NSW selective high school · Year 7 entry
Selective high school reserve bands, A to F
A selective high school reserve band is one of six letters, A to F, given to a child placed on a school’s Year 7 reserve list. The Department publishes an estimate of how soon each band might receive an offer, based on the previous year. Band F means an offer is unlikely.
| Band | Estimate based on the previous year |
|---|---|
| A | within 1 month of the outcome notification |
| B | within 2 months of the outcome notification |
| C | within 3 months of the outcome notification |
| D | within 4 months of the outcome notification |
| E | within 5 months of the outcome notification |
| F | unlikely to get an offer |
Copied word for word from the Department’s page, Selective high school Year 7 reserve list bands. The Department publishes months, not calendar dates, and calls them estimates only.
If you are in band A to E you are likely to receive an offer, but there is no guarantee that you will. If your child is in band F, you are unlikely to get an offer.
Your child can remain on a reserve list and be placed up until the end of Term 1 of the entry year.
NSW Department of Education — Selective high school Year 7 reserve list bands
What the estimates are, and are not
They are months, not dates. The Department writes “within 1 month of the outcome notification”, not a day on a calendar, and calls the bands estimates only. Turning that into a specific date would be inventing a precision that was never published.
Why an offer comes at all
When a parent or carer declines their offer at a school, the offer is then made to the next eligible student on the reserve list.
NSW Department of Education
So the thing that moves a list is a family ahead declining a place — a decision about somebody else’s life, not about your child’s test. It also means a list can sit still for weeks and then move several places in a day.
Can you hold one offer and stay on another list?
Yes, up to a point. A child can accept an offer at a lower preference and remain on the reserve list of a higher one, until the reserve decision date printed on the offer. After that date, students holding an accepted offer are removed from higher-choice reserve lists. Staying on past that date means declining the offer you hold, and that cannot be reversed. The exact dates are on your offer letter and on the Department’s Outcomes page — check them there, not here.
Girls and boys at a co-educational school
This changed for 2027 entry, and these are the Department’s own words:
From the 2027 intake onwards, there will be an equal number of selective places made available for girls and boys at all coeducational selective and partially selective high schools, as well as opportunity classes in public primary schools.
If places for boys or girls are not filled at a selective high school or opportunity class, the available places will be offered to students from the opposite gender who qualify for placement based on their performance in the placement test.
NSW Department of Education — Fair access
One reserve list per school, with places declined by one gender offered to the next eligible student of that same gender.
See which bands have had offers, school by school →
Parents’ own reports, not an official record.