Bay Area Private-School Admissions: Fall 2027

Three different searches

Kindergarten, Grade 6, and Grade 9 deserve equal rigor—not one recycled checklist.

This page covers where the seats are, testing, portals and files, interviews, aid basics, and decisions. For when each step happens, school by school, use the Bay Area admissions timeline.

Kindergarten: assess the environment, not the performance.

A Kindergarten file may include a preschool evaluation, parent conversation, age rule, and small-group activity. The child should arrive rested and know only that adults want to see how children play, listen, separate, persist, and engage. Coaching a five-year-old to deliver adult answers makes the experience less authentic and can make the child anxious.

Grade 6: ask whether the school is truly building a new cohort.

Grade 6 is the Bay Area’s most misunderstood entry point. Some schools expand deliberately; some begin in sixth; others merely accept applications if attrition creates space. That distinction should determine how much planning weight a school receives.

A middle-school applicant may face a group assessment, student writing, an interview, a school-specific academic task, standardized evidence, or several of these. The child’s voice matters more now, but adults still own logistics and document tracking.

Grade 9: the student must increasingly own the story.

Grade 9 is a broad regional search. San Francisco high schools draw beyond city limits, while Marin schools run cross-county routes. Peninsula schools may use Caltrain, shuttles, or buses. East Bay schools can be reachable from Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) only with a credible last mile.

The application is equally broad. Readers consider transcripts, recommendations, student essays, activity forms, and interviews in combination. A polished file that does not sound like the eighth grader is a liability, not an advantage.

Published opening counts across the region

A listed grade can mean a planned expansion, an attrition-only opening, or simply permission to submit. The strongest public signal is a school’s own count or explicit “main entry point” language. When a current count is absent, capacity remains unknown. Harker's application page gives 45–50 Grade 6 spaces, while its FAQ gives 40–45 typical openings; ask which applies to Fall 2027.

Dates and deadlines

The Fall 2027 calendar has its own page.

Many Bay Area schools share decision and reply windows, but applications, visits, tests, and aid each run on school-specific dates. The month-by-month plan and school deadlines are in the Bay Area admissions timeline.

School-by-school reality check

Read the row for the grade—not the reputation.

These are representative schools, not a ranking and not a complete directory. “Not served” means the school does not enroll that grade. “Public detail pending” means the grade exists but the public Fall 2027 checklist is not yet reliable enough to summarize. A published opening count is a structural clue, never an individual chance.

San Francisco

Peninsula and Silicon Valley

East Bay

Marin

Use the matrix to narrow by entry grade and geography first. Only then compare testing, interviews, and aid; otherwise each row asks the family to solve too many questions at once.

Testing without folklore

The test question has three answers, not one.

First ask whether a school requires a score. Then ask which score, for which grade, in which cycle. Finally ask whether an assessment is being used as a broad admission input, an eligibility gate, or a way to plan a child's visit.

Those answers belong on a school-by-school ledger. Families get into trouble when they treat “Bay Area private schools” as if they shared a test policy. They do not.

School-by-school rules for Fall 2027

ERB maps ISEE levels by the grade a child is entering: Lower for Grades 5–6, Middle for Grades 7–8, and Upper for Grades 9–12. Its family system is also where families register and apply for accommodations. That mapping does not mean a particular school requires ISEE.

The policies differ, and two remain unresolved. Confirm the current grade-specific rule before registering; then solve accommodation timing.

Accommodations belong on the calendar before test registration.

Educational Records Bureau (ERB) says ISEE accommodation approval should happen before a family registers; approval remains valid for 15 months and an accommodated score report is not flagged.SSAT has its own approval system.

A school's admission-event accommodation is separate. Ask that admissions office how to request a quiet room, movement break, assistive technology, physical access, interpreter, or other support without sending confidential documentation to a general inbox. Applying for an accommodation is not “gaming” a test; it is an attempt to make the observation valid.

Free official familiarization material comes before tutoring. ERB also says ISEE fee waivers come from the schools to which a child is applying.Ask early; a fee-waiver request made after registration is not the same as a waiver in hand.

Interviews and visits

An interview is a mutual-information event with an evaluative layer.

Schools are trying to picture a real student in a real cohort and a real family in a community. Parents are trying to learn whether the school's daily practice matches its presentation. Both can be true.

So the goal is not to perform intimacy or polish a child until no child remains. It is to make the interaction accurate enough to help both sides decide.

Current formats at named schools

What a parent should be ready to discuss

Describe the child parents and teachers actually know: energy, friendships, curiosity, friction points, response to feedback, and the conditions under which the child does good work. Explain why this school's observable program—not its general reputation—might be useful now.

Be candid about custody, commute, support, and financial-aid realities that affect enrollment. The school is also listening for a family that can disagree constructively, respect teacher judgment, and participate without making the child's placement an adult-status project.

What not to rehearse

Do not supply a list of “correct” hobbies, convert a nine-year-old's answers into consultant prose, or arrange a false first-choice speech. Overcoaching costs useful information and asks a child to maintain a character through multiple events.

A better five-minute debrief is: What surprised you? When did you feel most like yourself? What would you want to try? What would be hard every day?

Build an honest file

Adults can organize the application without taking it away from the child.

Most files run through a shared portal, but every school keeps its own checklist. Here is how the main portals work, what the current school sends, and who owns each part.

Ravenna

Ravenna is the dominant portal in this representative set. Schools use it to expose checklists, register events and appointments, delegate recommendations, upload family materials, track status, and post decisions. Menlo, Harker, SFFS, Head-Royce, Athenian, MCDS, Marin Academy, Branson, UHS, and San Domenico all direct Fall 2027 applicants there.

Use one durable adult email as the portal manager, a password manager, and a separate family calendar. Add the second household’s real contact details rather than forwarding every message through a child. Export or screenshot each final checklist because a green mark is evidence of portal state, not a substitute for the school’s written requirement.

SAO

The Standard Application Online lets a family reuse core biographical information, parent statements, student essays, recommendations, and transcripts across participating schools. SAO’s own guidance warns that schools can still have extra requirements.

San Domenico accepts Ravenna or SAO, but an SAO family must still create a Ravenna account for events and decisions. Its international page adds grade-specific transcripts, English testing where applicable, and an interview. Submitting both full applications would create duplication, not extra consideration.

Direct or school-labeled portals

Some schools begin with an inquiry that produces a school application link. Chinese American International School’s live process page describes an emailed portal link and direct handling of common evaluation forms. That same page says “2026–2027” beside January and February 2027 dates, a visible mismatch.

Do not “correct” an official page silently. Ask CAIS which cycle and deadline the page intends, then store the dated answer. More generally, the source of truth is the school’s current checklist and direct message—not the brand name above the login box.

What the current school sends

The common-form idea is real, but grade-level requirements differ. SFFS K requests a current teacher evaluation; its middle-school process requests evaluations and the last two years of records. Menlo Grade 6 asks for current and previous teacher recommendations plus principal/counselor and two years of transcripts. Menlo and Harker Grade 9 ask for current English, current math, principal/counselor, and current/prior records. Marin Academy uses the BAIHS activity form, current English and math, principal or counselor, two prior years plus current transcript, and a graded writing sample.

Portals do not always expose confidential content or immediate processing. A family is responsible for a complete checklist, not entitled to read the recommendation.

Who owns each part of the file

College Prep explicitly tells applicants not to use generative AI in student writing.Even when a school does not state that rule, outsourcing a child's answer defeats the reason the answer exists. Parents may use tools to build a calendar or compare published requirements. They should not use them to manufacture a child's voice.

Read the file once for coherence, not perfection.

A useful file answers four questions without repeating one slogan: Who is this student now? How does the student learn and live with others? Why does this program make sense at this entry point? What would the school need to know to support the child?

Coherence does not require every observer to see the same student. A teacher may describe a reserved student while a parent describes a theater enthusiast. Both can be true in context.

From the school's side, the work is not a descending sort of impressive children. Admission teams are building classes across academic readiness, interests, identities, learning needs, group dynamics, sibling and mission commitments, aid capacity, and the openings that happen to exist.

This does not make the process perfectly fair or transparent. It does explain why a thoughtful decision is not a universal verdict on a child.

Cost and aid basics

Aid is a second application with its own platform.

Many schools in this sample, including UHS, Menlo, Castilleja, Marin Academy, Branson, Head-Royce, MCDS, Athenian, and San Domenico, use Clarity for aid or indexed tuition. Aid deadlines often fall on or before the admission deadline; the dates are in the timeline.

A complete admission file does not preserve an incomplete aid request. If your family has two households, self-employment, equity compensation, trusts, unusual assets, foreign income, recent job loss, or a pending move, ask the aid office what explanation and documentation it wants. Do not omit a complexity because the platform has no elegant box.

Compare the whole family year: tuition and required fees, deposit, transportation, lunch, care, devices, books, trips, athletics, arts, tutoring, and lost work time. MCDS, for example, explicitly lists many included items and additional indexed supports. Another school's tuition number may cover a different bundle.

Decision week

A short reply window demands a decision system built in advance.

K–8 and high-school decisions commonly arrive on adjacent days, and aid-linked agreements may be due before the general reply deadline. Do not spend those few days inventing criteria. Before decisions, each adult and the student should privately rank what matters and identify deal-breakers. After decisions, compare only schools that are actual, affordable options.

Read the award and enrollment contract together. Record the exact deadline, time zone, deposit, payment schedule, refund or withdrawal liability, tuition insurance, and contingencies.

Aid-linked agreements can be due a day before full-tuition ones; the exact reply dates are in the timeline. A family waiting for another school should never assume the first deadline will move.

Before March, make a blank comparison with identical rows: signed contract deadline; nonrefundable deposit; net tuition; what the award covers; renewal process; transportation route and late bus; start/end time; care; and books, devices, and trips.

Add learning support, activity pickup, calendar conflicts, course placement, and the child’s observations. Keep “admitted?” blank until decisions arrive.

1. Read the entire enrollment agreement and award before clicking. Record withdrawal, refund, tuition-insurance, and deposit terms.
2. Ask unresolved factual questions immediately. Use admitted-family events to test ordinary life, not to collect reassurance.
3. Re-run morning, afternoon, and activity transport. Bay crossings, employer shuttles, and hybrid-work assumptions can all change.
4. Let the child name what felt intellectually, socially, and practically right without making them responsible for cost.
5. Accept one place by the controlling deadline, save confirmation, release others promptly, and keep wait-pool choices separate from the signed enrollment plan.

If the answer is a wait pool

Follow the school's directions once, promptly, and plainly. Confirm continued interest, share only meaningful new information, and ask whether the school can describe timing—not “rank.” UHS says its wait pool is not ranked.

Lick-Wilmerding explains that few openings typically emerge.Keep the child enrolled in a viable option by its deadline. A wait pool is uncertainty, not a plan and not a verdict.

If siblings receive different outcomes

Protect each child from becoming the explanation for the other. Schools can value siblings and still make grade-specific decisions under different space, cohort, and support constraints. Solve the logistics privately; tell each child only what is useful, truthful, and developmentally appropriate.