Philadelphia’s school selection starts today. Here is everything you need to know

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The School District of Philadelphia’s school selection application for the 2026–2027 year opens Sept. 8. Fifty schools in the city, including 22 criteria-based schools, are currently accepting applications.

The major changes to the school selection process include updates to the lottery preferences and the tests used for criteria-based schools.

District spokesperson Monique Braxton said that 16,878 students participated in the previous cycle, of which 10,275 accepted offers.

A majority of these students were applying to attend a new school for the ninth grade, Braxton said.

The school selection timeline

• Sept. 8: The school selection application opens at 4 p.m.
• Sept. 9 to Oct. 21: Application labs offer hands on assistance for families
• Sept. 20: K–12 School Fair at the Convention Center
• Oct. 23: Application window closes at 11:59 p.m. and the appeals window opens
• November through December: Preliminary eligibility released and the appeal window closes
• December through January: Individualized reviews, auditions and project-based presentations occur
• January and February: Final eligibility released, the lottery takes place, offers and acceptances and waitlist offers released

You can find the list of application lab locations and dates below.

What is the school selection application?

The School District of Philadelphia’s school selection process allows students to apply for any district school with available space for the 2026–2027 school year. This application does not apply to private or charter schools.

There are three types of schools that are participating in the selection process: criteria-based schools, citywide schools and neighborhood schools, which the district calls “catchment schools.”

Students who live outside city boundaries can participate in the school selection process. However, residents of the city are given priority over nonarea residents. Also, nonresident students must pay tuition and won’t be admitted to schools where their enrollment would displace a resident student.

This process also does not apply to students who plan to attend their designated neighborhood schools. To enroll in the school, visit its website for details.

Key changes to the 2026–2027 school selection process

One major change to the application process this year is the acceptance of standardized assessments for criteria-based schools.

On top of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, the TerraNova, the Educational Records Bureau-Comprehensive Testing Program and state standardized assessments from other states will be accepted.

Since this is the first year the list has changed, assessments accepted in the previous year — such as the California Assessment Test, Educational Records Bureau’s Independent School Entrance Exam, the Iowa test or Secondary School Assessment Test — will continue to be accepted, so long as the test is dated 2024.

Any test dated 2025 must be from the updated list.

In addition to the changes to the standardized assessments, several lottery preferences have been changed or updated.

The zip code preferences have been updated to 19121, 19132, 19133, 19135, 19136 and 19140 to reflect the areas that have the lowest representation accepting offers over the last four years.

For those applying to career and technical education schools, preference will be given to students who are currently attending a district middle school program that is similar to the program they are applying to for high school.

Siblings and twins now get preference when applying to non-criteria-based schools during the same application cycle. This applies only to siblings who have the same parent or guardian and have the same school ranking for both siblings.

School rankings and the lottery

Each student will have the option to rank up to five schools during the application process and will receive either one or no offers of eligibility.

The way the system works is through a “deferred acceptance ranking algorithm,” which tries to place each student at their top-ranked school. If there is no seat available, the student who has a higher priority gets the seat. A randomly assigned number helps break the tie.

If a student is given and accepts an offer, they will remain on the waitlist only for higher ranked schools for which they did not receive an offer.

For example, a student who gets an offer from their third-ranked school would be placed on the waitlist for their first and second choices, while declining their fourth and fifth. If the student then gets an offer for their second-ranked school, they’ll automatically decline their original offer, but remain on the waitlist for their first-ranked school.

Common mistakes and more information

“The common missteps when applying during the last cycle were families that mis-ranked their selection, selected schools that were too far from their home, forgetting to resubmit their application after making edits,” Braxton said.

Families have the ability to edit applications and their school rankings while the school selection window is open, but the application needs to be resubmitted after the changes are made.

Braxton also gave some best practices for the upcoming school selection cycle:

• Visit the School Selection website as a resource for the most current school selection information.
• Research schools using the Explore platform.
• Collect necessary documents in advance of starting their application, specifically if applicants are not a current student in the School District of Philadelphia and applying to a criteria-based school.
• Visit one of the district’s application labs for one-on-one support with submitting the application.
• Visit the K–12 School Fair at the Convention Center on Sept. 20.

If you missed the town halls the district hosted, you can find a video recording here.

If your student is applying to a criteria-based school, you can find the necessary requirements below.

Editor’s Note: Nate Harrington’s WHYY News internship has been made possible thanks to the generous support from the Dow Jones News Fund O’Toole Family Foundation Internship.