Pippa Middleton's very different life at same school as sister Kate

Kate Middleton is known to be very close to her younger sister Pippa, but despite their many similarities during their teenage years, they had very different experiences of secondary school

When Pippa acted as bridesmaid for her older sister Princess Kate at her royal wedding to Prince William, she immediately captured the public's attention.

Kate is known to be incredibly close to her two younger siblings, James and Pippa, as well as her parents Carole and Michael Middleton. Pippa and Kate have seemed since they lived together in London before Kate's marriage to share a lot of similarities, but during their younger years they are reported to have had seriously different experiences, particularly during their time at school.

Both sisters attended the prestigious Marlborough College in Wiltshire - the elite boarding school now costs over £50,000 each year per pupil - and Pippa was reportedly awarded a scholarship to attend the school, after a successful career at her preparatory school: Downe House.

Kate also attended Downe House, but her time at the school is reported to have been far less enjoyable than that of her little sister. The future Queen was allegedly "badly bullied" as a day girl, something that a fellow former pupil Taffeta Gray, noted in the Daily Mail, "is always difficult. In the cliquey atmosphere of a girls' boarding school, to be a day girl makes you an oddity."

Kate then moved on to Marlborough College, after this alleged bad educational experience, where eventually she is reported to have thrived, after taking a while to initially settle in. However, when Pippa arrived at the boarding school, she hit the ground running, with fewer teething pains.

"Riding a wave of success in the sporting and social spheres at prep school, Pippa won an all-rounder scholarship to Marlborough and became captain of the hockey team. Unlike Kate's meek start at the college, Pippa took every opportunity to make an impression at the school, with one contemporary saying: 'Pippa was slightly tough and, back then, the one with the charisma. No one would ever think of bullying her,'" the Daily Mail reports.

However, despite Pippa's stronger start at the elite boarding school, which boasts William Morris, Jack Whitehall, and Siegfried Sassoon as alumni, the younger sister of the future Queen still had to put up with her fair share of teenage gripes. She was given the unfortunate nickname 'pan face' because of her supposed flat features but was not put off trying to impress her male peers, even when playing sport. 'My focus is on winning and making sure that my hair — fashioned into a slick Sporty Spice 'up do' — is just right. Did I mention boys watching?' she wrote in the Spectator." Now-Pippa Matthews is still very close to her sister and accompanied the Princess of Wales to the gentleman's final at the Wimbledon tennis championships in the summer - one of the first public outings Kate had taken part in since beginning her cancer treatment.

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