This process allows students currently in pre-kindergarten through 11th grade to apply to attend any school with available space outside of their neighborhood or catchment area.
Application for students from other Districts, Charter, Parochial, or private schools applying for an SDP school; the 2025-26 application period is CLOSED. You can access your account to view your 2025-26 application status here.
The school selection process allows students currently in pre-kindergarten through 11th grade to apply to attend any school for the 2025-2026 school year with available space other than their catchment school. A catchment school is the school that connects to your family’s home address, so you don’t have to apply. See more in the School Options tab.
The District’s school selection process:
uses a centralized lottery and waitlist system
applies school-specific grades, attendance and standardized assessment criteria
makes the online application available in 10 different languages
opens each fall, and closes each spring – this is the only application window for school selection
prioritizes the applications of qualified applicants who live in specific zip codes that have the lowest representation of students accepting offers over the last four years, at the following criteria-based schools:
Academy at Palumbo (for admission to 9th grade)
Carver Engineering & Science at (for admission to 7th and 9th grades)
Central High School (for admission to 9th grade)
Masterman (for admission to 5th and 9th grades)
This application process does not include other charter or tuition-based schools like Catholic or Friends Schools.
2025-2026 Timeline
September 13th at 4 pm: Application OPENS
September – October: Application Labs for students and families; office hours for counselors and school staff
October 23rd at 11:59 pm: Application CLOSES
November 27th at 5pm: Preliminary Eligibility Released to Applicants
November 27 at 5pm – December 6 at 5pm: Appeal window OPENS and CLOSES
December 2, 2024 – January 7, 2025: Individualized reviews; Auditions and project-based presentations; Appeals reviewed
January: Final eligibility released; Offers made & Acceptances begin
During the 2023-2024 school year, the School District continued to receive input from students and families regarding improvements to the school selection process. Here’s what’s new:
On August 5, we launched a more user-friendly school search tool, called Explore, that provides comprehensive information about each school.
Each applicant will be able to rank their top five school/program choices – a critically important update. Prior years had no ranking.
This new system uses a Nobel Prize-winning algorithm that is designed to generate the best offer based on both an applicant’s eligibility and their preference based on how they ranked their school choices.
It will be important to remember to choose a total of 5 schools. Limiting options will not improve the chances of receiving an offer – in fact, the chances will decrease.
Each applicant will receive either one offer or zero offers during the initial response phase. Prior years applicants could receive up to 5 offers.
Offers will be made based on the order in which an applicant ranked their five schools, the applicant’s eligibility, and seats available at the school/program.
Applicants will remain on the waitlist only for higher ranked schools to which they did not receive an offer and accept multiple higher offers as they come. Prior years applicants stayed on all waitlists and could only move once.
For example, if a student ranked five schools and received an offer to their 3rd ranked school, they will remain on the waitlist for their 1st and 2nd ranked schools, but would be automatically declined for a seat at their 4th and 5th ranked schools. If they subsequently receive a waitlist offer for their 2nd choice, they can accept that offer which would automatically decline the original offer at their third choice but allow them to remain on the waitlist for their 1st choice. They could later accept a seat at their first choice, if offered.
The application system will no longer accept PASA as an approved standardized assessment for CB schools. Other alternatives still remain as options.
More about the Algorithm
Understanding the Deferred Acceptance Algorithm
The School District of Philadelphia’s Find Your Fit school selection process allows students currently in pre-kindergarten through 11th grade to apply to attend any District school, with available space, outside of their neighborhood or catchment area for the following school year. The District understands that the School Selection process is important for families to help find the best fit for their child(ren). After listening to families and hiring Accenture to audit the previous school selection system, the School District of Philadelphia conducted an RFP and contracted with Avela for their School Selection system. This system uses a Nobel Prize winning Deferred Acceptance algorithm, otherwise known as a ranked based lottery.
Our goal in implementing this new system is to better account for student preference, provide more students with an initial offer, facilitate more acceptances in a shorter amount of time, and result in an overall reduction in the time it will take to fill open seats across our schools. As we continue to receive questions about how the Algorithm/lottery works, we are providing this additional information to provide insight and transparency.
Background on the development of the algorithm
Deferred Acceptance (DA), also known as the “Gale Shapley Algorithm” or “Stable Marriage Solution,” is a commonly used algorithm, or set of rules, policies, and procedures, for allocating scarce resources – including seats in schools – based on mutual preferences.
Avela’s founding team includes some of the award-winning researchers behind the algorithm.
Two scholars who studied the algorithm, Lloyd Shapley and Al Roth, won the Nobel Prize for this work in 2012. MIT Professor Parag Pathak won the John Bates Clark Medal in 2018 for advancing the research.
Avela is a software company founded out of MIT by Parag Pathak, Josh Angrist, and Greg Bybee. In addition to Parag’s Clark Medal, Josh won the Nobel Prize in 2021 for leveraging this algorithm to measure school performance.
Key Points about the Deferred Acceptance Ranking Algorithm
DA is popular for student assignment because it prioritizes family preference and has a number of properties (see below) that make it equitable and efficient.
In the algorithm:
Each child is assigned a random number, which is used in the event of a tie.
Each parent ranks schools for each child.
The system goes child-by-child and tries to place each child at their first choice school.
If a seat is available and that child is eligible for the school, the child is tentatively placed in that school (hence the name “deferred acceptance”).
If no eligible seat is available, the system looks at the admission policy of the school and asks if the new child has a higher priority for the seat. If so, the new child is placed in the seat, and the previous child moves on to their next choice. If not, then the system tries to place the child at their next preferred school.
If both students have equal priority for the seat, then the random lottery number is used to break the tie, and the student with the better lottery number is placed in the seat.
The system loops through all children until every child is placed, if possible.
Eligibility and priority for each school are determined by school and district policies.
Eligibility means who is able to attend a school, program, or grade level based on the rules. Examples include age or admission criteria like attendance, grades, test scores, auditions.
Priority means, among those who are eligible, who would get the seat if multiple students want it. Examples include zip codes, 8th grade students at the 5 continuation schools.
There is no way to “game the system” or have any advantage based on your knowledge of the algorithm or the inputs. This is known as “strategy proof,” and is one of the properties that makes this algorithm so famous. As a result, families should always rank schools according to their true preferences.
Additional Resources
Ulrich Boser and Meg Benner at the Center for American Progress interviewed Parag Pathak and wrote a wonderful summary of student assignment algorithms, including Deferred Acceptance and another popular approach, Top Trading Cycles. Read more
For a more rigorous overview with economic rationale and mathematical explanation, Parag Pathak’s paper “The Mechanism Design Approach to Student Assignment” in the Annual Review of Economics (May 2011) does a great job.
If their current school is their top choice for 9th grade, they will be guaranteed a spot at that school only if they:
participate in the school selection process by successfully submitting an application
meet the school-specific criteria
include their current school as their first-ranked choice
Other possible scenarios for students who submit an application to their current criteria-based school, assuming they meet the required criteria:
If the current school is ranked #2, and an offer is received and accepted from the #1 school, they will NOT receive an offer at the current school. All lower ranked choices will be automatically declined.
If the current school is ranked anything other than #1, but NO OFFERS ARE RECEIVED from a higher ranked school, they will receive an offer from the current school. All lower ranked choices will be automatically declined. The student will remain on the waitlist for any higher ranked choices for which they are eligible.
Updated Zip Codes
As part of the school selection process, the District prioritizes the applications of qualified applicants who live in specific zip codes that have the lowest representation of students accepting offers over the last four years, at four criteria-based schools. This year, the zip codes are:
Same as last year: 19140, 19133, 19132, 19134 New this year: 19136, 19124 *removed this year: 19139, 19121
Please note, students from these zip codes MUST still meet the established criteria before being marked eligible for the lottery.
There are various types of high schools in our District, and each has slightly different admission processes.
Criteria-Based High Schools
Each of these schools has its own set of admissions criteria related to attendance, punctuality, behavior, grades, and standardized test scores. Students citywide may apply to these schools but must meet the criteria to be considered for admission.
These schools accept students from across the city. City-wide schools do not have admission criteria and interested students are selected through an impartial lottery process.
These schools have an open admissions policy (no criteria) for students who have attended grade eight in the school’s feeder pattern. The schools that the child attends within a certain feeder patter is based on the family’s home address. Students outside the catchment are still able to apply through the selection process.
Criteria-based schools will review a student’s grades, attendance, and standardized assessment scores (PSSA test scores, or an approved alternative)*. Some notes on these criteria:
All schools will accept the best grades and attendance rates from the previous two school years (SY2022-2023 and SY2023-2024)
Grade requirements are for the 4 core subjects: ELA, Math, Science and Social Studies
Attendance requirements: 95% attendance rate is 9 or fewer unexcused absences. 90% attendance rate is 18 or fewer unexcused absences.
Assessment Requirements:
Students applying to 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th grades, all schools will accept the best assessment scores from the previous two school years (SY2022-2023 and SY2023-2024)
For students applying to 5th grade, schools will only use the previous year’s assessment scores
For students applying to 11th & 12th grade, standardized assessment scores will not be reviewed
*Please note: Some schools may also have additional requirements that may include auditions or project submissions.
PSSA Conversion Information
For the conversion charts for PSSA Scores for the last two years and PSSA Minimum Scale Scores (condensed versions of the PSSA percentile charts, highlighting the minimum scores needed for the 3 relevant thresholds), click HERE
Approved Standardized Assessments
Approved standardized assessments must be administered at a school or testing center
The approved assessments* for School Selection are PSSA Scores for Reading/ELA and Math.
Reading/ELA and Math scores from the following standardized assessments will be accepted for student applicants who do not have PSSA scores from 2022-23 or 2023-24. To qualify, assessments must have been taken for the grade level the student was enrolled in at the time the test was taken.
California Achievement Test (CAT)
Educational Records Bureau – Comprehensive Testing Program (ERB-CTP)
Education Records Bureau – Independent Schools Entrance Exam (ERB-ISEE)
Students should take the version of the ERB-ISEE assessment that corresponds to the grade level the student is applying to.
IOWA Test of Basic Skills
Secondary School Admission Test (SSAT)
State standardized assessment for a state other than Pennsylvania
TerraNova
* Please note, the Pennsylvania Alternate System of Assessment (PASA) will no longer be accepted as an approved standardized assessment.
Academic/Assessment Review Window: October 30 – November 22, 2024
As the School District continues to review the thousands of applications that we received, it will take the team time to complete the review process and update statuses.
During these periods, the District’s Student Enrollment and Placement Team and Evaluation, Research and Accountability Team will be validating academic and assessment data included in applications to criteria-based schools.
System May Close for Preliminary Eligibility Updates: November 22, 2024 – November 27, 2024
Students who requested an Individualized Review in their application will find out if they are eligible to participate in the review on November 27, 2024.
Application Statuses
Preliminary Eligibility
Starting November 27, 2024, at 5PM, these application statuses will be updated at the school level and reflect one of the following:
Eligible for Lottery: Program has no eligibility requirements OR student has met the requirements based upon attendance, grades, and assessment.
Ineligible for Lottery: Student is not eligible for the lottery based upon attendance, grades, and assessment AND is not eligible for an Individualized Review
Pending Audition: Program has attendance, grades, and assessment criteria that the student has met, but the program also requires an audition that the student must complete and be evaluated based on.
Pending Project-Based Presentation: Program has attendance, grades, and assessment criteria that the student has met, but the program also requires a project-based presentation that the student must complete and be evaluated based on.
Pending an Individualized Review: Student meets two of the three attendance, grades, and assessment requirements for the program, and has requested that the ineligible area be waived. The student must also have an IEP, 504 plan or receive EL services. The student must have submitted an IEP/504 Plan or Access/Screener Scores and for IEP students, transition assessments. The student must also not be eligible for any other criteria-based schools/programs. They must be applying to the entry-level grade for the school/program.
The appeals process is limited to specific circumstances, over a specific timeframe. Students who would like to submit an appeal may do so between November 27 at 5pm – December 6 at 5pm.
Decisions that CANNOT be appealed:
Applications that were not submitted
The student did not meet eligibility criteria, but the parent/guardian believes the student should be eligible based on their overall performance as a student
Any decision by the Individualized Review Team (formerly known as “LeGare”) because the Individualized Review is, in effect, an appeal
The result of an applicant’s audition or project-based presentation
Who CAN appeal?
Applicants with an ineligible status have an opportunity to appeal that decision when there is evidence of a verifiable barrier to a fully complete application and you have received an ineligible status due to a(n):
Language barrier that prevented the applicant or parent/guardian from fully completing the submitted application; or
Disability that prevented the parent/guardian/representative from fully completing the submitted application; or
Existing custody order that prevented the applicant or parent/guardian from accessing the necessary records required to complete their application
More information about results and the waitlist process for the School Selection process for 2025-2026 is coming soon.
If you are still on a waitlist from last year’s school selection process, use the buttons below to access your information.
District Students - Access your Information HERE
For students enrolled in an SDP school (excludes Charter, Parochial, & private schools). The 2024-25 application period is CLOSED. You can still access your account to view your 2024-25 application here.
For students from other Districts, Charter, Parochial, or private schools applying for an SDP school. The 2024-25 application period is CLOSED. You can still view your 2024-2025 application information here.
The Individualized Review expands upon the process that was previously known as the Impartial Review or LeGare Review.
Occurs when applying to the first year of a criteria-based middle or high school program.
The Individualized Review is the appeal process
An individualized review does not guarantee eligibility.
Who Receives an Individualized Review?
Any student who has been identified as:
A student with a disability that has a current IEP or
Having a current 504 Plan or is 504 eligible or
An English Learner (EL)
AND
Who is applying to the entry grade of one or more criteria-based middle or high schools during the School Selection process.
AND
Who does not meet ONE of the three criteria and has elected to waive that one criteria in the application.
How do I get Started?
While completing the online application, applicants will be able to request an Individualized Review.
Students who requested an Individualized Review in their application will find out if they are eligible to participate in the review on November 27, 2024.
Click below to find details about events you can attend, where you can learn more about the school selection process, ask your questions, and receive hands-on assistance!
Application Assistance Labs
Get hands-on assistance with your student’s application!
School Open Houses
Visit these schools in-person, meet the staff and learn more about the school culture. We highly recommend doing this research during the application phase rather than waiting until the final week of selection!
Town Halls
Town Halls
This year’s Town Halls were held in September. We’ve recorded them so you can watch at your convenience! Click on the videos below to learn more about Selection!
The 2024 K-12 Philly School Fair was held in September.
It is an opportunity for students and families to interact with the schools and programs available in the city, ask questions, and understand application requirements and deadlines. The fair serves as a one-stop-shop for public, charter, and private high schools to display promotional materials, videos, contact information, and post school-led virtual events.
Creating and Submitting an Application (District Students) (Translations coming) English | Shqip | العربية | 汉语 | Français | ខ្មែរ | Português | Русский | Español | Việt
All general information letters sent to families about this year’s Selection are linked below.
Sept 11, 2024: Information about Town Halls, Application Assistance Labs for one-on-one help filling out your application, and Criteria-Based High Schools. Find more HERE.
Aug 9, 2024: Introducing our new technology provider, Avela, our newly updated school selection system which will provide a more streamlined application process, AND our new, more user-friendly school search tool, called Explore, that provides comprehensive information about each school. Learn more HERE.
Additional Resources
School Selection Data – The Office of Research and Evaluation (ORE) publishes annual reports about the school selection process. You can find the 2021-22 and 2022-23 reports here.
The Directory provides a comprehensive list of high school experiences across our District, including locations, academic programs, specialty courses, athletics, extracurriculars, and Career and Technical Education (CTE) options.
Are you new to the District and want to register your child?
Please visit our website for instructions for new student registration and to complete an Online Registration (OLR). For any additional questions, please visit your neighborhood school which can be found on our website. To see the full list of acceptable documents for registration, please check our Enrollment Guidelines .
My child is currently in a pre-K program, how do I apply?
You should apply as a “non-district” student.
Do I need to apply to my catchment school?
No, applicants should not apply to their catchment school. If a student wishes to attend their catchment school, no action is needed through school selection. You can go directly to the school to enroll.
How do I know if I meet criteria for a school or program?
The information in the “criteria by school” section on this page outlines the criteria needed for each school, for reference.
Is the application offered in other languages for our ELL families?
Yes, it can be translated into the District’s supported languages.
How can I find out what the criteria are for a specific school or program?
The criteria for all schools can be found on this page, in the section called “criteria by school.”
When are applications due?
Applications must be submitted before the deadline of October 23rd, 2024 at 11:59 pm.
Why are we changing to a ranked selection system?
Our goals in implementing this new system are to:
better account for student preference
provide more students with an initial offer
facilitate more acceptances in a shorter amount of time
result in an overall reduction in the time it will take to fill open seats across our schools
Can I apply to a charter school or a private school through School Selection?
No, the School Selection Process allows families to be able to apply to participating School District of Philadelphia schools for the 2025-2026 school year.
Families interested in applying to charter, private or parochial schools are encouraged to contact those schools directly to learn more about their enrollment process.
Application Components
I am applying for kindergarten, do I need to enter grades and attendance?
No. The grades, attendance, and assessment criteria along with the transcript requirement are only for students applying to criteria-based middle and high schools.
Should I be including the Common Transcript Form with my application?
The common transcript form must be used if applying to a criteria-based school and your grades and attendance are not automatically populated in the application because you were not a school district student in the 2022-2023 and/or 2023-2024 years.
I only have grades, attendance, or assessments for one year. Can I submit the one year?
The best grades in the four core subject areas (ELA, math, science, and social studies), the best attendance record for unexcused absences, and the best percentile in ELA and/or math (depending on the school’s requirement) from the 2022-2023 school year and the 2023-2024 school year are used to determine eligibility.
If the academic data (grades, attendance, and assessments) is only available from one of these two previous years, that data will be considered the best academic data and will be used to determine eligibility.
I don't see the school that I want to apply to as an option in the application.
The school may not be listed on the application because they do not have space for students outside of their catchment area. If you want to confirm whether a school is participating in Selection, use the filter option “Grade participating in School Selection” within the District’s Explore tool here: https://philasd.explore.avela.org/.
My child is homeschooled and does not use letter grades. What should I do?
What should I do if incorrect grade and/or attendance information displaying for my student within the application?
Families should contact their school directly if they believe that the grade or attendance information that is displaying in the application is inaccurate.
If a student is missing grades or attendance in their application for a year where the student was not enrolled in an SDP school, the student’s former school must complete the common transcript form, and then the family can upload that completed form to their student’s application.
What should I do if my District student’s Education Accommodation screens do not accurately reflect their IEP, 504 or EL status?
If there is Education Accommodation information in the application that is incorrect or missing, families should reach out to their child’s school to update their accommodations in the appropriate system.
It will take up to 48 hours from when the data is updated, to appear in the Enroll system.
My child's school does not use letter grades. Can I upload their report card?
No. Your child’s school must complete the transcript form that is found on our website and in the application.
In doing so, they should use the rubric that is on the form to translate your child’s numerical grades, standards, or academic progress to a letter grade. We developed this rubric for this purpose and will honor the correlation that the school has made for the final grade in each of the core subject areas.
Note: Failure to include the transcript will result in an incomplete application which will be marked ineligible and will not be included in any evaluation processes.
Do my grades, attendance, or test scores matter if I am applying to a catchment or citywide school?
Only criteria-based schools require grades, attendance, and assessment scores.
Post-Application Steps
If a student is accepted into a school through the lottery, do they have to accept the seat at the school by a certain time, or are they automatically placed there once accepted?
Students will need to actively accept their offers after they receive an offer from the initial lottery. If no action is taken, the offer will expire. During the initial offer phase, a lottery offer will expire after 7 days.
If a student is accepted into a school from the waitlist, what should they do?
Students will need to actively accept the offer, after they receive that offer from the waitlist. If no action is taken, the offer will expire. During the waitlist phase, the offer will expire after 3 days.
