Wait Pool for SY 2024-25

SFUSD will contact families (by email and phone) starting around August 14, 2024 through August 30, 2024 if they have received their Wait Pool school. SFUSD will make  multiple attempts to contact families until we have reached the applicant. Please wait for staff to contact you — we may not be able to answer questions about the Wait Pool because we will be busy contacting families. Once we notify you that you have received an offer to your Wait Pool school, you will have a limited amount of time to decide whether you want to accept or decline the offer. If you do not receive an email or phone call during that time period, that means you did not receive your Wait Pool school.

No. Unlike in other application rounds, if you submit a Wait Pool application and a space becomes available for your student, we will not automatically change their enrollment. We will make multiple attempts to contact you to receive your decision to Accept or Decline. 

• If you Accept the offer for the Wait Pool school, your student’s enrollment will be changed at that point. 

• If you Decline the offer, your student’s current enrollment will remain valid, and they could continue attending the school they were assigned to previously. 

• If we do not receive a response from you within 24 hours, you may lose the opportunity to Accept the Wait Pool offer.

Applicants will need to submit a completed application between April 20 and August 7, 2024 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time online; by email or in a drop-off box by 4:30 p.m. Pacific Time. 

If you have submitted a Round 2 application, you must wait until you receive your Round 2 assignment the week of May 27. Don't worry — you won't miss out on any of the Wait Pool action. Applications submitted earlier do not have an advantage over applications submitted later.

The waitpool paper application will be posted on this webpage, will be available in Enrollment Center offices, and will be accessible in the Online Forms section of ParentVUE beginning April 20.

• Any student may choose to take part in SFUSD's wait pool process, even those who applied for Main Round, Round 2, New-to-SF Enrollment or Open Enrollment. It does not matter whether the applicant already has already  accepted an assignment to a different school or not.
• However, if you submitted a Round 2 application, please wait to see your Round 2 assignment before applying for the Wait Pool. 
• Once you have received a wait pool offer, you are no longer eligible to participate in a wait pool for another school.

It can be helpful to know which schools have a Wait Pool and which ones don't, because schools with Wait Pool requests are generally not available during Open Enrollment. You will be able to find the list of schools with active Wait Pool requests on this webpage, and you will be able to see the count of wait pool requests for each school, grade, and pathway. The lists will be made available and updated on:

• July 5, 2024
• July 12, 2024
• August 2, 2024
• August 9, 2024

Yes. You can see information about the number of wait pool applications for each school, grade, and program in this spreadsheet: SFUSD Historical Wait Pool Offer Rates (Public)

The information in the spreadsheet is based on data from 2021-22 and 2022-23, and shows the average number of applications per year during that time, as well as the average offer rate (the percentage of applicants who received an offer during the wait pool notification period to enroll at that school). The spreadsheet will be updated to include data from 2023-24 shortly.

IMPORTANT: this information from prior years can be used to help you think about the likelihood of receiving an offer to your preferred school-grade-program this year. But you should not interpret this information as a guarantee about what definitely will or will not happen this year.

SFUSD cannot guarantee that Wait Pool results in the current or future year will be similar to results from prior years — each year is distinct, and results depend on individual families' choices.

You are able to see an “Availability Estimate”, which is a formula-based estimate about the likelihood of receiving an offer. That estimate may not be valid or relevant in all cases, especially when there have been few or no wait pool applications in prior years.

If you need help interpreting this information, please contact the Enrollment Center. 

On July 8, New to SF Enrollment begins, and any school/grade/program without any Wait Pool requests will be available for new applicants to enroll in immediately. Applying before that date is a good way to make your choice known before available seats start getting filled. However, applying earlier does not give an individual applicant any advantage over other applicants who apply later.