Guides · Selective schools & the 2027 change
Selective schools 50/50 gender split — what changed for 2027
From 2027 entry, every co-educational NSW selective and partially selective high school — and every opportunity class — offers an equal number of places to boys and girls. The test and the scoring do not change; the only change is that at a co-ed school your child is now ranked within their own gender for half the places, rather than against the whole field for all of them.
Verified 27 July 2026Every figure below traces to a named source with an access date.
What actually changed
The NSW Government announced the change in October 2025, and it takes effect for the 2027 intake — the cohort that sat the placement tests in May 2026. At every co-educational selective and partially selective high school, and at every opportunity class, the Year 7 (or Year 5 OC) places are now split evenly between boys and girls. Baulkham Hills offers 90 boys and 90 girls; Fort Street 75 and 75; Karabar 15 and 15.
Two things are worth being precise about, because both are easy to misread. First, entry stays entirely merit-based:
"Entry to opportunity classes and selective high schools for boys and girls will continue to be based on performance in the placement test." — NSW Government, ministerial release (accessed 27 July 2026)
There are no bonus points, no adjusted marks, and no change to the test itself. What changes is the ranking pool: at a co-ed school, boys are ranked against boys for their half of the places, and girls against girls for theirs. Second, this is not a school-by-school opt-in — it applies across the board, to fully and partially selective schools alike, and to opportunity classes in primary schools (NSW Department of Education, accessed 27 July 2026).
The numbers, school by school
A representative selection of co-educational schools and their 2027 Year 7 splits, spanning Sydney, the Central Coast, the Hunter, the Illawarra and the regions, and both fully and partially selective types. The place counts come from the Department's selective high schools list for 2027 entry; the even split is what the new policy mandates and what the list shows.
How to read this
The total for each school hasn't changed — the same number of Year 7 selective places exists. What's new is that the total is now divided equally, so the "boys" and "girls" columns are simply half each. A school with an odd total would round; the Department has not published the tie-breaking detail, and none of the schools below have an odd count.
| School | Suburb | Total | Boys | Girls |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fully selective · co-educational | ||||
| Baulkham Hills High School | Baulkham Hills | 180 | 90 | 90 |
| Merewether High School | Broadmeadow (Newcastle) | 180 | 90 | 90 |
| Gosford High School | Gosford | 180 | 90 | 90 |
| Fort Street High School | Petersham | 150 | 75 | 75 |
| Caringbah High School | Caringbah | 150 | 75 | 75 |
| Penrith High School | Penrith | 150 | 75 | 75 |
| Girraween High School | Girraween | 120 | 60 | 60 |
| Smiths Hill High School | Wollongong | 120 | 60 | 60 |
| Partially selective · co-educational | ||||
| Parramatta High School | Parramatta | 60 | 30 | 30 |
| Tempe High School | Tempe | 60 | 30 | 30 |
| Karabar High School | Queanbeyan | 30 | 15 | 15 |
| Armidale Secondary College | Armidale | 30 | 15 | 15 |
Source: NSW Department of Education selective high schools list (2027 entry). Splits reflect the 2027 gender-balance policy. This is a selection, not the full list of co-ed schools. Accessed 27 July 2026.
Single-sex schools are unaffected. Sydney Girls (180 places), St George Girls (150), North Sydney Boys, Normanhurst Boys and the other single-sex selective schools keep their full single-gender allocation — they already admit one gender, so there is nothing to balance. The gender rule only bites where boys and girls compete for the same roll of places.
Why the Department made the change
The stated reason is a gender gap that had been widening for years. On the Department's own figures, co-educational selective high schools had reached 58% boys and 42% girls, and opportunity classes 60% boys and 40% girls. In some cohorts the split ran past 75% male. And the trend was moving the wrong way: girls' share of Year 7 selective places fell from 45% in 2019 to 41% in 2025.
| Measure | Boys | Girls |
|---|---|---|
| Co-ed selective high schools (current mix) | 58% | 42% |
| Opportunity classes (current mix) | 60% | 40% |
| Girls’ share of Year 7 selective places, 2019 | 55% | 45% |
| Girls’ share of Year 7 selective places, 2025 | 59% | 41% |
Source: NSW Government ministerial release, October 2025 (accessed 27 July 2026). The 2019 and 2025 rows are girls' share of Year 7 selective places; the boys' column is the remainder.
The Acting Minister for Education, Courtney Houssos, framed it as a problem of girls declining places rather than failing to earn them: "There's a growing decline in girls accepting places in opportunity classes and selective high schools, and we want to ensure our schools have a healthy gender balance" (ministerial release, accessed 27 July 2026).
As to why the imbalance grew, the clearest independent account comes from Dr Christina Ho at the University of Technology Sydney, who researches selective schooling. Her argument is that the placement test has historically leaned on mathematics, and that the private tutoring market leans harder still — "Maths is the most common subject that students go to tutoring for … you don't find tutoring centres promising to get you a year ahead in the English curriculum." Combine a maths-weighted entry with a cultural assumption that "boys are more maths-oriented than girls," she argues, and you get more boys at the top of the rankings and more girls hesitant to enrol in cohorts they perceive as male-dominated — a loop that feeds itself (EducationHQ, accessed 27 July 2026).
What it means for your child
The practical shape of it is simple, and it's worth stating plainly because the framing "gender quota" makes it sound more dramatic than it is. If your child is applying to a co-ed school, they are now competing for that school's places against other applicants of the same gender — girls for the girls' half, boys for the boys' half. The test they sit, the marks they earn, and the way those marks are scaled are all identical to before.
Nothing about how you'd prepare changes. The same four components — Reading, Mathematical Reasoning, Thinking Skills and Writing — carry the same weight, and the same steady, realistic practice is what helps. If your child is applying only to a single-sex school, this change doesn't touch them at all.
One point of reassurance that predates this change and still holds: about one applicant in four across the state receives a selective place. A miss says very little about a capable child — the arithmetic guarantees most capable children miss — and the gender rule doesn't alter that underlying picture. It redistributes places between two pools; it doesn't create or remove them.
What nobody knows yet
Here is the honest part. 2027 is the first cycle under this rule, and no outcomes have been released. So the one question every parent asks — "does this make it harder for my son, or easier for my daughter?" — cannot be answered with data yet, only with reasoning.
The reasoning goes like this. At a co-ed school, if more boys apply and score in the top ranks than girls do — which is what the recent 58/42 split implies — then splitting the places evenly means the effective bar could rise a little for boys (more of them chasing their half) and fall a little for girls (fewer of them chasing theirs). That is the mechanical consequence of the change. But the size of any shift depends entirely on who applies in this cohort and how they perform, and both of those move year to year. It also depends on preferences and declines, which is exactly the behaviour the policy is trying to change. Anyone publishing a specific "the boys' cut-off will jump by X" figure right now is guessing.
A few operational details are also not yet public: how reserve lists run within each gender, and how a school with an odd number of places would round the split. The Department has published the principle, not the fine print. We'll update this page as the first-cycle outcomes and any procedural detail are released.
Gender-split questions, answered honestly
Do NSW selective schools have a 50/50 gender split?
From 2027 entry, yes — at co-ed schools. Every co-educational selective and partially selective high school, and every opportunity class, now offers an equal number of places to boys and girls. Single-sex schools such as Sydney Girls and North Sydney Boys are unaffected. The change was announced in October 2025 and applies to the cohort that sat the May 2026 tests.
Does the placement test change under the gender-balance rule?
No. The test, its four components, and the scoring are unchanged, and there are no bonus points for either gender. The only change is allocation: at a co-ed school, boys are ranked against boys for half the places and girls against girls for the other half, each strictly on test performance.
Why did NSW introduce a 50/50 gender balance?
The Department cited a widening imbalance — 58% boys to 42% girls at co-ed selective schools, 60% to 40% in opportunity classes, and some cohorts more than 75% male — with girls' share of Year 7 places falling from 45% in 2019 to 41% in 2025. It said girls were increasingly declining offers, and it wanted a "healthy gender balance."
Will the split make it harder for boys to get a place?
Nobody knows yet — 2027 is the first cycle and no results have been released. Mechanically, because more boys have recently scored in the top ranks, the effective bar could rise slightly for boys and fall slightly for girls at some co-ed schools. But the size of any shift depends on this cohort's applicants and performance, so any specific figure is a guess.
Preparing for the test that still decides it
The gender rule changes who your child is ranked against, not what they're ranked on. The test is unchanged, and so is the one advantage every family can actually control: familiarity with the format under realistic conditions. Our free Selective practice test online covers Mathematical Reasoning and Thinking Skills one subject at a time, in a player built to mirror the real Janison screen — no account required. If you're new to the process, start with the NSW Selective Test guide, and for the surrounding detail see how results and cut-offs work.