Hypothetical question on schools admissions

[TeenTimesTwo]

Just musing.

Say you live in an area that lets you name 6 schools.

But you live right next to an LA boundary and the neighbouring LA only lets you name 3 schools.

Does that mean you could name 5 schools from neighbouring LA plus your banker catchment one in your area, thus having 5 choices in neighbouring LA whereas people living there only get 3?

I know that it probably wouldn't help you much due to distance, but if other things came into play such as faith criteria or 'aptitude' tests, wouldn't that give you somewhat an unfair advantage over someone possibly living across the road or next door but in the other LA?

You can only apply through the LA where you live. So if you're in the 6 choice area, you get 6 choices, but can list schools from either, so yes you could make most/all your other choices from the other.. In the 3 choice area, you get 3 which again can be from either.

It won't get you an unfair advantage, because it is all down to how well you fit the criteria, and if you fitted it better than someone who lives in the right borough but further away, wrong sex, not a sibling, not faith qualified etc, you'd still have come ahead of them regardless if number of spaces in the form.

In London, where the population densities are huge, all boroughs give 6 slots (it's a pan-London coordinated system). I really don't think it's likely to be an issue in less densely populated areas or anywhere with a distance tie p-breaker where schoolsa re not so tightly packed as in major metropolises

If you are in a 6 preferences LA then you can name any 6 preferences in any LA. If you nominate schools in another LA then the nominations are passed onto the other LA so that they can put them in their computer system.
If that LA only has 3 preferences then they will only accept 3 preferences. So in your example yes you could nominate 3 preferences for the other area and 3 in the LA that you live and gain potentially a marginal increase in potential to get a place offer for one of the 6 schools but you could not put down 6 in the other LA as they will have no means to record more than 3

Ah thank you admission , nice to know my 'loophole' such as it was, doesn't actually exist.