Managing your waitlist
For the first round of placements, RSCO makes offers only for a family’s first-choice school or district. Even if you don’t receive an offer in the first round, your student still has a chance for an offer in later rounds. Read on for more information about how the waitlist works and how to increase your likelihood of an offer.
Managing your waitlist
For the first round of placements, RSCO makes offers only for a family’s first-choice school or district. Even if you don’t receive an offer in the first round, your student still has a chance for an offer in later rounds. Read on for more information about how the waitlist works and how to increase your likelihood of an offer.
My student didn't receive a placement offer. What happens next?
Learn about how the waitlist process works and how you can adjust your application to increase your chance of an offer.
How the Waitlist Works
If your student does not receive a placement offer in the first round, we will notify you by text and email that your student’s application is on the waitlist for the schools and programs you selected on their application. The late application period also begins at this time, during which you can add up to five additional selections to your application, but options will be limited to select grades and schools based on the waitlist size and number of seats available.
Magnet and Open Choice placements continue throughout the spring and summer, typically every other week.
For each waitlist round, offers are made on a limited basis, depending on seat availability. Not every magnet school or Open Choice district offers seats in each round. In addition, schools that do make offers often do not include all grades. Keep in mind that after the first round, your student could receive an offer from any school or district on their application.
What are my chances of an offer?
After the first round of placements, we assign all schools and programs on your application an indicator based on your child’s position on the waitlist. Log in to your RSCO account to view the indicators for each of your school and program selections.
Waitlist indicators
Other things to know about the waitlist
Maximize your chance of receiving an offer in the next round
Now that you have a better idea of how likely your student is to receive a placement offer, you have the option to update your application to increase the chance of a placement.
Add new schools
On-time applicants can add up to five additional selections to their application based on the grades and schools available. Your student will be placed on the waitlist after on-time applicants at each of the new schools/districts added. The waitlist indicator lets you know how many applicants are currently on the waitlist for the school or district. Options with a green waitlist indicator give you the best chance for placement.
Once you add schools or programs to your application, the indicator will refresh in real time to show how likely it is that your student will receive a placement if a seat becomes available. The indicator may change depending on choice order and the number of other applicants also adding the school to their application.
Change the choice order of your original selections
The placement protocol attempts to place students in their preferred schools or districts first before moving on to the other selections. Families may adjust the order of their school and district selections to best position their application for a placement. Since the placement protocol prioritizes choice order, adjusting your choice order could change your waitlist size and increase the likelihood of receiving an offer.
Helpful Tip: Moving a school or district with a yellow indicator to the top of your list could change it to green.
