How Selective placement works: offers, reserves and equity

After the test, families wait for outcomes. Knowing how places are offered makes that wait easier to understand. This page covers only what the Department's pages say. It is mostly about Selective Year 7 entry; where a paragraph is about opportunity classes (OC), it says so.

Preferences matter

When you apply, you list one to three schools in order. After the test, the Department offers each qualifying student a place at their highest-preference school that they qualify for. That is why your order should reflect your real preference. See the schools list.

One offer only

The initial outcome is a single offer. You cannot get more than one offer when outcomes are first released. Your child may also be placed on a reserve list for a higher-choice school, and may get a later offer if their position on the list is reached.

Reserve lists

Not every offered place is taken. Some families decline, and the spare places are offered to students on reserve lists. For Selective, a child with no accepted offer stays on reserve lists to the end of Term 1 of the entry year, and for OC to the end of Term 1 of Year 6. A child who holds an accepted offer is removed from higher-choice reserve lists after the reserve decision date unless the family declines that offer first.

The Department publishes reserve bands. They estimate timing, based on when students in a similar position on the reserve list were offered a place in the previous year.

Selective Year 7 (bands A to F):

• Band A: likely by the end of September.
• Bands B to D: October, November and December.
• Band E: likely by the end of January.
• Band F: unlikely.

Opportunity classes (bands A to E):

• Bands A to D: likely by the end of September, October, November and December respectively.
• Band E: unlikely to get an offer.

These are estimates only. Nothing is guaranteed, and the Department can change how it publishes them. (NSW Department of Education, checked 7 October 2026.)

The Department also sets a reserve decision date. For the 2027-entry cycle it is 3 December 2026, at 3 pm, and it has not passed yet. Until then you can keep an accepted offer and stay on the reserve list for a higher-choice school. After that date, students holding an accepted offer are removed from higher-choice reserve lists, so a family that wants to stay on a reserve list must decline its accepted offer before the date. A declined offer cannot be got back, so read the Department's outcomes page before you decide. The date for 2028 entry is expected to follow a similar pattern, but it has not been published.

The Equity Placement Model

Up to 20% of places at each school are held for equity groups:

• 10% for students experiencing low socio-educational advantage;
• 5% for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander students;
• 2.5% for rural or remote students;
• 2.5% for students with disability.

In practice, 80% of places are offered on test performance. Up to the next 20% are offered to equity-group students who have not already received an offer, if their performance is within 10% of the minimum accepted for the school from a general applicant at initial offers (or as the selection committee determines). Any equity places that are not filled are offered to general applicants. The Department does not tell families whether an offer was an equity place, and equity students do not make a separate application.

Gender parity

From the 2027 intake, coeducational selective schools and OCs offer equal numbers of boys' and girls' places. If places for one gender are not filled, they go to the other.

The selection committee

A selection committee decides placement for students who are outside the usual age or Year range, students who need consideration under the Equity Placement Model, and other relevant factors brought to its attention. Based on test performance and these considerations, it determines which students are listed for offers and reserve places.

No cut-off scores

The Department says there are no set minimum entry scores. Outcomes depend on how many students apply, how they perform relative to each other, how many places there are and how many offers are declined. Be wary of any site claiming a cut-off for a school.

Appeals

Appeals are possible only in a limited number of circumstances. They must be lodged through the application dashboard, with supporting documents such as medical documentation or evidence of unforeseen circumstances, by the due date in the Department's key dates (typically 5 business days after outcomes are released). No late appeals are accepted, and test questions cannot be re-marked. For 2027 entry, Selective appeals closed on 26 August 2026 and OC appeals closed on 16 September 2026. The Department lists these among the invalid grounds: disappointment at not receiving an offer, the young age of the student, lack of test preparation, a perceived advantage from placement such as travel convenience, misunderstanding of the placement process, and requests to re-mark the test or adjust the report. Its list is longer, so read it before appealing.

Accepting or declining

When an offer arrives, accept or decline it in the application dashboard by the response due date; if you do not accept by then you lose the offer. You can accept now and decline later, but once you decline an offer you cannot get it back, so read the Department's outcomes page before you decide. If you are also on a reserve list for a higher-choice school, you can keep both until the reserve decision date; after that date students holding an accepted offer are removed from higher-choice reserve lists. If a reserve offer later arrives, you can accept it (which automatically declines your earlier offer) or decline it and keep your earlier offer. Withdrawing from a reserve list cannot be undone. If you are unsure about a step, contact the Department on set@det.nsw.edu.au or 1300 880 367, or message the team through the application dashboard if you have applied.

A calm summary

Placement sorts many capable students into a limited number of places. A result either way says little about a child's potential. For help talking about it, see reading the performance report and what if we miss out.

Source: NSW Department of Education, outcomes, reserve bands and fair access pages, checked 7 October 2026.

Department of Education wording on this page is quoted or adapted briefly under CC BY 4.0. © State of New South Wales (Department of Education), 2023. Licence: CC BY 4.0. ExamExplained has changed and summarised the text and is not endorsed by the Department.