2023 P1 Registration – Phase 2B

27/07/23

MOE just released the final Phase 2B results. A total of 31 schools are oversubscribed, with all requiring balloting except for 1 school (Northland Primary School) which just have enough places for Singapore Citizens under 2km. 2 schools (Red Swastika and Admiralty Primary) require balloting only for PRs. In both cases, PRs have to be staying <1km of the school.

Only 1 school, Pasir Ris Primary, has just the number of applicants for the number of places. Very nice!

Tao Nan is the most oversubscribed of all the schools at 340%. As it is for citizens <1km, it is most likely every one of the 68 applicants fighting for just 20 places. Those who get in must be very, very lucky.

Ai Tong‘s take-up rate on Day 2 was scary. It went from 12 in Day 1 to 56 in Day 2! I guess parents must have been biding their time and probably get surprised by the sudden take up rate, but it is not unexpected.

Catholic High‘s Phase 2B in-take this year was only 29 compared to last years 43. But it still means parents have to ballot <1km.

St Anthony’s Primary, Paya Lebar Methodist, Xin Min Primary, Pasir Ris Primary, all escaped balloting this year. However, Bukit Panjang Primary and Poi Ching faces balloting for the first time in 2 years. So I guess the demand for schools did indeed shrink this year, which is not a good sign for the long term. If you look at the “2023-2022” column, you will see it being dominated by negative numbers. So although the number of schools facing balloting this year is almost the same, overall, the number is dropping.

In any case, I don’t think many parents involved with balloting would really care about this 🙂 Good luck to you, and may your child gets the school of your choice.

24/07/23

The first day of Phase 2B is just over.

18 schools are oversubscribed, with 3 schools reaching exactly 100% (Bukit Panjang Primary, Rosyth, and Maris Stella High). In fact, Bukit Panjang Primary has 21 applicants, exactly the same as last year’s final Phase 2B applicants. All 3 schools, however, are very likely to require balloting as Phase 2B comes to a close tomorrow, as Rosyth and Maris Stella High are below last year’s applications.

It is also very unlikely that Ai Tong and Red Swastika remain at the polite number of 12 applicants as these numbers are way below last year’s numbers. Catholic High and Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Primary are already oversubscribed, even though its numbers are much lower than last year.

St Anthony’s Primary has only 5 applicants, way below last year’s number of 39. Similarly, Kong Hwa has only 7 applicants compared to last year’s number of 65. These schools might be able to escape oversubscription.

South View Primary has already 34 applicants, and is more than last year’s number of 30.

The school with the highest APP rate is Tao Nan (260%), with 52 applicants. It is followed closely by Nan Chiau Primary at 232% with 102 applicants compared to last year’s 79 applicants!

There is likely going to be quite a bit of change in the numbers tomorrow, as it seems that parents are holding back their applications to look-see the numbers.

Good luck tomorrow!

21/07/23

Phase 2B is coming next on 24-25 July 2023. This is the stage for parents who were involved in school activities as a Parent Volunteer (PV), or some clan or church related to the school, or some community leader that is eligible to bid for a place. In other words, Phase 2B is for those more prepared parents who didn’t mind working a bit just so that their kids have the opportunity to go to their school of desire.

The following table shows the daily balloting results. Of course it is all zeros for Day 1 and 2 as the exercise has not yet started. The column “2022” shows last year’s Phase 2B and we have highlighted those schools (in RED) which had more applicants than places in the school then, ie. schools which likely had to ballot, or there might have been some sort of cut-off.

The APP column will show the current application rate, which is all at 0% now. The TUR, or Take-Up Rate, shows the percentage of places that have been taken up so far in the earlier stages. Of these, Nanyang Primary is already 85% full, in spite of having a cohort of 390 students, which is the highest in Singapore this year.

There’s a strange anomaly this year. According to our data, Ang Mo Kio Primary should have 39 places available for Phase 2B. However, MOE’s website shows only 28 places available. In the more than 10 years we have been tracking the data, MOE has never been wrong, so we do not really understand what went wrong. We hope that someone can clarify or correct the error before the start of the exercise next Monday.