Waitlists for School Enrollment

Waitlists for SFUSD enrollment Link to this section

The waitlist period for SY 2025-26 enrollment has ended. All waitlists have been discarded. Link to this section

Students who are enrolled in an SFUSD school should remain there for the rest of the Fall semester. Transfers are not permitted during the semester, except for in limited circumstances.
If you still with to transfer schools in the future, submit a Spring Transfer application by November 14, to potentially receive a new school assignment for January 2026, after winter break.

If you are not enrolled in an SFUSD school, you are not permitted to submit a Spring Transfer application. You can speak with the Enrollment Center at any time to enroll immediately into any school that has open seats and no Spring Transfer requests.

Waitlists for 2026-27 Link to this section

If you're applying for SFUSD schools for the 2026-27 school year, waitlists may become relevant to you in the Spring.

If you submit your application by January 30, 2026, we will automatically place your student onto waitlists for any schools you ranked higher than your assigned school. E.g. if you get assigned to your #2 school, we will place your student onto the waitlist for their #1 school.
The maximum number of waitlists that each student can be on is three. No student can be on more than 3 waitlists at a time. E.g. if you get assigned to your #5 school, we will place your student on the waitlist for their #1, #2, and #3 school (but not their #4 school).

How long was each waitlist in SY 2025-26, and how many students got in?

You can view the number of students on each waitlist in this spreadsheet: SFUSD SY 2025-26 Waitlist Length (public)

2025-26 was the first year SFUSD used expanded waitlists, with multiple requests and running offers that were issued between April and August. Additional analysis will be performed. You can view historical wait pool offer data, showing data from previous years' Wait Pool round, during which each student was permitted only one choice and offers were issued during the month of August only.

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Why reduce the waitlist limit from five down to three?

The decision to reduce the waitlist limit to three was made based on analysis of waitlist outcomes this past year, and feedback from families.

The #1 piece of feedback the Enrollment Center heard from families was that they were frustrated by how long some waitlists were, and how slowly they moved. Reducing the number of waitlist requests per student is a way to shorten all waitlists. It's essentially a way of improving the quality of each waitlist request (in terms of how valuable it is to each family), by reducing the total quantity. Last year, #4 and #5 requests accounted for 20% of all waitlist requests, and 14% of all waitlist offers.
By improving the quality of each waitlist request, we aim to increase the acceptance rate of waitlist offers. Last year, families accepted 57% of their waitlist offers to their top 3 requests, and only accepted 39% of their offers to their #4 or #5 requests.

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