The dates ACER has published, who is eligible, what is on the exam, how the 85/10/5 selection and the source-school cap work, and a preparation plan for Year 7 and Year 8.
Victoria has four selective entry high schools for Years 9 to 12: Suzanne Cory High School in Werribee, Nossal High School in Berwick, Melbourne High School in South Yarra and The Mac.Robertson Girls' High School in Melbourne. Between them they offer roughly 1,000 Year 9 places a year, filled through one centralised exam run by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) on behalf of the Department of Education. For families in Truganina, Tarneit, Point Cook, Werribee, Hoppers Crossing and Wyndham Vale, Suzanne Cory is the local one — it is in Werribee, a short drive or train ride from most of Wyndham — which is why the selective exam is a bigger conversation in the west than almost anywhere else in the state.
This guide sets out the process in plain English: the dates as ACER has published them, who is eligible, what is actually on the exam, how places are allocated (including the source-school cap that catches a lot of Wyndham families by surprise), and what preparation is worth doing in Year 7 and Year 8. Every date and rule below comes from the ACER selective entry site and the Department of Education page; where something has not been published yet we say so rather than guess.
Applications for Year 9 entry in 2027 are closed. The exam was held on Saturday 20 June 2026, exam outcome reports went to families in August, and Round 1 offers were made on Monday 3 August 2026. The principal discretion round is running now: invitations were sent on 3 September 2026, applications were due 8 September, interviews run 5–14 October and outcomes are notified on 15 October 2026. Late applications are not accepted, and a small number of places continue to be offered in later rounds as families decline.
If your child is in Year 7 in 2026, they will be in Year 8 next year and the next cycle is theirs. ACER has not yet published the dates for Year 9 entry in 2028. Based on the published 2026 cycle, expect applications to open around early March 2027, close in late April 2027, and the exam to be held on a Saturday in June 2027 — but treat those as a planning shape, not a date, and check the ACER site when it publishes. We update this page the day the official dates appear.
| Milestone | Date |
|---|---|
| Applications open | Monday 2 March 2026, 10am |
| Applications close | Friday 24 April 2026, 11:59pm |
| Advice to parents on exam arrangements | Wednesday 3 June 2026 |
| Entrance exam | Saturday 20 June 2026 |
| Last day to change school preferences | Friday 26 June 2026 |
| Round 1 offers | Monday 3 August 2026, 10am |
| Exam outcome reports to parents | August 2026 |
| Principal discretion invitations sent | Thursday 3 September 2026 |
| Principal discretion applications due | Tuesday 8 September 2026 |
| Principal discretion interviews | Monday 5 – Wednesday 14 October 2026 |
| Principal discretion outcomes notified | Thursday 15 October 2026 |
Source: ACER Victorian Selective Entry High Schools and the Department of Education, checked 9 September 2026. Dates for the next cycle are to be confirmed.
A candidate must be in their second year of secondary schooling — Year 8 — and must not have sat the Year 9 entrance exam before. They must be an Australian citizen, a New Zealand citizen living in Australia, or hold a visa or ImmiCard that exempts them from international student fees at a Victorian government school; the criteria can also be met by the time offers are made. Students at government, Catholic and independent schools are all eligible, as are home-schooled students registered with the VRQA. Fee-paying international students are not eligible. Successful candidates must produce original documents to the school, and an offer is withdrawn if eligibility is not met and maintained.
Applications are made online through the ACER application portal. To start one you need the student's Victorian Student Number if they have one, a payment method for the application fee, and — if you are applying under the equity consideration category — both the parent's and the student's Centrelink Customer Reference Number. The application is free for families holding a valid health care card or pensioner concession card and for First Nations families; other families facing financial barriers can apply for a fee reduction on hardship grounds. Entry to Years 10 to 12 is handled directly by each school, not through this process.
The exam day takes about four hours including registration and breaks; the tasks themselves take 2 hours and 35 minutes. There are three tests, in this order:
| Section | Time | What it assesses |
|---|---|---|
| Mathematics and Quantitative Reasoning | 60 minutes | Year-level maths knowledge and reasoning applied to real-world contexts, plus reasoning with numbers, patterns and shapes |
| Break | 20 minutes | — |
| Reading and Verbal Reasoning | 55 minutes | Finding and retrieving information, then interpreting, reflecting on and evaluating ideas in texts; reasoning with words, concepts and logic |
| Short break | 5 minutes | — |
| Writing | 40 minutes | Two tasks: conveying ideas in precise language with a coherent structure |
Two things about this exam are worth saying loudly, because they change how a family should approach it. First, the required knowledge in any section does not exceed the Year 8 curriculum. It is not a test of advanced content; it is a test of reasoning under time pressure using content the student has already met. Second, ACER states plainly that it is normal for candidates to answer only about half the questions correctly and for many not to finish. The paper is built to spread out high-ability students, so an unfinished section is the design working, not a disaster. Telling a thirteen-year-old that in advance is worth more than another practice booklet.
ACER publishes a free set of sample questions and says there is no need for a child to revise for the exam, though familiarity with the question style and the answer booklet helps. Answers to the multiple-choice sections are shaded in a machine-scanned booklet, which is worth practising once so no marks are lost to smudged bubbles.
Places are offered in three streams. Standard merit takes 85 per cent of places, ranked purely on exam performance. Equity consideration takes up to 10 per cent, for candidates whose parent or guardian holds a Commonwealth Health Care Card or Pensioner Concession Card, or who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander; eligibility is confirmed electronically with Centrelink and no financial detail is required. Principal discretion takes up to 5 per cent: after the exam, principals may invite selected strong performers to apply, shortlisted candidates are interviewed, and the panel may weigh recent school reports, co-curricular achievement, the student's own reasons for wanting a place, their preferred school and whether a sibling is already there. An invitation is not an offer.
The rule most families in the west have not heard of is the source-school cap. No more than 4 per cent of a single school's students can receive standard and principal discretion offers — 10 per cent for schools that run Prep to Year 9. Equity offers are not capped. In practice this means a strong student at a large Wyndham secondary college with a big Year 8 cohort is competing against their own classmates for a limited number of offers, and a family choosing between schools should understand that the cap exists rather than discover it in August. Preferences can be changed up to the published deadline (26 June in the 2026 cycle), and the co-educational schools may also use a special measure to keep a gender balance.
Because the content ceiling is the Year 8 curriculum, the highest-value preparation is not acceleration — it is making Year 7 and Year 8 maths and English genuinely secure, and then building speed and stamina. A realistic plan across the eighteen months before the exam looks like this.
It is also worth being honest about what a selective place is and is not. These schools suit students who are motivated by an academically intense cohort. They involve a longer commute for most Wyndham families, and a strong student can do extremely well at their local secondary college. A family that treats the exam as one option rather than a verdict handles August far better, whichever way it goes.
We publish a free selective entry practice test and thousands of free practice quizzes by year level and topic, marked instantly with explanations, drawn from the same banks our tutors use. The free Skills Check is a fifteen-minute online diagnostic covering every topic at the student's year level, with a topic-by-topic report the same day and a call from a tutor to talk it through — for a Year 7 or Year 8 family it is the fastest way to find out whether the foundations are actually secure before committing to eighteen months of preparation. There is no cost and no obligation.
If you do want tutoring for it, RHZ Tutoring runs selective entry and scholarship preparation from 17/47 Apex Drive, Truganina VIC 3029, in small groups of three to five matched by level or one-to-one, and online Australia-wide. Small groups run on term plans by year level and 1:1 is priced by year level (view pricing), with no lock-in and no enrolment fee, and the first session is free. We do not guarantee a selective place, and you should be wary of anyone who does — the exam is norm-referenced and the source-school cap means the outcome depends on other students as much as your own. What we can do is find the gaps, fix them, and build exam stamina. Local pages: Truganina, Tarneit, Point Cook, Werribee, Hoppers Crossing and Wyndham Vale, or online across Australia. Questions: 03 9509 3293 or book a free consultation.
Related reading: how to choose a tutoring centre in Melbourne's west, NAPLAN dates and prep for the other Year 7 and 9 assessment, Victorian term and holiday dates for planning the practice blocks, and VCE exams explained for what comes after Year 10 wherever your child ends up.
It is held on a Saturday in June each year. In the 2026 cycle (for Year 9 entry in 2027) the exam was Saturday 20 June 2026. Dates for the next cycle have not been published by ACER yet.
Applications for Year 9 entry in 2027 opened on 2 March 2026 and closed on 24 April 2026, and are now closed. Dates for Year 9 entry in 2028 are to be confirmed by ACER; based on the published 2026 cycle, expect applications around March to April 2027.
Suzanne Cory High School in Werribee is the selective entry high school for Melbourne's west and is the closest of the four to Truganina, Tarneit, Point Cook, Hoppers Crossing and Wyndham Vale.
Year 8 — the second year of secondary schooling — for entry into Year 9 the following year. A student may only sit the Year 9 exam once. Entry at Years 10 to 12 is arranged directly with each school.
Three tests over 2 hours 35 minutes of task time: Mathematics and Quantitative Reasoning (60 minutes), Reading and Verbal Reasoning (55 minutes) and Writing (40 minutes, two tasks). The knowledge required does not exceed the Year 8 curriculum.
There is no published pass mark. Places are ranked on exam performance, so the cut-off changes every year with the cohort and with each school's preferences. ACER notes it is common for candidates to answer around half the questions correctly and for many not to finish.
85 per cent on standard merit by exam rank, up to 10 per cent through equity consideration (health care or pensioner concession card holders and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander candidates), and up to 5 per cent at principal discretion after an invitation and interview.
No more than 4 per cent of the students from any single school can receive standard and principal discretion offers, or 10 per cent for Prep to Year 9 schools. Equity offers are not capped. It means strong students at a large school are partly competing with their own classmates.
There is an application fee, but applications are free for families with a valid health care card or pensioner concession card and for First Nations families. Other families facing financial barriers can apply for a fee reduction on hardship grounds.
Secure the Year 7 and Year 8 curriculum first, read widely for the verbal reasoning and reading sections, practise timed writing weekly, and do full timed papers fortnightly in the months before the exam. ACER publishes free sample questions and says no revision is strictly required.
Yes. Students at government, Catholic and independent schools are all eligible, as are home-schooled students registered with the VRQA. Fee-paying international students are not eligible.
Yes, in small groups and one-to-one from our Truganina centre and online, starting with a free Skills Check so the preparation targets real gaps. We publish a free selective entry practice test and thousands of free quizzes, and we do not guarantee a place.
Fifteen minutes online, every topic for the year level, same-day report and a tutor call to talk it through.
Thousands of free, instantly marked questions, Prep to Year 12, by year level and topic, including NAPLAN and VCE maths.
Small-group and one-to-one options, at our Truganina centre or online Australia-wide.
Call 03 9509 3293, book a free consultation, or browse printable practice papers. RHZ Tutoring, 17/47 Apex Drive, Truganina VIC 3029.