School Admission Appeals

Refused a place at Wimbledon College?

You are not alone. In 2026/27, 51 families who named Wimbledon College as their first choice did not get a place: 188 put it first and 137 of them were offered one.

Below: what an appeal in Merton actually involves, and how contested this school has been over 12 years of official figures.

51

first-choice families refused a place in 2026/27

188 first preferences for 194 places, 2026/27

Appealing a refusal at Wimbledon College

There is no published appeal success rate for Wimbledon College, or for any individual school in England. The Department for Education collects appeal outcomes and publishes them by council. The figures here are for Merton as a whole and cover every state-funded school in the authority. Anyone quoting you odds for a named school is making them up.

Across Merton, 18.5% of secondary appeals heard were upheld — 25 of 135 appeals heard in 2024–2026. The England figure is 20.1%.

A panel is not deciding whether you want the school. It decides whether the admission arrangements were lawful and correctly applied, and then whether the harm to your child of not being admitted outweighs the harm to the school of going over its published number. Cases built on preference rather than on those two questions are the ones that fail.

See the full appeal figures for Merton.

What a panel here can act on

These are national rules, not Merton ones. Whichever school you are appealing for, the panel works through the same two stages and is required to ignore the same things.

How contested this school has been

Wimbledon College turned first-choice families away in 10 of the last 12 years. More families named it first than it had places in 3 of those years. In the other 7 it had places on paper and still turned first-choice families away — which happens where families who may not meet a school's criteria rank it below a safer choice — common at selective, faith and single-sex schools, and it means the first-preference count understates how wanted the school is.

First preferences per place at Wimbledon College, 2015/16 to 2026/27. A value above 1 means more families named the school first than there were places. 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 one first preference per place 15/16 17/18 19/20 21/22 23/24 25/26 26/27 2015/16 1.12 per place 209 first choices 187 places 2016/17 1.08 per place 205 first choices 189 places 2017/18 0.92 per place 178 first choices 193 places 2018/19 1.17 per place 222 first choices 189 places 2019/20 0.99 per place 182 first choices 184 places 2020/21 0.85 per place 161 first choices 189 places 2021/22 0.91 per place 185 first choices 203 places 2022/23 0.67 per place 140 first choices 209 places 2023/24 0.71 per place 152 first choices 213 places 2024/25 0.77 per place 160 first choices 209 places 2025/26 0.91 per place 178 first choices 196 places 2026/27 0.97 per place 188 first choices 194 places
First preferences per place at Wimbledon College. Years with too small an intake to carry a ratio are left blank rather than plotted. Latest year: 188 first preferences for 194 places.
View as a table
Places, first preferences and offers at Wimbledon College, by year. A ratio is shown only where the intake is large enough to carry one.
Year Places First choices Offered Per place
2015/16 187 209 123 1.12
2016/17 189 205 139 1.08
2017/18 193 178 124 0.92
2018/19 189 222 129 1.17
2019/20 184 182 108 0.99
2020/21 189 161 116 0.85
2021/22 203 185 130 0.91
2022/23 209 140 133 0.67
2023/24 213 152 142 0.71
2024/25 209 160 139 0.77
2025/26 196 178 136 0.91
2026/27 194 188 137 0.97

Places offered

194

in 2026/27

Named first choice

188

844 named it at any preference

First choices offered a place

72.9%

137 of 188

Offers to families outside the council

39%

76 of 194 offers

Was the school full?

This is the question a panel spends most of its time on. At the second stage of an appeal it weighs the harm to the school of taking an extra child against the harm to your child of being refused — and how much room the school has is the heart of that. The admission authority has to show harm over and above the fact that its published number has been reached, so it is fair to ask what the specific harm is — how the second stage actually works.

Places, Years 7 to 11

995

2024/25, whole school

Pupils in them

979

98.4% of capacity

Unfilled places

16

across Years 7 to 11

Sixth form places

269

excluded from the figures above

Read this before you use these numbers

These are whole-school figures across Years 7 to 11, not the year group you are appealing for. A school can hold spare places in its upper years while the year you want is genuinely full, and the panel will have the year-group numbers in front of it. So this does not show that Wimbledon College has room for your child.

They are also the school's own reported capacity, as at 1 May 2025 — a year behind the application figures further up this page, and a description rather than a finding.

On the published figures Wimbledon College reported 16 unfilled places across Years 7 to 11, at 98.4% of capacity. That is worth asking about — but ask it as a question, not an assertion. A panel will want the figure for the year group in question, and the school may have a good answer about staffing, rooms or timetabling.

Places and pupils on roll, whole school, 2009/10 to 2024/25

Places Pupils on roll

Places and pupils on roll at Wimbledon College from 2009/10 to 2024/25. Where the roll meets the places line, the school is full. 0 650 1,300 places on roll 09/10 11/12 13/14 15/16 17/18 20/21 22/23 24/25 2009/10 1,282 places 1,237 on roll 2010/11 1,282 places 1,300 on roll 2011/12 1,282 places 1,287 on roll 2012/13 1,254 places 1,270 on roll 2013/14 1,252 places 1,287 on roll 2014/15 1,260 places 1,263 on roll 2015/16 1,260 places 1,244 on roll 2016/17 1,260 places 1,264 on roll 2017/18 1,262 places 1,259 on roll 2018/19 1,262 places 1,266 on roll 2020/21 1,262 places 1,265 on roll 2021/22 1,264 places 1,254 on roll 2022/23 1,264 places 1,247 on roll 2023/24 1,264 places 1,249 on roll 2024/25 1,264 places 1,254 on roll
Whole-school figures including any sixth form, as at 1 May each year. 2019/20 is missing because the 2020 School Capacity survey was cancelled.

Department for Education, School capacity, school-level file, 2024/25. Published under the Open Government Licence.

What these figures do not tell you

About the school

Type
Voluntary aided school
Admissions policy
Non-selective
Religious character
Faith
Entry point
Year 7
Council
Merton

Postcode SW19 4NS. School details from Get Information About Schools (URN 102681).

Other contested secondary schools in Merton

Applications and offers: Department for Education, Primary and secondary school applications and offers, school-level file, 2026/27. Appeal figures: Admission appeals in England. Both under the Open Government Licence.