Family guide
Choosing between two offers
Two offers is a good problem, and a stressful one under a deadline. This guide sets out a way to compare them that avoids the traps families most often fall into.
Prepared by InternationalSchools.orgPublished July 2026Last reviewed July 2026
In short
- Deadlines and deposit terms usually shape the decision more than any feature of the schools.
- Compare on a small number of factors that could actually change your answer.
- Commute, continuity of curriculum and support provision matter more day to day than facilities.
- Decline the other offer promptly and in writing. It costs nothing and it matters.
Terms that appear in offer letters
Acceptance deadline
Deposit
Conditional offer
A workable sequence
Roughly a week's work, most of which is reading the letters properly.
Write down the deadlines and the money
Response date, deposit amount, whether the deposit is refundable, and whether it is credited against fees. These constraints decide how much time you actually have.
Separate what is fixed from what is preference
Year group, curriculum continuity, support provision, language of instruction and commute are structural. Facilities, uniform and building age are preferences.
Compare on four or five factors only
Long comparison tables tend to hide the decision rather than reveal it. Pick the factors that would change your answer and score only those.
If a factor scores the same for both schools, remove it. It is not helping you decide.
Test the two things you cannot read on a website
How the child responded on site, and how the school answered a difficult question. Both are legitimate evidence.
Decide, accept, and decline the other clearly
Tell the second school promptly. It frees a place for another family and keeps a door open if your circumstances change.
What to compare between offers
Usually decisive
- Daily commute, in real traffic, at the real time
- Continuity of curriculum and examination pathway
- Support or language provision the child actually needs
- Total annual cost, including the charges outside tuition
- Availability of a place for siblings now and later
Usually less decisive than it feels
- League positions and headline results, which reflect intake as much as teaching
- Buildings and facilities your child will use a few hours a term
- Reputation reported second hand in parent groups
- Small differences in fees between two schools you would otherwise rank equally
If curriculum continuity is the sticking point, the transfer guide explains where the genuine friction points sit between systems and at which ages they matter most.
When the two offers are close
Worked example
A tie broken on the right factor
Two schools, same curriculum, similar fees, both with a place in Year 6. One is a fifteen-minute walk. One is a fifty-minute drive each way in morning traffic.
Over a school year the second school costs roughly three hundred hours of a family's time. That is not a tiebreak detail. Where two schools are genuinely close on the things you care about, choose the one that is easier to live with, because the difference will show up every single morning.
Families who reach two offers usually did one thing early: they contacted several admissions teams in the same week rather than one at a time. Complete one form, receive your own private school search with a recommended shortlist and other suitable schools to explore, and choose up to three admissions teams to contact directly.
Continue reading
Understanding international-school fees
The charges outside tuition that change a total-cost comparison.
School visits and tours
How to gather evidence on site that a comparison can actually use.
Compare curricula
How the main systems differ in structure, assessment and transferability.
How admissions work
Offers, deposits, deadlines and enrolment in sequence.
Last reviewed: July 2026
Offer terms, deposits and refund rules are set by each school. Read the offer letter itself and ask the school to confirm anything ambiguous in writing.
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