Selective School Test Results and Entry Scores Explained

Every August we get the same two questions. What does this placement score mean? And what score did it take to get into a particular school this year? The second one has no answer in advance, and understanding why is the most useful thing a family can take from results day.

Where and when the results appear

Outcomes for the Selective High School Placement Test come out in August of Year 6, the year the test is sat, through the same online dashboard the family applied in. Nothing arrives in the post. Last cycle's outcomes were released on 19 August 2026. The date for the 2027 test had not been published when we wrote this; the department posts it on its application process page once it is set.

What is on the report

The report gives a placement score and a result for each of the four sections: Reading, Mathematical Reasoning, Thinking Skills and Writing. Each section is worth a quarter of the score. The multiple-choice sections are marked one mark per correct response, Writing is marked against criteria such as ideas, structure, language and expression, and the department scales the four and combines them. We have gone through that step by step in How the Selective School Test is scored.

What we tell parents to look at first is not the headline number but the spread. Four section results sitting close together mean the score is a fair picture of the child overall. One section well below the others usually means a specific gap. In our experience it is most often Writing, where the child did not get a planned response down in 30 minutes, or Reading, where the multi-part questions were rushed. A child with strong Mathematical Reasoning and Thinking Skills and weaker Reading and Writing has usually prepared with maths-style drills and not much else, and the two language sections are half the score.

None of this changes the outcome. For a younger sibling coming through, it is the most useful planning information you will get.

Three outcomes, one per school

Each school on your list gets its own outcome, which is why a family can have an offer from one school and a reserve-list place at another on the same morning.

An offer is a place. The dashboard tells you how to respond and by when.

A reserve-list place means your child was not in the first round for that school but is in the queue. As families decline offers, more are made, and this goes on for months. In the current cycle reserve decisions run until 3 December 2026. You do not have to do anything. If an offer comes, the dashboard will tell you.

Unsuccessful means no place at that school this year.

Children who land close to a school's level sometimes receive an offer to a partially selective stream, a selective class inside a comprehensive high school, instead of a place at a fully selective school. Families are sometimes thrown by this because they did not list a partially selective school, so it helps to know before August that the same test feeds both kinds of school and that a partially selective offer is a selective place.

What an entry score actually is

This is the part that causes the most confusion, so, plainly: a school's entry score is the placement score of the last child offered a place at that school in that year. It is a result that falls out of the process. It is not a bar the department sets before the test.

So it moves. It depends on how strong the applicants were that year, how many of them put that school near the top of their list, and how many places the school had. James Ruse, Baulkham Hills, North Sydney and every other school can be harder to get into one year and easier the next without anything at the school changing. When someone tells you the cut-off for a school, what they mean is last year's entry score, and that is a guide, not a promise.

The department published a minimum entry score for each school up to the 2021 entry cycle, on the old scale out of 300. Since the test changed for 2022 entry it has not published per-school minimums. The schools directory keeps the published history for each school next to its places and acceptance rate, which is a better way to judge how competitive a school has been than a number somebody remembers from a forum.

Appeals

An outcomes appeal can be lodged through the dashboard by a published deadline. Last cycle that was 26 August 2026, one week after outcomes. Read the appeal information in the dashboard before lodging one, and keep in mind that reserve lists move on their own. An appeal is not how a reserve place turns into an offer.

Key dates, last cycle and this one

	2026 test (Year 7 entry 2027)	2027 test (Year 7 entry 2028)
Outcomes released	19 August 2026	August 2027, date not yet published
Appeal deadline	26 August 2026	Not yet published
Reserve-list decisions run until	3 December 2026	Not yet published

If the result was not the one you wanted

If your child is on a reserve list, wait. Offers continue into December. If they have an offer from a lower choice, you can usually accept it and stay on the reserve list for a higher one; the dashboard spells out how. If they were unsuccessful everywhere, remember that the placement test only covers Year 7 entry. Entry in later years is handled by the individual schools, so ask the school directly if that is a path you want to keep open.

And if your child is still a year or two away from the test, the most useful part of this page is probably the bit about the spread of marks. Practice marks have the same shape as the real report. The free Selective Test Calculator takes a set of practice marks for the four sections and shows which schools they would put within reach, and that is a far better guide than a remembered cut-off. For the test itself, start with the NSW Selective School Test guide.