Anyone still waiting to hear about a place in primary school?

[Gryphon]

I'm getting worried; we didn't learn we were moving to Cambridge until after the January deadline, but supposedly they were supposed to make second-round decisions on June 11. But (after waiting 2 weeks for a reply to an e-mail) I just heard that my daughter's application is still being processed. Is this unusual? What are the odds of getting into any of our top 3 schools at this point? This will be her first year of school, and I'm anxious for it to go well!

Depends on the schools and whether they are over subscribed or not....

Which schools have you asked for? If all three have already allocated their places, then you'll probably be sent elsewhere, but if you have picked at least one that isn't full it should be OK. The delay might be a good sign that they think they do have a space but need final confirmation that another child is not taking up the place...

The problem will be that because you have moved AFTER the deadline, you went on the waiting lists and so you would only have been offered a place at the start of second round, if at that point one of the schools you have applied to had a vacancy. Which would usually mean undersubscribed on first round. (In otherwords no waiting list). What is happening now is that they are waiting until they know how many second round offers are not being taken up before they can work down the lists. As they will be trying to get you an offer for the highest preference you gave, and would prefer not, for example to offer you a lower preference and then a higher in a matter of weeks - messy all round- this can take some time. In fact some parents who do not take up a place actually never tell the authority this, so a "fully subscribed" school can find it STILL has a vacancy around day two of the autumn term, and ends up frantically ringing down the waiting list to avoid a vacant place and the financial loss implied.

So the bad nes is your waiting could go on far too long; the good news is you may yet get quite a high preference, depending on where you are on the waiting lists.