Basic orientation
The admissions year
Admissions runs on a calendar. Here's the whole year at a glance: where you are now, and what each phase is like.
June to mid-August
Get oriented
The first step is a family conversation, and it works whenever you start — summer is just the quietest time for it. Talk about what you want from the next four years, get a feel for how admissions works, and learn the types of schools as you browse sites with your student. Starting in September or October instead? You've missed nothing: the first applications aren't due until November and most are due next year. This step compresses to an afternoon.
Mid-August through January
Event season
A few schools hold early events in August just to explain the process, so go to a couple. Full event calendars are published in late August and sign-ups open over the following weeks, with SFUSD's tour calendar opening in the fall. From September on you're visiting tours, open houses, student panels, and shadow days, and knowing what to look for turns the blur into signal you can actually read. Debrief with your student after every one while it's fresh. Those notes become essay and interview material at some schools, and at the lottery schools they're how you decide your ranking order.
October through January
Essays & interviews
This phase belongs mostly to the private and faith-based schools. Start both the student essays and the parent statements in October. Parent statements often come due in November. Interviews can land anywhere from October to January, sometimes after the application is in. The specifics your student noticed at events are the raw material for both, which is why the debrief habit pays off here. The SFUSD form has no essays or interviews, but there are two public exceptions: SOTA applicants spend these months preparing an audition, and Lowell asks for written answers on its December application and a proctored essay at school in January, read only for Band 2.
Mid-November through early February
Apply
The application nearly every family files is SFUSD's: one form that opens in late October, where you rank your public choices, with the main round closing at the start of February. Lowell and SOTA sit inside it with an earlier December deadline, and SOTA auditions in January. Catholic schools that use the shared HSPT run applications in November and December with the test on one shared Saturday in early December. Independent applications and the financial aid paperwork come due in early January. Your shortlist tells you which of these calendars are yours.
Mid-January to mid-March
Wait
Applications are in and there's nothing left to optimize, so stop. Plan something fun that has nothing to do with schools. The wait is easier when the household stays steady, and it's still event season at the schools, so attending a play or a game is a good second look at a place your student liked. Get ready for every outcome in March: the yes, the waitlist, and the no.
Mid-March into April
Decisions
Decision letters and SFUSD assignments land in mid-March, most within the same week, and waitlist movement follows. Before you discuss any school, go back to the list your family wrote in the fall, and trust it more than the pull of a flattering acceptance. Then make the final call and register.