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Original poster

Confused about the process of choosing...

26 replies

obviouslymarvellous · 02/10/2018 13:15

Sorry if this has been done to death, but we are in the process of choosing a secondary school for eldest ds. My question is this, if we put a school down as first choice and other parents choose another school in same area (but this is heavily oversubscribed and therefore a number of students don't get in), if they potentially live closer would they get preference in our first choice school??? Or does choosing a school as first option come into play...It's not very clear on admissions criteria, and I'm struggling to get my foggy brain around it x

OP posts:
RedSkyLastNight · 02/10/2018 13:19

If you put a school as your first choice, and another parent puts it as their second choice, this makes no difference as to whether they are more or less likely to get into the school than you are.

The school's stated admissions criteria (usually including things like SEN, siblings, distance, catchment areas, feeder schools etc) determine who gets into the school. So if the school uses distance as a tie-breaker and the other parent lives closer than you, then their DC might get in and yours not. However, if the other parent was also able to get their first place school, then they would get a place there, rather than at their second choice (thus freeing up an extra place for everyone else!).