Guide to Balloting
Balloting is required when an eligible group has more applicants than vacancies. But it isn’t a random selection from all the applicants. Applicants are grouped based on 2 factors:
- Citizenship
- Home-school distance
How Balloting works
Applicants are put into 6 groups in this priority:
- SC living ≤ 1 km
- SC living > 1 km and ≤ 2 km
- SC living > 2 km
- PR living ≤ 1 km
- PR living > 1 km and ≤ 2 km
- PR living > 2 km
Singapore Citizens (SC) have priority over Permanent Residents (PR), followed by home-school distance. Check your distance on OneMap.
The places are given out in a waterfall manner. If there are 15 places and 10 applicants in Group 1, all 10 get a place, leaving 5 for Group 2. If Group 2 has 10 applicants, they ballot for those 5 places. Groups 3–6 don’t even get to ballot.
Watch this video for an explanation.
From 2027, Phase 2C at 12 schools uses the two-track scheme below. Other schools, and Phases 2A, 2B and 2C Supplementary at those 12 schools, keep the rules above.
Two-track Phase 2C at 12 schools
New from the 2027 registration exercise (P1 entry in 2028): the 3 distance groups become 2: ≤ 2 km and > 2 km. There is no further distance priority within either track.
All Phase 2C vacancies are split equally between the tracks. The odd place goes to ≤ 2 km: for 61 vacancies, the split is 31 nearby and 30 farther away.
SC applicants are admitted first. Spare places in one track flow to SC applicants in the other. Only after all SC applicants across both tracks are admitted are the remaining places split afresh for PRs, again with the odd place going to ≤ 2 km.
Each track ballots if its applicants exceed its available places. See the framework changes and examples for more.
Ballot Symbols
In the ballot history, we use shorthand symbols to denote which group requires balloting. These correspond to the 6 groups above:
| Symbol | Who ballots | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | SC<1 | SC living ≤ 1 km |
| 2. | SC1-2 | SC living > 1 km and ≤ 2 km |
| 3. | SC>2 | SC living > 2 km |
| 4. | PR<1 | PR living ≤ 1 km |
| 5. | PR1-2 | PR living > 1 km and ≤ 2 km |
| 6. | PR>2 | PR living > 2 km |
The older <1 and <2 shorthand includes the boundary: exactly 1 km or 2 km.
There can be no balloting even when there are more applicants than vacancies. This happens when a group exactly fills the places, leaving none for the next group. We append a # for these cases:
| Symbol | All admitted without a ballot, with no places left | |
|---|---|---|
| 7. | SC<1# | SC living ≤ 1 km |
| 8. | SC<2# | SC living ≤ 2 km |
| 9. | SC# | All SC |
| 10. | PR<1# | All SC, then PR living ≤ 1 km |
| 11. | PR<2# | All SC, then PR living ≤ 2 km |
For two-track Phase 2C, we’ll add SC≤2 and PR≤2 for the nearby track. SC>2 and PR>2 still apply to the farther track. Both tracks can ballot, so read each track separately; the # cut-offs above describe the six-group system.
Detailed Ballot Distance Breakdown
From 2024, MOE publishes detailed ballot results, including the applicant count for the balloted group.
On SGSchooling, we show this as applicants/vacancies (for example, 16/5). That means 16 families competed for 5 spots in that group.
PR Vacancy Cap
Some schools have a PR intake cap of about 25%–30% in Phases 2C and 2C Supplementary. PRs can only compete for the available PR vacancies. Check MOE’s PR-cap page for the affected schools each year.
Caregiver Address
Under the six-group rules, an approved caregiver address within 1 km is treated as the > 1 km to ≤ 2 km group. Read MOE’s address requirements for details.