How Do Secondary Schools Choose Their Students

[Angel2005]

Hi Parents,


My daughter will have to pick 6 choices of Secondary Schools to enter Sec 1 next year. I know the aggregate score determines her eligibility to a certain school / stream etc. What I’d like to know is how the schools choose their students?
Is it…
1) a queue system? Eg. 1st student that meets criteria is accepted … Until they have reached the maximum no. Of places available?

2) they take those with the highest aggregates first then go down the list, using aggregate scores as they benchmark.

3) because we have marked 6 choices, and I’m guessing it takes around a month before we know which school our child is accepted in, what exactly happens in say
A) my 1st choice is School A but they have reached their max
B) how do they let my 2nd choice know they won’t take me? By this time my 2nd choice school would have already chosen those who have made THIS school their 1st choice etc.

Sorry am very blur and not sure if my question is understandable. I just Wana know what my child’s chances will be if her aggregate is only so-so so that we can also mentally prepare ourselves as some schools will give priorities to their affiliated schools as well. Very chiong hey but hope someone can give me a clearer picture and some good advice. Thanks

[jtoh]

Hi angel2005,


Have you read the MOE booklet on choosing your secondary school that’s distributed to all P6 students? The booklet describes very clearly the process the S1 Central Posting Exercise.

In brief, all P6 students will be ranked according to their PSLE scores. Each student has 6 choices. The MOE computer will consider the student ranked #1 first. They will give Student #1 the school of his choice. Next they will consider the student who’s ranked #2. And so on and so forth all the way to the last student. So the exercise is based on the RANKING of the student.

For eg, if a student is ranked #140 puts School A as first choice and School B as second choice (and School B is more popular with a higher COP), Student #140 will be given School A (his first choice) so long as School A has vacancies. He will not be given School B even if he qualifies bec that’s his second choice. Now the computer considers Student #141, whose aggregate is LOWER than Student #140 but who put School B as first choice and School A as first choice. Student #141 will be given his first choice of School B (so long as the school has vacancies) even though Student #141 has a lower aggregate than #140 because he put School B as first choice.

[Angel2005]

Thanks jtoh for the info you provided. At least I’m alittle clearer now. Am just worried my child might not get to the 1st and 2nd schools of her choice as judging from her Maths paper yesterday, am thinking her aggregate will be affected. Sigh… The worries of a kiasu parent. Thanks again

[jtoh]

Angel2005:

Thanks jtoh for the info you provided. At least I'm alittle clearer now. Am just worried my child might not get to the 1st and 2nd schools of her choice as judging from her Maths paper yesterday, am thinking her aggregate will be affected. Sigh... The worries of a kiasu parent. Thanks again

You're welcome. Good luck to your dd for the rest of her PSLE papers. Don't worry too much about her results for now. Afterall it's based on performance of the cohort and she might be at the upper end.

[Angel2005]

jtoh:

Angel2005:

Thanks jtoh for the info you provided. At least I'm alittle clearer now. Am just worried my child might not get to the 1st and 2nd schools of her choice as judging from her Maths paper yesterday, am thinking her aggregate will be affected. Sigh... The worries of a kiasu parent. Thanks again

You're welcome. Good luck to your dd for the rest of her PSLE papers. Don't worry too much about her results for now. Afterall it's based on performance of the cohort and she might be at the upper end.[/quote

Thanks so much jtoh for your encouraging words. Yah will hope for the best