Nearly nine in 10 parents didn't get their first choice of a place at England’s most oversubscribed school.
Exclusive figures show just 11% of those who put The Royal School, Wolverhampton, in Wolverhampton, as their first choice secondary secured a place for this September.
The school had 7.5 first preference applications for each of the 28 places offered - with 211 parents in total picking it as a first choice.
Of those who put the school as their top pick, only 23 were successful.
Including second and third preferences, there were 33.8 applications for each offered place, with five second preferences and no third preferences getting a place.
If you want to know how many applications there were for a place at a school in your area, you can use our interactive to explore how successful people applying were this September.
Woodmansterne School, in Lambeth, was the next hardest secondary to get into, with just 18% of those who put it as a first preference getting a place.
With a total of 129 parents putting it as their top choice, that's the equivalent of 5.4 first preferences for the school for each of its 24 places offered.
Liverpool College, Liverpool, was the hardest primary school to secure a place at.
The school had 3.8 first preferences for each of the 83 places offered, with just 26% of those who put the school as their first choice getting a place.
Overall, the primary school was put down as a preference 582 times, with one second and no third preferences being successful.
Beaumont Primary School, in Croydon, the next hardest primary school to get into, saw 100 first preferences for 30 places offered - 3.3 per place - with just 30% of parents who put it as a first choice being offered a place.
With children returning to school for the new year, applications for places for those set to start primary or secondary school next September are starting to open.
The application deadline for applying for a secondary place is October 31, while it is January 15, 2023, for primary applications.
For this September, 83% of applicants got their first choice of secondary school, up from 81% in 2021. This increase is affected by the return of selective school tests to their original timetable.
Applicants for 2022 places knew whether they were eligible to be considered for selective schools before having to make their school choices, while in the previous year applications had been before the tests, meaning fewer applications were rejected for those who didn’t later reach the standard needed to be eligible for an offer..
The proportion of primary school applicants who received their first choice school remained at 92%.
This was based on a 1% drop in the number of applicants for a place at primary school, to around 576,100. This is likely to be a result of the continued drop in births seen from 2016 onwards.
The data from the Department for Education is based on figures from National Offers Day, so data held directly by individual schools may differ, for example, because late applications were included.
Schools with lowest proportion of successful first preferences
The Royal School, Wolverhampton
Seven Kings School, Redbridge
Woodmansterne School, Lambeth
XP School, Doncaster
Dartford Grammar School, Kent
Coombe Wood School, Croydon
Eden Girls' Leadership Academy, Birmingham
Liverpool College
XP East, Doncaster
Eden Boys' Leadership Academy, Birmingham
