OC Appeals and Reserve Lists: Deadlines Explained

Tracking the dates? The OC results 2026 board shows how reserve lists have moved in past years, captured daily, and lets you add your own result anonymously.

Most of the anxiety around OC sits on one day: when the outcome appears. That's understandable. But the Department's timeline does not stop on 9 September. If you get an offer, a reserve place, or no place, the next few dates are what actually force a decision.

The three dates that matter after the test

For Year 5 OC entry in 2027, the NSW Department of Education currently lists:

9 September 2026 — placement outcomes expected to be released.
16 September 2026, 11:59 pm — last day to submit an outcomes appeal.
3 December 2026, 3:00 pm — reserve decision date.

These are expected dates from the official key dates table. Confirm them before you act.

If you are on a reserve list

Reserve is not a polite no. It means your child's result was strong enough to be considered if a place opens. We have a longer explanation of how OC reserve bands work. The short version:

Keep your contact details current. Offers from the reserve list come by email and dashboard message.
Do not call the school to ask where you sit on the list. Schools do not have that information.
OC reserve offers can continue well after December — into Term 1 of Year 6. The 3 December date is a decision point for families who already hold an offer, not the end of the reserve process.

The 3 December reserve decision date

If you have accepted an offer and you are also on a reserve list for a higher-choice school, you will need to choose by 3 December 2026 at 3:00 pm:

Keep the accepted offer and be removed from higher-choice reserve lists, or
Decline the accepted offer to stay on those reserve lists.

If you decline the accepted offer, you cannot get it back. That is the trade-off: certainty now versus a chance at a preferred school later. There is no correct answer for every family. Commute, siblings, and whether you would actually be happy at the offered school matter more than the label "first choice".

Appeals: the 16 September deadline

The last day to submit an outcomes appeal is 16 September 2026 at 11:59 pm. An appeal is not a request to remark the multiple-choice questions. Those are computer-marked. Appeals are for specific process issues set out by the Department, submitted through the application dashboard.

If you think you have grounds, read the official outcomes information before 16 September. Do not wait until the evening of the deadline.

If there is no offer

This is disappointing, and it is also not a verdict on your child. The OC test is a placement tool for a small number of Year 5–6 places. It is not a measure of whether they should later sit the Selective High School test. The path from here toward selective is the same either way: pause, then build skills over Year 5 rather than launching into an intensive program the week the email arrives.

For the full 2026 OC timeline, including illness/misadventure dates that have already passed, see our OC Test 2026 dates guide.