How It Works
Applicants accept or decline waitlist offers via their GoCPS account. Make sure all contact information is up to date in your GoCPS account in order to be notified of waitlist offers.
- Waitlist seats are only offered if the program has not met its capacity.
- The amount of time you are on a waitlist will vary by program and waitlist number.
- Applicants can withdraw from the waitlist if they no longer wish to be considered. Once withdrawn, the decision is final and cannot be reversed. If an applicant later decides to rejoin the waitlist, they will NOT get their old waitlist place back.
- Once a waitlist offer has been accepted, any previously accepted offer will be automatically declined.
Ranking
As of the 25-26 application cycle, the GoCPS rolling waitlist for all programs will now take into consideration how students have ranked programs on their application. That means applicants should rank their choices accordingly and only include programs you would be seriously interested in attending or accepting an offer to.
The Office of Access and Enrollment will be running a bi-weekly match designed to place students into their highest ranked program. Waitlist offers will be extended by 10AM on Tuesdays and Fridays. In order to be considered when our office runs waitlist selections twice a week, students must join the rolling waitlist by the end of the day on Monday and Thursday. Waitlist offers extended on Tuesday and Friday will expire at 11:59PM on Thursdays and Mondays, respectively. Students can receive up to one single best offer in each program category. Accepting any waitlist offer will automatically decline any previously accepted offers.
Choice programs
- If an applicant received an initial choice offer, they will be automatically waitlisted for all of the programs ranked higher than the offer received.
- If your child did not receive a Choice offer, they will be automatically waitlisted for all programs on their application for which they meet the eligibility requirements.
- Waitlist seats are offered based on the priority preference groups, if applicable. For instance, if a seat is declined by a student in a program’s proximity category, that seat will be offered to the student who is first in line on the proximity waitlist.
- When students join the Rolling Waitlist, they are joining the end of the existing Choice waitlist for programs that run selections through lottery.
- Choice waitlists will remain active until the beginning of the following January.
SEES programs
- Applicants who received a SEES offer in the initial round of selections will NOT be waitlisted to any Selective Enrollment programs in the category for which the offer was received. If an applicant's Selective Enrollment offer expires or is declined, they will be able to add themselves to a waitlist in the same program category.
- Applicants who did not receive a SEES offer for a program they tested for are automatically placed on the Rolling Waitlist for any program they qualify for and included on the application. Applicants would also be able to add additional programs to their application as long as they don’t exceed the category limit. (test score minimums).
- Waitlists for all SEES programs are sorted in descending total point order. Applicants are re-sorted as new students join the waitlists. This means that waitlist numbers for SEES programs can go up and down depending on who joins the waitlist.
- SEES waitlists will remain active until the 20th day of school. After that time, there are no transfers into SEES programs for the rest of that school year.
Getting a Waitlist Offer
- If the program has a seat available, and the student’s number on the waitlist is reached, the contact on file will receive an automated notification that an offer has been extended You may also receive a phone call or email from the school making the offer but this is not guaranteed. Make sure the contact information in your application is up to date.
- All waitlist offers will go live at 10AM on Mondays and Fridays. Offers will expire at 11:59 PM the following Thursday and Monday respectively.
- Expired offers cannot be reopened. If you allow an offer to expire or decline that offer, you will need to re-join the waitlist to be considered for that program again.
- If an applicant accepts a waitlist offer, they will remain on the waitlist for any CHOICE program on their application that is ranked higher than the program from which they received the offer. If a waitlist offer was from the program the student ranked third, for example, they would then be removed from the waitlists of their fourth and lower ranked programs, but would remain on the waitlist for their first and second ranked programs.
- If a student receives a SEES waitlist offer, they will be automatically removed from all other waitlists in the same category. It is advisable to only remain on waitlists that you would accept if given an offer.
Adding New Programs to Application
If families are not satisfied with the selection results or did not receive an initial offer, they can still select additional programs to apply to once the Rolling Waitlist process opens.
- Families can log into their GoCPS accounts and see eligible participating programs.
- If the program only has a few seats and/or selects students based on descending points, the applicant will be able to join the waitlist.