All NYC children born in 2018 are guaranteed a kindergarten seat in a public school. However, please note that G&T seats are limited, and offers are based on eligibility. Learn more about the G&T admissions process on our G&T page.

How can you know your child’s chances of getting an offer from one of your favorite schools? It helps to start by learning how offers are made. Students get kindergarten offers based on four key factors:

Your application choices

The number of choices that you add to your child’s application AND the order in which you place them matter! Add up to 12 choices to your child’s application in your true order of preference. Then submit the application.

Program's seat availability

• Each kindergarten program has a certain number of available seats. 
• Schools vary in size and demand. When a school has more applicants than seats, we can’t make offers to everyone who wants to attend it—in this case, offers are made first to the students who have the highest admissions priority to attend the school.

Admissions priorities and your priority group for a program

• Kindergarten programs give admissions priorities to specific groups of applicants before others, such as to students who live in a specific zone, who have siblings at the school, who live in the district, or who currently attend pre-K at the school. 
• Your child has a better chance of getting an offer from some schools than others. A school’s admissions priorities determine the order in which groups of applicants are considered for offers.
• All students in a program’s priority group 1 will be considered first for offers. Then, if seats are still available, students in that program’s priority group 2 will be considered next, and so on. Learn which priority group your child is in for each kindergarten program. They will be in different priority groups for different programs.

Randomly assigned numbers

Each kindergarten applicant is also assigned a random number. If there are fewer available seats than applicants within a priority group, these random numbers determine the order in which students get offers.

TIP: Use MySchools to learn about a school’s admissions priorities and who got offers last year. This information will help you know your child’s chances of getting an offer to a particular school. The higher priority your child has to attend a school, the higher the chance that your child will get an offer to that school.

If a school made offers to a specific group of students in 2021, they may be able to make offers to this group again. For example, if a school was able to make offers to children living outside of their zone who had an older sibling in the school, they may be able to make offers to siblings living outside of the zone again.

There are several types of admissions priorities:

Sibling Priority

Elementary schools offer an admissions priority to applicants whose siblings attend the same school. If your child has an older sibling at a school that you’ve added to their application, your child may have a higher chance of getting an offer from that school than an applicant without an enrolled sibling. To make sure your child gets sibling priority, be sure to provide sibling information when you apply.

A sibling is defined as an applicant’s brother or sister, including half-brothers, half-sisters, step-brothers, step-sisters, foster brothers, and foster sisters who live in the same household and are currently preregistered or enrolled at that school in kindergarten through grade 12, and who will be enrolled at that school in any grade level between kindergarten and grade 12 in September 2022. This includes students enrolled in District 75 programs in the same school building.

Pre-K Priority

If your child is currently enrolled in pre-K at a DOE public elementary school, they will have an admissions priority to attend kindergarten at that school. Not all elementary schools have pre-K.

Reminder: Students currently attending pre-K at a public elementary school still need to apply to kindergarten.

District Priority

Most schools give an admissions priority to students in their own district over students who live in other districts.

Admissions Priorities for Zoned Schools

All zoned elementary schools make offers to students in the following order:

1. Students who live in the zone and have a sibling at the school
2. Other students who live in the zone

If space allows, students living outside the zone may also be admitted, in the following order:

1. Students with a sibling at the school who live in the district
2. Students with a sibling at the school who live outside the district
3. Students who live in the district and are currently enrolled at the school for preK
4. Students who live outside the district and are currently enrolled at the school for preK
5. Other students who live in the district
6. Other students who live outside the district

Tip: Use MySchools to see which zoned schools admitted non-zoned students last year.

Admissions Priorities for Non-Zoned Schools

Different non-zoned schools have different admissions priorities, but most non-zoned schools give an admissions priority to students who live in the same district as the school. When you are logged in to your MySchools account, you can look up any school’s admissions priorities in MySchools, find out which priority group your child is in for that school, and learn which groups of applicants received offers from that school last year.

District-Specific Admissions Priorities

Some districts—such as Districts 1, 7, and 23 have district-specific admissions priorities.

Diversity in Admissions

Elementary schools across the city are participating in an initiative to increase diversity in their programs by giving admissions priorities to students who qualify for free and reduced lunch (FRL), students in temporary housing, English Language Learners, and other groups. Learn more about diversity in admissions (DIA) in the current list of schools participating in diversity initiatives.

Open Houses and School Events

Many schools will list their open houses and tours in the centralized MySchools events calendar. You can also contact schools directly or check their websites to learn if they are holding virtual or in-person open houses or information sessions.