How to apply for an Opportunity Class or Selective High School in NSW
You apply online, yourself, between November and February. Not through your child’s school, not on paper, and not after the closing date — closing dates are strictly observed and no late applications are accepted.
That last sentence is the whole reason this page exists. The easy ways to miss the window are assuming the school will handle it, or that a late application will be waved through. Neither is true.
This page covers who applies, what you need before you start, the preference rule that costs families places, and the parts of the process most guides leave out.
Which application you need
They are two separate tests with two separate applications:
- Opportunity Class — your child sits the test in Year 4, for entry to an OC in Year 5.
- Selective High School — your child sits the test in Year 6, for entry to a selective high school in Year 7.
A child in Year 4 applies for OC. A child in Year 6 applies for Selective. If your child is in Year 5, neither applies this cycle — your year is next year.
There is a separate process for entry to a selective high school in Years 8 to 11. It is not this one, and it does not use the placement test.
Who can apply
Applications are open to children at NSW public schools, non-government schools, home study, interstate schools and overseas schools. Your family must be living in NSW by the year your child would start, and visa conditions can affect eligibility.
Your child does not need to attend a public school now to apply.
What you need before you start
Registration is quick, but the application itself has eight sections and one requirement that stops people mid-form:
- A parent or carer email address you will still have access to next September. Every outcome, offer and deadline notice goes here.
- A password of at least 14 characters. The system enforces it.
- A recent photo of your child, uploaded as part of the application.
You register with your own name and email, verify the address by email, then log in to a dashboard where the application lives. One application per child.
The preference rule that catches people out
You choose your schools in order of preference:
- Opportunity classes — between 1 and 4 schools.
- Selective high schools — between 1 and 3 schools.
The order is not cosmetic. If your child qualifies for more than one of your choices, the offer comes from the one you ranked highest, and you cannot decline an offer in order to get a later offer from a school you ranked lower.
So the order should reflect where you would actually send your child, not where you think they are most likely to get in. Ranking a school first because it feels like a safe bet is how families end up holding an offer they did not want and no longer have a path to the one they did.
You can change your school choices after submitting, up until the deadline shown in the key dates. After that, changes need exceptional circumstances and a formal request.
If your child needs adjustments for the test
If your child has a disability or a medical condition, you request reasonable adjustments through the application dashboard as part of applying — not on the test day, and not by arrangement with the test centre.
Request it while the application is open. This is not something that can be sorted out later.
The 20% most families have never heard of
Up to 20 per cent of places at every opportunity class and selective high school are held for students from four under-represented groups: students from low socio-educational advantage backgrounds, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, rural and remote students, and students with disability.
This is the Equity Placement Model, introduced in 2022. Students in those groups can be considered where their test performance falls within 10 per cent of the minimum first-round offer for general applicants at that school.
Two things worth being clear about. It is not a lower standard — the department’s position is that these students have the same academic potential and have been unable to demonstrate it because of disadvantage. And if the held places are not filled, they go to general applicants on test performance.
If any of those four descriptions fit your family, this materially changes your odds, and it is claimed through the application rather than afterwards.
What happens after you apply
The sequence is long, and knowing it stops the silence feeling like a problem:
- Applications close in February. No late applications.
- The test is sat in early May. Both tests now sit in early May, a week apart — the Selective test first, the OC test the week after. Older advice online still has the OC test in August and the Selective test in March. That calendar is gone.
- Outcomes are released through the same dashboard — for the 2027 entry cycle, Selective outcomes came on 19 August 2026 and OC outcomes on 9 September 2026.
- Appeals close about a week later, and reserve lists keep moving for months after that.
Dates for the next cycle
NSW has not yet published the 2028 entry dates. On the pattern of recent years, expect applications to open around November 2026 and close around February 2027, with both tests in early-to-mid May 2027 and outcomes the following August and September.
Confirm against the NSW Department of Education site before planning around those dates. The department states dates can change, and a missed closing date cannot be appealed.
One practical suggestion
Apply early in the window rather than late in it.
Nothing is gained by submitting in February instead of November — the test does not come sooner and the assessment is identical. What you gain is the ability to hit a problem with the photo, the email verification or the adjustments request while there are still three months to fix it, rather than three days.
Dates and rules on this page were checked against NSW Department of Education published information on 11 September 2026. The department may change dates and processes — always confirm current details on education.nsw.gov.au before acting on them.