OC Test Results: What Your Child's Outcome Means

OC outcomes arrive in your application dashboard a few months after the test. They tell you whether your child has an offer, a place on a reserve list, or no place, at each school you chose. They do not show a score. This guide explains each outcome, the reserve bands, the performance report, and what you can do next.

The outcomes, school by school

The dashboard shows an outcome next to each school you listed. Your child gets at most one offer at the first release, from the highest choice their result reaches.

Decline with care. You can accept an offer now and decline it later, but a declined offer cannot be taken back.

Reserve lists and the five bands

A reserve place moves when a family with an offer declines it: the place goes to the next child on the list, and you get an email when your child’s turn comes. Each reserve outcome comes with a band that estimates whether and when that might happen, based on how offers were declined at that school the year before.

• Bands A to D: an offer is likely, by the end of September (A), October (B), November (C) or December (D).
• Band E: an offer is unlikely, and if one comes it will most likely be after the new school year starts.

Every band is an estimate, not a promise. Offers from OC reserve lists can keep coming until the end of Term 1 of Year 6.

Holding an offer while on a higher reserve list

You can keep an accepted offer and wait for a school higher on your list. If the higher offer comes and you accept it, the first one is declined for you. After the department’s reserve decision date, a child with an accepted offer is taken off the higher reserve lists. To stay on them past that date, you would have to decline the offer you hold. Check the key dates on the department’s website before you decide.

What the performance report shows

The report places your child in one of four groups for each of the three tests: Reading, Mathematical Reasoning and Thinking Skills.

• Top 10% of children who sat the test
• Next 15%
• Next 25%
• Lowest 50%

There is no score, rank or percent correct, and there never will be. The department does not release them, even on appeal. It says this protects privacy and wellbeing and avoids unhealthy competition.

There is also no pass mark, and no set minimum entry score at any school. The level needed changes each year with the number of applicants, how they perform, the number of places and how many families decline. A child in the lowest 50% has not failed: the test is sat by many strong children, and only about one in eight applicants is offered a place.

Equity places

Up to 20% of places at each school are held for children from lower-advantage backgrounds, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, children in rural and remote areas, and children with disability. These children still receive offers on their test performance.

Can you appeal?

An appeal is for one thing: evidence that something outside your child’s control affected the result, such as illness or an unforeseen event. It is lodged in the dashboard, usually within about five business days of outcomes coming out, with up to three supporting documents. Late appeals are not accepted, and the decision is final.

These are not grounds for an appeal:

• asking for the answers to be re-marked
• results from practice tests, NAPLAN, ICAS or IQ tests
• lack of preparation, or the child’s age
• concerns about sitting the test on a computer
• wanting a school nearer home, or with friends or siblings
• disappointment at not getting an offer

Illness on the day itself belongs in an illness or misadventure request, which has its own process and deadline.

If your child did not get a place

This is the most common outcome, and it says little about how far your child can go. The OC test measures problem solving and reasoning under time pressure on one day, so the department says it is not a diagnostic tool.

1. Talk to the school. Many public schools run programs for high potential and gifted students in the ordinary class.
2. Keep the reasoning habit. Puzzles, reading widely and talking through how an answer was found all carry over.
3. Look ahead to Year 7. The Selective High School Placement Test in Year 6 tests the same kinds of skills, with a writing test added. See NSW Selective practice.

Sitting the OC test next year?

If you have a younger child, our parent’s guide to the OC test covers who sits it, the three tests and how to prepare calmly. Our OC-style practice builds all three tests at the published length and timing.

To be clear about what these are: our own questions in the style of the NSW test, not the department’s. They do not predict an OC outcome or band, and nothing here is endorsed by the NSW Department of Education.