Academic Scholarship Exams at 11+ and 13+: Format and Preparation

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5. Academic Scholarship Exams at 11+ and 13+

An academic scholarship exam is not simply a good score on the standard 11+ or 13+ entrance paper — at most senior schools it is a separate, harder assessment set specifically for the small number of candidates being considered for a merit-based award. At 13+, this usually means the ISEB Common Academic Scholarship Examination (CASE) or a school's own bespoke scholarship papers, such as Eton College's King's Scholarship exam. At 11+, the picture is different again: most day schools fold scholarship consideration into the standard entrance exam rather than running a distinct paper. This guide sets out how scholarship exams actually work, how they differ from standard entrance papers, when they are sat, whether an interview is involved, and — the part parents most often get wrong — what an academic scholarship actually provides financially.

What Is an Academic Scholarship Exam?

An academic scholarship exam is a school's mechanism for identifying its strongest applicants for an academic scholarship — a merit-based title (and, in most cases, a modest fee reduction) rather than a place obtained purely through the standard admissions process. The key distinction is who sets and marks the paper. Standard 11+ and 13+ entrance exams are typically set to a common specification and, in many cases, marked centrally so that every candidate for a group of schools is assessed on the same basis. Scholarship exams are different: at 13+, the Independent Schools Examinations Board (ISEB) explains that CASE questions are based on the Common Entrance specification, but "pupils sitting CASE assessments are entered by the senior schools they have applied to, who choose which papers pupils will sit and also mark the papers." In other words, the senior school — not a central examining body alone — decides the difficulty and the outcome.

Some of the most academically selective senior schools go further and design their own scholarship exam from scratch rather than using CASE at all. Eton College's King's Scholarship is the best-known example: a bespoke set of compulsory and optional papers, sat earlier in the year than standard Common Entrance, that has nothing in common with a typical 13+ paper beyond covering broadly the same subjects. Whichever route a school uses, the unifying feature of an academic scholarship exam is that it exists to differentiate between able candidates at the very top of the ability range — it is not simply "the same exam, but you need a higher mark."

How Do Scholarship Papers Differ from Standard 11+ and 13+ Entrance Papers?

The most consistent theme across scholarship exams is difficulty. Tutors experienced in preparing 13+ scholarship candidates describe the step up bluntly: the quality of questioning, "if not the quantity," borders on GCSE and A-level material in places, even though candidates are only 12 or 13 years old at the time. This is a genuinely different demand from strong Common Entrance performance, which is designed to be achievable by any well-prepared Year 8 pupil heading to that school.

A second consistent difference is the presence of a General Paper, common to many 13+ scholarship exams, which has no real equivalent in standard Common Entrance. A General Paper typically tests language skills, problem-solving, science reasoning, data-handling, and awareness of history, culture, or current affairs — skills that are broader than any single subject curriculum and cannot be revised for in the same way as a Maths or Science paper. Scholarship candidates are also more likely to face essay-based subjects — English, History, Divinity/TPR, Geography — marked with an expectation of independent thought and a developed argument, rather than the more structured, checklist-style marking used for standard entrance essays.

Finally, scholarship exams are frequently timed differently and sat by a different (smaller) cohort. Because scholarship exams identify only a handful of award-winners, and because — as covered below — they are often sat earlier in the year, families and schools can end up managing two almost entirely separate preparation tracks: the standard entrance route, and a scholarship track running in parallel with a harder syllabus and an earlier deadline.

The ISEB Common Academic Scholarship Examination (CASE) at 13+

For 13+ entry, the most widely used scholarship route is CASE, administered by ISEB. According to ISEB's own guidance for schools, CASE questions are based on the Common Entrance 13+ specifications, but candidates are entered by the senior school they have applied to, which chooses which papers a given pupil will sit and marks those papers itself. CASE assessments span up to nine academic subjects — English, Mathematics, Science, History, Geography, Theology/Philosophy/Religion (TPR), French, and Latin — with the senior school selecting the relevant combination for each candidate rather than every candidate sitting every subject.

CASE is offered in two sittings each year, in February and May, and pupils usually sit the exam at the senior school itself rather than at their current prep school — a logistical difference from standard Common Entrance, which is normally sat in the candidate's own school under invigilation arranged with the receiving school. In practice, many senior schools identify their strongest candidates from the pool who have already sat standard Common Entrance or an earlier assessment, and then enter that shortlist for CASE separately, rather than treating CASE as a first-round filter for every applicant.

Eton's King's Scholarship: A Worked Example of a Bespoke Scholarship Exam

Not every senior school uses CASE. Eton College runs its own King's Scholarship examination, which is a useful worked example of how demanding a bespoke scholarship exam can be. Candidates sit compulsory papers in English A, English B, Mathematics A, Science, and General I, plus at least three optional papers chosen from French, Latin, Greek, Mathematics B, General II, and History-Geography-Divinity. A candidate's result is based on performance across the compulsory papers plus their best three optional papers — a structure that allows strength in particular subjects to shine through rather than penalising a single weaker area.

Around 14 King's Scholarships are awarded each year, usually tenable for five years through a pupil's time at the school. The exam is sat in late April or early May for September entry — well ahead of the standard 13+ Common Entrance papers most candidates sit in June. This timing gap is deliberate: it lets the school identify and confirm its scholars before the main Common Entrance round, and it means scholarship candidates are, in effect, preparing on a different (and earlier) calendar to their peers sitting the standard exam.

When Are Scholarship Exams Sat?

Timing is one of the clearest practical differences between the scholarship and standard routes. At 13+, ISEB CASE runs in February and May — noticeably earlier than the June sitting typical of standard Common Entrance — and Eton's King's Scholarship exam is sat in late April or early May, again ahead of the main round. This earlier timing has real consequences for preparation: a scholarship candidate effectively needs to peak in ability several weeks or months before their non-scholarship peers, on a harder syllabus, which is one reason families often start dedicated scholarship preparation a full academic year in advance.

At 11+, the picture is generally simpler because most day schools do not run a separate scholarship sitting at all — scholarship consideration typically happens on exactly the same day as the standard entrance exam, in the autumn term or January of Year 6, with the school identifying its highest scorers for an award once all papers have been marked. For families targeting 11+ day schools, this means there is usually no separate scholarship exam date to plan around — the standard entrance exam performance is the scholarship exam.

Do Scholars Also Face an Interview or Wider Skills Assessment?

At many schools, strong exam performance is the first filter but not the only one. Schools awarding a small number of scholarship places each year commonly add an extra stage for shortlisted candidates — an additional interview, a conversation with the head or the head of academic scholars, or a wider skills assessment that goes beyond the written papers. This sits on top of whatever standard admissions interview every entrant to the school already attends, and it is designed to test how a candidate thinks and communicates under a more searching, less scripted line of questioning than the standard admissions interview typically involves.

The exact format of this extra stage varies enormously between schools, and not every school adds one — some award scholarships purely on exam performance with no further stage at all. Because there is no single national format, the only reliable way to find out what a specific school requires is to check that school's own scholarship prospectus or contact its admissions office directly, rather than assuming every scholarship route looks like Eton's or another well-known example.

What Do Academic Scholarships Actually Provide Financially?

This is the area where expectations and reality diverge most sharply, and it is worth being direct about it rather than overstating the financial value of a scholarship. Academic scholarships today are widely characterised in the independent schools sector as being "about kudos rather than cash" — a shift from a decade or more ago, when scholarships more often carried substantial fee remission. One commonly cited example is Eton's King's Scholarship, reported by education advisers as carrying a 10% fee deduction rather than free tuition, despite being one of the most academically prestigious school awards in the country.

Across independent schools more broadly, academic scholarship values vary school by school, but typically sit somewhere in a 5% to 20% discount on fees, with many clustering around 5% or 10%. A minority of schools offer more generous discounts, and a very small number of schools run separate, much larger combined need-and-merit awards — Eton's Orwell Award, for instance, can in principle provide up to full fee relief — but these full-fee awards are the clear exception rather than a realistic expectation for most scholarship candidates nationally. If genuine financial help with fees is the priority rather than the title and prestige of "Scholar," a means-tested bursary — assessed on family income, assets, and outgoings rather than exam performance — is usually the more significant financial route, and families for whom cost is a real constraint should investigate bursary provision at their target schools directly rather than relying on an academic scholarship to make the difference.

This distinction has become more pressing since VAT was applied to UK independent school fees from January 2025: advisers report that demand for bursary places has increased since the change, and that some schools have had to review the overall scale of their bursary provision as a result. None of this affects the academic scholarship exam itself, but it is an important piece of context for any family weighing up how much financial difference a scholarship award is realistically likely to make.

11+ Academic Scholarships: How They Work at Day Schools

Scholarship arrangements at 11+ tend to be considerably lighter-touch than at 13+, mainly because day schools awarding a handful of scholarships each year rarely find it worthwhile to run a wholly separate exam sitting for such a small number of candidates. At many 11+ day schools, all children who sit the standard entrance exam are automatically considered for an academic scholarship as part of the same process — there is no extra application stage, and no extra paper, beyond the entrance exam every candidate already sits.

That said, "automatic consideration" does not mean identical treatment at every stage. Some schools reserve their scholarship shortlisting for an additional short interview or a conversation about a candidate's wider academic interests once the exam has been marked, in the same way as described above for 13+. Because practice varies from school to school and even the closing dates for scholarship-relevant assessments can differ from the main admissions timetable, families should check the admissions or scholarships section of each specific school's website — for example, several London day schools with strong academic reputations for scholarships also publish detailed 11+ preparation guidance, which is a useful starting point alongside our own Highgate School 11+ guide and St Paul's Girls' School 11+ page.

How Should Families Prepare for a Scholarship Exam?

Because scholarship papers are set above the standard entrance level, preparation needs to go beyond simply "more of the same" past-paper practice. For 13+ scholarship candidates, this typically means building genuine subject depth well beyond the syllabus tested at standard Common Entrance — wider reading in English and History, comfort with unfamiliar problem-solving in Maths and Science, and practice with the kind of General Paper questions that reward broad awareness of current affairs and joined-up thinking rather than a fixed body of content. Our Common Entrance 13+ subject-by-subject guide and Common Entrance overview are useful starting points for understanding the baseline before layering scholarship-level extension work on top.

Because scholarship exams are often sat earlier in the year than standard entrance papers — February/May for CASE, late April/early May for Eton's King's Scholarship — timing is itself a preparation variable. A student aiming for a scholarship needs to reach peak readiness months before their non-scholarship peers, which usually means starting focused scholarship-level preparation at least a full academic year ahead of the exam, rather than the shorter run-up that can work for the standard entrance route. Families beginning this planning early may also find our Year 7 guide to when 13+ preparation should start helpful for sequencing the two tracks. Where interviews or wider skills assessments are part of a school's scholarship process, dedicated interview practice — going beyond rehearsed answers to genuine, confident discussion of a subject the child is passionate about — is worth building into preparation well before the exam itself.

Should Your Child Sit a Scholarship Paper?

Not every strong candidate should aim for the scholarship route, and it is worth being honest about this with a child rather than treating a scholarship attempt as a costless extra. Scholarship exams are, by design, intended to differentiate between the very strongest candidates for a small number of awards, and given that the financial benefit for most schools is a modest fee discount rather than transformative funding, the case for attempting a scholarship paper often rests more on genuine academic stretch, motivation, and the value of the "Scholar" title itself than on cost savings. For families where affordability is the primary concern, time is generally better spent investigating means-tested bursary provision directly with target schools rather than preparing for a harder exam whose financial upside is, for most candidates at most schools, relatively small.

Where a child is comfortably strong for the standard entrance exam and enjoys the kind of independent, wide-ranging thinking that scholarship papers reward, attempting the scholarship route alongside the standard application is usually low-risk — most schools that run a separate scholarship exam still consider unsuccessful scholarship candidates for a standard place through the normal entrance process. The decision is best made in conversation with the child's current school and, where possible, directly with the admissions team at the senior school in question, since practice on this point varies between institutions.

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