Waitlists for School Enrollment

All students who applied by the Main Round application deadline received their Main Round school assignment in the middle of March. 

Applicants who were not assigned to their top choice school during the Main Round were automatically placed onto waitlists for their top choice schools, up to 5 schools, without having to re-apply. For example, if a student was assigned their #3 choice school in the Main Round, they were placed on the waitlist for their #1 and #2 choice schools. If a student was assigned their #8 choice school in the Main Round, they were placed on the waitlist for their top 5 school choices. 

Main Round applicants do not need to take any action to join waitlists, but they are able to remove themselves from waitlists or change which waitlists they are on, if they wish to do so. Visit sfusd.edu/apply for instructions about submitting a new waitlist application.

(Note that each school and program has a separate waitlist, and each one counts as 1 of the 5 waitlist choices allowed for each student. E.g. being on the waitlist for (i) School A - General Education and for (ii) School A - Spanish Immersion counts as being on 2 waitlists.)

After the Main Round application deadline, new applicants can submit the Waitlist application to join up to 5 schools' waitlists. The Waitlist application opens immediately following the Main Round deadline, and will remain open until the Waitlist application deadline in early August. See the enrollment key dates for specific deadlines.

To submit the Waitlist application online or in-person, review the options and follow the instructions available at sfusd.edu/apply.

To add a student to additional waitlists, submit a new application online or in-person with the full updated list of choices. New applications will overwrite previous choice lists. 

To submit a new application to revise your choices:

• Complete the Waitlist form in the online forms section of ParentVUE by going to sfusd.edu/onlineapp
• OR Submit the Waitlist application to enrollinschool@sfusd.edu or complete it at one of the Enrollment Center offices

When an applicant changes their preference order of existing waitlist choices, the student's position on each waitlist is preserved. E.g. if a student is #1 on the waitlist for their 3rd-choice school, and the family re-orders their choice list to move that school to be their 1st-choice, the student will remain #1 on that school's waitlist.

When an applicant joins additional waitlists, they join the bottom of that list, behind other applicants who applied earlier. Find more information about this in the Waitlist Order section.

To remove a student from waitlists (i.e. to cancel waitlist requests), there are three options:

• Resubmit a waitlist application online or in-person. To remove a student from one or some of their waitlist schools, but not all, resubmit the waitlist application with the full updated list of requests. The newest application will overwrite the previous request list.
• Edit the Waitlist Status information within the "Student Info/Waitlist" section of ParentVUE. Find the "Click here to edit waitlists" button at the top of the screen. Then select "Cancel" for any schools you wish to remove, and click "Save Changes" at the top of the screen.
• Speak with the Enrollment Center, in the office, over the phone (415-241-6085), or over email (enrollinschool@sfusd.edu).

If you accidentally remove your student from a waitlist, you can resubmit the online application with your complete and correct list of requests. If you submit that corrected application within one week, your student's previous waitlist position will be restored for any choices that you added back.

Each student can be on a maximum of 5 waitlists at a time. 

Each waitlist is specific to a school, grade, and program. If a student is applying to multiple programs at the same school, they will be on a different waitlist for each of their program choices. E.g. being on the waitlist for (i) School A - General Education and for (ii) School A - Spanish Immersion counts as being on 2 separate waitlists.

Interdistrict applicants should submit the Main Round application by the Main Round application deadline, and submit their Interdistrict permit to their home district in time to comply with SFUSD's annual IDT permit deadline (see key dates). Interdistrict students can only be assigned if an approved permit is received from their district of residence.

Interdistrict applicants who apply and submit their interdistrict permit on time may receive a school assignment in March, along with SF residents.

Interdistrict applicants can also participate in the waitlist process, regardless of when they submit their application and permit. As more SF residents join waitlists, new SF resident applicants will go ahead of interdistrict applicants on the same waitlists. Each time this happens, interdistrict applicants may see their position number increase, meaning there are more students between them and the front of the line.

For all those who applied by January 31, the waitlist order will be determined based on lottery results from the Main Round, including tiebreakers and random numbers. After the waitlist order is determined, new tiebreaker information (for example, if a family were to move into a neighborhood that receives preference for a given school) will not change waitlist standing with one exception: siblings. If one sibling is admitted to a school, the other sibling will get credit for the Sibling tiebreaker, and will move up the waitlist accordingly.

Families who join the waitlist after the Main Round application deadline will be added to the bottom of the waitlist for their choices, after all on-time applicants. For these applicants, the Sibling tiebreaker will still be taken into account, to move them ahead of non-sibling applicants who joined the waitlist after the Main Round application deadline. It will not move these late Sibling applicants ahead of anyone who applied before the Main Round deadline.

Families who cannot attend their assigned school due to unique hardships such as medical or family situations will be able to request an Appeal for one school. Appeals are considered only for cases where the student’s needs cannot be met at the assigned school, and can be met at a different specific school placement. An independent appeals committee reviews appeal requests and determines whether to approve or deny each request. Decisions made by the appeals committee are final, and cannot be further appealed. Details and dates for the appeals submission will be shared at the time of Main Round school assignments, and will be viewable on the Appeals webpage.

Yes, in some cases, applicants get moved to the top of the waitlist based on a correction, an approved Appeal, or a new sibling placement. In these cases, the other students on the same waitlist will see their position number increase, meaning there are more applicants between them and the front of the line.

Beginning in late March, Waitlist status information will be updated weekly and viewable in ParentVUE, in the "Student Info/Waitlist" section. 

For detailed instructions and screenshots, visit this webpage.

How to view your student's waitlist status in ParentVUE.

1. Go to sfusd.edu/onlineapp, and log into your account or activate it
2. Click "ParentVUE" in the upper right-hand corner
3. Select your student by clicking on the student photo in the upper left-hand corner
4. Click "Student Info/Waitlist" on the left side of your screen
5. Scroll down to view the Waitlist Status for SY 2025-26. A table will display the school, grade, and program for each waitlist your student is on. "Preference order" shows where that choice lies on your ranked list (e.g. "1" = your 1st-choice school). "Waitlist Position" shows where your student is on that waitlist (e.g. "1" = your student is 1st on the waitlist).

After submitting a new Waitlist application or revising Waitlist choices, families should be able to see their updated choices in the "Student Info" section the next Monday morning.

We cannot know this ahead of time, so generally we encourage you to be patient and optimistic. 

You can review information from prior years' Wait Pool assignment round, but that process happened in August, after Round 2 which no longer exists. Generally, we expect to give more waitlist offers than the wait pool data suggests. In some cases (denoted in pink cells), we have revised the numbers upward to reflect an estimate that we think is more representative of what is most likely to happen.

Historical wait pool offer data (public)

When you find your student's Waitlist Status information in ParentVUE, the Waitlist Status column includes a list of each student's requested Schools and Programs. 

Column titled "Status or Position on Waitlist":

• Number: "1" means the student is at the top of the waitlist. "10" means they are 10th on the waitlist. Etc.
• "Pending Update": the Enrollment Center is still processing your student's application and preparing to add them to the Waitlist. Thank you for your patience.
• "Current Offer": your student has a current offer to transfer into that school and program which requires your response. When this happens, click the "Accept / Decline Waitlist" button at the top of the page.

The first batch of waitlist offers will be sent out on Monday, April 21. The Enrollment Center plans to send out a new batch of offers weekly on Monday between April 21 and August 30 (except for some holiday weeks). 

Waitlist offers will only be sent out when there is an open seat in that specific school, grade, and program. 

For an individual applicant, the family will only receive an offer when (i) there is an open seat and (ii) their student is at the top of the waitlist. When that will happen (and whether it will happen at all) is impossible to predict.

In addition to the status updates viewable in ParentVUE, the Enrollment Center will contact families when their student has a current Waitlist offer, by email and text message. The Enrollment Center expects to send out a new batch of Waitlist offers every week, on Monday morning, between late April and the end of August.

Once the Enrollment Center has sent out communication, the family needs to respond, to Accept or Decline, within the stated deadline in the Enrollment Center's communication.

Contact information should be kept up-to-date in SFUSD's system. Please notify the Enrollment Center if you change phone numbers or email addresses, to ensure you are able to receive communications from us.

Yes, families will have the option to accept or decline the offer to transfer to their waitlist school. They will be able to Accept or Decline in ParentVUE, or by emailing or calling the Enrollment Center. If a family declines their waitlist offer, any previous school assignment will be preserved. If a family accepts their waitlist offer, it will replace their previous assignment. 

At the same time a family submits their decision to Accept or Decline a new waitlist offer, they should review their other waitlist requests (if any). Families can decide whether to Cancel each other waitlist request, or Keep them.

How to respond to a waitlist offer in ParentVUE.

1. Go to sfusd.edu/onlineapp, and log into your account or activate it
2. Click "ParentVUE" in the upper right-hand corner
3. Select your student by clicking on the student photo in the upper left-hand corner
4. Click "Student Info/Waitlist" on the left side of your screen
5. Click the button at the top of the screen titled "Click Here to Manage Waitlists"
6. Use the dropdown field to Accept or Decline the Waitlist offer.
7. Review the other waitlist requests (if any), and confirm which requests you want to Keep.
8. Click "Save Changes" at the top of the screen. 

Families will typically have one work week to respond to a new Waitlist offer. E.g. they will receive the offer on Monday morning, and will need to respond by the end of Friday. When a new offer is communicated to a family, it will include detailed instructions about how to respond, and about the response deadline.

If a family does not reply by the deadline, their offer will expire. They will no longer have a guaranteed option to transfer into that school. Their other choices will not be impacted, i.e. they will be preserved.

ParentVUE is not accessible outside the United States, so in order to accept or decline a waitlist assignment while outside of the country, families should email or call the Enrollment Center. 

Once a family receives an offer for one of their requested schools (for example #2), they will remain on the waitlist for all of their other choices initially. However, SFUSD will remove the student from some waitlists, depending on the situation and depending on how the family responds during the Accept/Decline process.

When the family logs in to Accept or Decline their Waitlist offer, by default:

• Higher-ranked choices will be kept (the student will remain on those waitlists)

• Lower-ranked choices will be canceled (the student will be removed from those waitlists)

E.g. if a student receives an offer for their #3 choice school, 

• The student will remain on the waitlists for their #1 choice school and #2 choice school

• The student will be removed from the waitlists for their #4 choice school and #5 choice school

As part of the Accept / Decline form, the family can indicate if they wish to change those default setting. E.g. they can choose to cancel all other waitlist choices, including #1 and #2; or they can choose to keep all other waitlist choices, including #4 and #5.

If a family does not respond to their Waitlist offer before the response deadline, all of their other Waitlist choices will be preserved. 

Waitlist length changes over time, as new students join the waitlist and other students at the top get offers to enroll. You can see the waitlist length for each school, grade, and program at the time of publication in this spreadsheet: SFUSD SY 2025-26 Waitlist Length. The date in the title indicates when the data is from.