working without the one figure they most want.
Say the difficult thing plainly: this is not evasion by the school so much as a deliberate policy of case-by-case judgement, and it has a practical consequence. Because no threshold is published, no threshold can be relied on. A child predicted a grade 5 in a subject they want to take at A level is not automatically excluded, and a child with straight grade 8s is not automatically in. What decides it is the subject-level advice below, the interview, and the school's own reading of the reports it receives. The corollary is that an offer's conditions matter more here than at a school with a stated bar, which is why it is worth understanding what happens when a sixth form withdraws a place after GCSE results before results day arrives.
Applying to Cranleigh Sixth Form for September 2027? Our specialist tutors work on the GCSE subjects that set the real grade bar for A level places, and on the interview that carries most of the weight at 16+. Registration must be completed before a scholarship application can be submitted.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppThe assessment itself is described three different ways across three live Cranleigh pages and documents. They are not reconcilable as written, and a family preparing for the wrong one wastes months.
| Cranleigh source | What it says the assessment is |
|---|---|
| Senior admissions page, step 3 of the admissions process | “Assessments include the ISEB or CAT 4 test and the interview is with our Admissions Director.” |
| International applicants, UK System Explained | “Applicants are typically assessed through a combination of previous academic performance, school reports, subject suitability for Sixth Form study and an interview.” No test is mentioned. |
| Admissions Policy, June 2026 | “Assessment through confidential references and/or reports, a mixture of entrance tests, and interviews.” |
Source: cranleigh.org admissions, international and policy documents, read 16 August 2026.
The Admissions Policy governs. It is the document the school itself points prospective parents to, it carries version control and a named owner, and its next review is set for 1 September 2026. On its wording, an entrance test of some kind is part of 16+ entry — which means the international page's account, silent on testing, is the least complete of the three.
The step-3 description is the one to treat with most care. The ISEB Pre-Test is a Year 6 and Year 7 assessment and the school's own FAQ confirms CAT4 testing runs in Years 6 to 8 for 13+ candidates. Neither is a natural fit for a Year 11 applicant, and the step-3 text appears on a page covering all entry points at once. Read it as a description of 13+ that has been left to stand over the whole process rather than as a statement about Sixth Form entry.
There is a fourth account, now withdrawn. Two Cranleigh flyers titled “Sixth Form Entry”, one for the 2026 cycle and one for 2027, remain indexed by search engines and describe a full assessment day with an online cognitive test, a written thinking paper, a group activity and an individual interview. Both PDF addresses were checked on 16 August 2026 and both now return a permanent redirect to the school's policies index. Anything you find in those documents is superseded; ask Admissions directly what the current assessment day contains.
Cranleigh's Sixth Form Information and Subject Options booklet is where grade expectations actually live, and it contradicts itself. Its FAQ section states: “At Cranleigh, we don't have 'minimum grades' to take a particular subject, but please listen to the advice you are given before embarking on a course that you may not be suited to.” Individual subject pages in the same document say otherwise.
| A level subject | Grade expectation stated in the booklet |
|---|---|
| Physics | “A minimum of: Grade 7 (or higher) in GCSE Maths and Grade 7 in GCSE Physics or Double Award Science.” A level Maths is strongly recommended alongside. |
| Biology | “A minimum of a level 7 at GCSE/IGCSE is encouraged.” Triple science desirable, not essential; a level 7 in Maths also encouraged. |
| Economics | “Pupils with less than a grade 7 in Maths should carefully consider whether this course is right for them.” |
| IT: Data Analytics (AAQ Certificate) | “A grade 6 or above in GCSE Mathematics is recommended.” |
| Geography | “None at all! We welcome students from all academic backgrounds.” A grade 7 to 9 is described as beneficial rather than required. |
| Physical Education | “There is no minimum requirement to enroll”; a discussion with the department is asked for instead. |
Source: Cranleigh School, Sixth Form Information and Subject Options booklet, read 16 August 2026.
Both halves of that document are true in their own terms. The FAQ is written for Cranleigh's own Year 11 pupils choosing options, where a head of department can override a guideline for a pupil they have taught for two years. The subject pages are the guideline. An external 16+ applicant has no such history to draw on, so the subject figures are the fairer guide to what an offer letter will name.
The booklet also answers a question external candidates ask constantly: what if the GCSE was never taken. Cranleigh's answer is subject by subject — Art, Classical Civilisation, Drama, Design Engineering, Philosophy of Religion and Product Design are open without the GCSE; Greek, Latin and Music are not.
Cranleigh publishes annual fees, not termly ones, and states the VAT position without ambiguity. The fee schedule for 2026/2027 closes with the line: “All fees and charges are inclusive of VAT except where stated. VAT Registration Number: 480 5762 73.” Every figure below therefore already contains the tax.
| 2026/27 rate | Published (inc. VAT) | Net of 20% VAT | VAT element | Two Sixth Form years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boarding | £60,540 | £50,450 | £10,090 | £121,080 |
| Day Plus | £48,675 | £40,562.50 | £8,112.50 | £97,350 |
| Day | £34,815 | £29,012.50 | £5,802.50 | £69,630 |
Source: published figures from Cranleigh's Senior fees page and 2026/27 fee schedule; net and VAT columns are our arithmetic at the standard 20% rate.
The net column matters when you compare Cranleigh with another school. Independent school fees became subject to VAT in 2025, and schools have not settled on one way of presenting the result: some publish the gross figure, some the old net figure with VAT added at checkout. Comparing a gross number against a net one overstates the difference by a sixth. If the school you are weighing against Cranleigh quotes a headline figure without saying which basis it uses, you have not yet learned whether it is cheaper or the same.
The Governors reserve the right to change fees “at any time whether before or after a pupil's admission”, so the two-year totals above are the 2026/27 rates held flat, not a forecast. Fees are charged termly in three equal parts regardless of term length, by direct debit on the first day of term for families with a UK bank account.
One gap is worth flagging. Cranleigh's homepage advertises four arrangements at Senior level — “Day, Day Plus (our flexible boarding option), Weekly Boarding and Full Boarding”. The fee schedule publishes three rates. Weekly boarding has no published price, so a family drawn to that option has to ask.
Day Plus is worth understanding before choosing it. The schedule prices additional boarding nights for Day Plus pupils at £100 each, “over and above the weekly free night boarding”. The gap between Day Plus and full boarding is £11,865 a year, so on those rates a Day Plus pupil would need roughly 118 paid extra nights in a year before the arrangement cost more than boarding outright. For most families that is a wide margin; for a pupil boarding three or four nights most weeks, it is not.
Four charges sit outside the headline fee and only one of them appears on the admissions page a parent reads first.
| Charge | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Registration fee | £240 | Non-refundable, unless the pupil is already at Cranleigh Prep. Payable to begin the formal process. |
| Acceptance deposit, Cranleigh Senior | £2,000 | Marked VAT exempt on the schedule. Cranleigh Prep's equivalent is £500. |
| Additional deposit, international | £19,000 | VAT exempt. With the acceptance deposit, an overseas boarder places £21,000 before starting. |
| Visa compliance fee | £700 | Non-refundable, and excludes any fee payable to UK Immigration. |
| Old Cranleighan Society subscription | £65 per term | VAT exempt, charged for a pupil's first six terms. |
Source: Cranleigh Senior Fees and Charges, Academic Year 2026/2027, read 16 August 2026.
The Society subscription lands differently on a Sixth Form entrant than on anyone else. Two years at Cranleigh is exactly six terms, so a 16+ joiner pays the full £390 across the whole of their time at the school, while a pupil who arrives at 13 clears the same charge in their first two years and then has three more years without it.
Learning support is charged separately too, at £58.95 for a 50-minute individual Learning Support or EAL lesson and £73.15 an hour for additional academic lessons. For an overseas pupil arriving at 16 with English as an additional language, that is a real running cost to budget rather than a footnote.
Cranleigh scholarships do carry fee remission, which is not true everywhere. The Scholarships and Bursaries guide states that awards “can come with a financial award of up to 15% of a pupil's fees”, and the admissions page confirms 16+ candidates may apply for up to two, across Academic, Art, Design Engineering, Product Design, Drama, Performing Arts, Music and Sport.
At the maximum, on 2026/27 rates, that is worth £9,081 a year to a boarder — £18,162 across the two Sixth Form years — and £5,222.25 a year to a day pupil. The school does not state whether the 15% is calculated on the VAT-inclusive figure or the net one, which changes the boarding award by £1,513.50 a year. Ask, and get the answer in writing before you count on it.
The distinction that catches families out is the Exhibition. Cranleigh's own wording: applicants not awarded a scholarship “may instead be offered an Exhibition, which provides recognition of particular strength in a chosen area and access to dedicated pathways and development opportunities, but does not include a fee reduction”. An Exhibition is a real mark of standing and a real programme of support. It is worth nothing in cash.
Scholars of every kind receive mentoring from a named staff member, regular review sessions, invitations to workshops and access to specialist facilities. Academic Scholars automatically join the Purvis Society, the school's Scholars-only group, which produces its own journal.
These are the dates that bind an applicant, taken from Cranleigh's own admissions page and scholarships guide as at 16 August 2026.
| Stage | When |
|---|---|
| Applications open | Start of the Lent term of Year 10, for September entry |
| Registration | Must be completed before any scholarship application is submitted |
| 16+ scholarship deadline, September 2027 entry | 2 November 2026 |
| Academic scholarship assessment | October or November of Year 11: video or in-person interviews with members of the Academic and Senior Management Teams |
| Art, Design Engineering and Product Design | October of Year 11: half-day workshop, portfolio review, practical skills test and interview |
| Music | October or November of Year 11: two contrasting pieces on the main instrument, an aural skills test and an interview |
| Sport | October and November of Year 11: one-day assessment with a physical fitness test, sport-specific trials and an interview |
Source: cranleigh.org senior admissions page and the Scholarships & Bursaries guide, read 16 August 2026.
Two features of that list are unusual and worth acting on. The Academic scholarship at 16+ is assessed by interview alone: unlike the 13+ award, which uses written papers in English, Maths and a general skills paper, the Sixth Form academic assessment “involves a range of video or in-person interviews with members of the Academic and Senior Management Teams”. Preparation that consists of past papers is preparation for the wrong thing.
Second, the deadline block on Cranleigh's admissions page is not carefully proofed. Immediately above the 16+ date it prints, for Year 9 entry in 2027: “Deadline for Academic Scholarship applications is 1st Jan 2027. The deadline for all other scholarships is 31st October 2027.” A deadline of 31 October 2027 falls more than a month after the September 2027 entry it governs, so one of those years is wrong. That is a good reason to confirm the 16+ date of 2 November 2026 with Admissions rather than rely on the page alone.
Cranleigh runs A levels, with a narrow set of vocational alternatives alongside them. It does not offer the International Baccalaureate. In the school's words, “pupils typically take three A-levels or BTECs, then add something extra such as an EPQ (Extended Project Qualification), Core Maths, the Music Diploma or Personal Training Diploma”.
Teaching intensity is stated precisely: “Cranleigh has seven 50-minute lessons per subject per week (nearly six hours per subject).” Class sizes average 10 to 14. Most pupils take three subjects and an enrichment course; a handful take four A levels, and Further Mathematics is treated as equivalent to two.
Sixth Formers join one of the eight senior boarding houses — four for female boarders and four for male — alongside pupils who arrived at 13, and use a refurbished Sixth Form Centre with study space and a café. At the November 2025 inspection the school had 951 pupils, of whom 504 boarded.
Cranleigh published its 2026 A level results on 13 August 2026: 85% of all grades at A* to B, half of all pupils earning A* or A in two or more subjects, 92% at A* to B in STEM subjects and 93% in the creative arts. In the EPQ, 53% achieved A* or A, and 88% of leavers secured places at Russell Group and equivalent universities.
The school's Sixth Form page, meanwhile, still carries the previous year: “In 2025, 50% of grades were A*–A and 83% were A*–B, with a 100% pass rate.”
Both figures are 50%, and they measure opposite things. The 2025 number is the share of grades at A* or A. The 2026 number is the share of pupils who achieved A* or A in at least two subjects. A cohort can move a long way in either direction without those two figures diverging at all. Anyone reading the two side by side and concluding that results held flat is reading a coincidence.
The one comparable pair is the A* to B measure: 83% of grades in 2025 against 85% in 2026. On the school's own GCSE figures, 72% of grades were 9 to 7 in 2025, which is the more useful indicator of the academic level of a Cranleigh Sixth Form cohort's starting point.
Cranleigh's bursaries are means-tested and administered by the Director of Finance with the Director of Admissions. The sequencing is the part families miss, and the bursaries page is explicit about it: parents complete financial circumstances forms, and “we are able to assess this once an offer of a place at the school has been given”.
In practice that means a family cannot establish affordability before committing to the process. Registration is paid, the assessment is sat, an offer is made, and only then is the size of any award indicated. Some places are supported by the Cranleigh School Foundation, which funds pupils facing particularly difficult domestic circumstances, and the Admissions Department asks to be contacted as early as possible where a bursary will be needed.
Preparation for Cranleigh's Sixth Form entry divides into two pieces of work, and one of them is far more heavily weighted than most families expect.
The first is the GCSE grades in the specific subjects a pupil intends to continue. Because Cranleigh sets no overall threshold, the grade that decides an offer is a subject grade — a 7 in Maths and Physics for A level Physics, a 7 in Biology, a 6 in Maths for the Data Analytics certificate. Targeted work in one or two subjects in Year 11 does more for a Cranleigh application than broad revision across ten.
The second is the interview, which at 16+ carries the academic scholarship on its own and forms part of every entry route Cranleigh describes. Interview preparation here is subject-led rather than generic: a candidate should be able to say what they have read beyond the GCSE syllabus in the subjects they have chosen, and why those three subjects go together. Our specialist tutors run mock interviews in the candidate's own A level subjects, then work backwards into the reading that makes those answers possible.
Families comparing routes into independent sixth forms may find our guides to Cranleigh 13+ entry, Bryanston School sixth form entry, Tonbridge School 16+ entry and Sevenoaks School sixth form entry useful for comparison; Sevenoaks in particular offers the International Baccalaureate rather than A levels, which is the clearest structural alternative to Cranleigh's programme. Cranleigh's own senior admissions page remains the primary source for dates.
Cranleigh publishes no overall GCSE threshold for 16+ entry. Its Admissions Policy of June 2026 describes admission as based on confidential references and reports, a mixture of entrance tests, and interviews, without naming a grade. Grade expectations exist only at subject level in the Sixth Form options booklet: a minimum of grade 7 in GCSE Maths and grade 7 in GCSE Physics or Double Award Science for A level Physics, a level 7 for Biology, and grade 6 in Maths for the IT: Data Analytics certificate. A third-party directory states that six GCSEs at grade 6 are required; that figure appears in none of Cranleigh's own documents.
Senior fees for 2026/27 are £60,540 boarding, £48,675 Day Plus and £34,815 day, quoted annually. The fee schedule states that all fees and charges are inclusive of VAT except where stated, so those are gross figures; net of the standard 20% rate they are £50,450, £40,562.50 and £29,012.50. Two Sixth Form years at those rates come to £121,080 boarding or £69,630 day. Add a £240 registration fee, a £2,000 acceptance deposit and £65 a term for six terms towards Old Cranleighan Society membership. Weekly boarding is advertised but has no published rate.
Cranleigh describes it three ways. The admissions page says assessments include the ISEB or CAT 4 test with an interview by the Admissions Director; the international page says previous academic performance, school reports, subject suitability and an interview, with no test; the Admissions Policy of June 2026 says references and reports, a mixture of entrance tests, and interviews. The policy governs. Two older Sixth Form Entry flyers describing a full assessment day were checked on 16 August 2026 and both now redirect to the school's policies index, so treat their contents as withdrawn and confirm the current format with Admissions.
Yes, up to a point. The Scholarships and Bursaries guide states that awards can carry a financial award of up to 15% of fees, and 16+ candidates may apply for up to two across Academic, Art, Design Engineering, Product Design, Drama, Performing Arts, Music and Sport. At the maximum on 2026/27 rates that is £9,081 a year for a boarder, £18,162 over two years, or £5,222.25 a year for a day pupil. An Exhibition, offered to strong candidates who miss a scholarship, carries recognition and development opportunities but explicitly no fee reduction.
For entry in September 2027 the 16+ scholarship deadline is 2 November 2026, and a registration must be completed before any scholarship form is submitted. Academic, Music, Drama and Sport assessments fall in October or November of Year 11; Art, Design Engineering and Product Design assessments are held in October of Year 11. Confirm the date directly with Admissions: the same block on the school's page gives the 13+ non-academic deadline as 31 October 2027, which falls after the September 2027 entry it governs, so at least one printed year on that page is wrong.
Cranleigh does not offer the International Baccalaureate. Pupils typically take three A levels or BTECs plus one core elective — the EPQ, Core Maths, the Music Diploma or the Personal Training Level 3 Diploma. BTEC routes exist in Business and Sport, and IT: Data Analytics runs as an AAQ Certificate. About 30 pupils join the Sixth Form each year from outside the school, into classes averaging 10 to 14, with seven 50-minute lessons per subject each week. Applications open at the start of the Lent term of Year 10.
Because Cranleigh sets no blanket grade requirement, the work that changes an outcome is narrow: the GCSE grades in the two or three subjects a candidate intends to take at A level, and the interview. Our specialist tutors target the subject grades named in Cranleigh's own booklet — grade 7 in Maths and Physics for A level Physics, grade 7 for Biology, grade 6 in Maths for Data Analytics — and run mock interviews in the candidate's chosen A level subjects, since the 16+ academic scholarship is decided by interview rather than by written paper. We also help families plan around the 2 November 2026 scholarship deadline.
Cranleigh runs a dedicated Sixth Form Open Morning on Saturday 12 September 2026, from approximately 08:45 to 11:30, with a presentation from Helen Carson, Assistant Head and Head of Sixth Form, plus academic subject leads and a pupil-led tour taking in a boarding house and the Sixth Form Centre. Whole-school Open Mornings covering all entry points run on Friday 9 and Saturday 10 October 2026, and midweek Admissions Mornings on Friday 25 September and Friday 2 October 2026 from 10am to 12 midday. Personal tours can be arranged with the Admissions team at any time.
Subject-grade work in the GCSEs that decide which A levels open up, and interview preparation for an academic scholarship Cranleigh assesses by interview alone. The 16+ scholarship deadline for September 2027 entry is 2 November 2026.
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